SINGAPORE – A man who got acquainted with a woman through work met her for dinner, drove her home after she became drunk, and raped her on her bed.
On March 20, Jasper Lee Loong Kuan, now 37, was sentenced to 14½ years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane for a charge of rape.
Lee, who is the managing director of his company, denied raping the woman. He was found guilty on Feb 10 following a trial.
The prosecution had argued that the woman lacked the capacity to consent to sex at the time due to alcohol intoxication, and even if she had the capacity to consent to sex, she did not in fact give consent.
Lee, who was represented by Mr Gregory Fong, claimed that they had engaged in consensual sex, or that he mistakenly believed that the woman had consented to sex.
His claims were rejected by High Court judge Mavis Chionh, who found that the victim was in a state of near-unconsciousness at the time and clearly lacked the capacity to consent to sex.
In convicting Lee on Feb 10, Justice Chionh found the woman to be an honest witness whose account of events was internally consistent and externally consistent with corroborative evidence.
The evidence included medical evidence and body-worn camera footage of first responders, which showed the victim in a state of extreme emotional distress as she told police officers that she had been raped.
In contrast, the judge found Lee to be “a disingenuous and shifty witness prone to invention”, whose evidence failed to raise a reasonable doubt on the prosecution’s case.
For example, Lee tried to avoid answering questions about whether the woman was able to walk in a stable manner until he was confronted with CCTV footage which showed her stumbling at the void deck.
Lee was a client of the company where the victim was a customer service officer.
