Court gives detailed reasons for acquitting man and lover in ritual shower sex case; prosecution to appeal

“More importantly, the complainant’s testimony did not merely consist of a failure to recall when the massages at the flat began; she gave evidence that directly contradicted her account in the conditioned statement that the massages at the flat commenced sometime in 2011,” said Justice Pang.

The complainant had testified that the massages began only after her grandmother died. This was in January 2012.

Justice Pang therefore acquitted the masseur of the massage sexual assault charges that involved dates between March 2012 and March 2014, based on the date the massage bed was delivered.

As for the four remaining massage assault offences, the judge gave the masseur the “benefit of doubt” about what he meant in his statements.

The prosecution had pointed to the statements to say he had admitted to sexually assaulting the complainant. However, the masseur said there was miscommunication in statement-taking, as the officer had questioned him in Mandarin and he gave his answers in Mandarin.

He said he had not told her that he inserted his finger, but that he had used his finger to clean away discharge and clotted blood around the complainant’s private parts. He also said he had removed dried-up tissue paper stuck to her private parts on one occasion.

The judge said that if the investigation officer had used the same Mandarin expressions the masseur used in reading his statement back to him, there would be no way for the man to know that the statement written in English meant something slightly different.

On top of this, the masseur had explained “from the very beginning” that the complainant had complained about vaginal discharge, and the masseur got permission from her mother to “dig” it out with his fingers.

The complainant had testified that she was lying down and facing the ceiling when the penetration occurred, which the judge said meant that she did not visually observe it.

She said it was similar to the feeling of “digging”, which the judge said was consistent with the man’s testimony that he was using his finger to “dig out dirty substances”.

He agreed that the masseur’s attempt to explain the purpose of touching the complainant instead of giving a complete denial tended towards bolstering the credibility of his explanation.

Justice Pang said there were reasonable doubts as to whether any penetration occurred that was sexual in nature.

According to the first six charges, the alleged sexual penetration occurred over five-and-a-half years from 2012 to 2017. By 2017, the complainant was 16 and had been exposed to sex education, said the judge.

She would have been able to recognise whether any touching or penetration was of a sexual nature, he said, adding that the complainant had admitted that she had always been free to stop the massage sessions at any time.

“In my view, the fact that no complaint concerning sexual assault was made by the complainant until November 2017 lent credence to the defence’s case that there was no digital penetration or that any penetration that might have occurred was not sexual in nature,” said Justice Pang.

He added that the complainant had a new boyfriend in mid-2017 that her mother did not approve of. On one occasion, the complainant fought with her mother because the latter discovered love bites on her, said the judge.

The complainant then admitted to her brother that she decided to have sex with her boyfriend “as an act of defiance”. She testified that she started having sex with her boyfriend in August 2017.

At some point, the mother suspected that the complainant’s defiant behaviour could be the result of her boyfriend casting black magic on her. This led her to ask for the masseur’s help to conduct ritual showers to counter the suspected black magic.

The defence argued that the police report the complainant eventually made together with her boyfriend could be motivated by the desire to stop the interference in their relationship.

The defence also said it was telling that both the complainant’s father and brother had their own doubts about the allegations.

In light of this, Justice Pang found it was unsafe to convict the masseur on the remaining massage sexual assault charges.

THE RITUAL SHOWER CHARGES

He also acquitted the masseur of sexual assault charges committed during ritual showers done to wash away bad luck in 2017.

The masseur said he could not have sexually assaulted the complainant for four reasons: he was a religious Buddhist and “would not possibly have done such a thing while praying to the gods”; the bathroom was cramped; the bathroom was an inconvenient location compared with the massage bed; and the mother was nearby and would have noticed it.

Justice Pang also found reasonable doubts over these offences. He accepted the explanation about the cramped conditions of the bathroom, and asked why the man would commit the offence in such inconvenient and cramped conditions when he could do it on the massage bed.

He found the lack of objection or complaint by the complainant during the ritual showers to be inconsistent with her own testimony that she would not have agreed to the masseur inserting his finger if it was not for treatment.

Justice Pang also noted that the complainant’s account of the number of ritual showers she went through was inconsistent.

She suggested in her statement that there were five, but said there were only three during cross-examination. Justice Pang said this demonstrated the unreliability of her recollection, which cast doubt on whether her evidence could be described as unusually convincing.

He similarly found her evidence not unusually convincing for the molestation charges. She said one incident occurred while she was in primary school, but later changed her evidence to say she was in secondary school.

She also was unable to see the masseur doing the act and said she knew what he had done because of the “feeling”, which was “new” to her.

THE “JUAGEN” CHARGES

Justice Pang also acquitted the man of the “juagen” offences, when the complainant was 14 and 15.

“Juagen” is a traditional Chinese massage technique used on male genitalia.

It was undisputed that the masseur taught the complainant how to massage his private parts.

Justice Pang said what was disputed was when these incidents took place and the intention behind the lessons.

The prosecution argued that the juagen sessions were for a sexual rather than educational purpose, evident from the masseur’s physical reactions.

The judge noted that the charges were framed under the Children and Young Persons Act (CYPA), where a child is below 14 and a young person is between 14 to 15.

The masseur argued that the incidents took place after the complainant turned 16, so she was not a young person within the ambit of the CYPA.

Justice Pang found that there was reasonable doubt as to whether the “juagen” incidents took place before the complainant turned 16.

He said he was not persuaded by the prosecution’s reliance on investigative statements by the masseur and the mother.

The masseur told a police officer that the mother had asked him to teach her the techniques of massaging male private parts.

He said he first taught her using drawings and objects and asked her to watch videos, but the woman “insisted” on trying the techniques on him, and he agreed.

He said the complainant witnessed what happened, was curious about it and touched his private parts.

Justice Pang found that the complainant was not unusually convincing in her testimony about the juagen offences.

She initially said the sessions took place at least once in 2015, once in 2016 and once in 2017, but this account did not withstand cross-examination.

She later said she did not know when the first session was and agreed that her mother had taken two or three juagen lessons together with her in 2017.

She also could not remember when the masseur first asked her to perform a sex act on him.

“Given the numerous shifts in the complainant’s evidence, I find that her testimony was not ‘unusually convincing’,” said Justice Pang.

THE PORNOGRAPHY CHARGES

The masseur was accused of showing the complainant pornographic videos on his phone, which he would watch with her and her mother.

However, he denied doing so, claiming that it was the complainant herself who accessed the videos on his phone. He relied on the mother’s testimony, who said she did not know the content of the videos he showed her daughter.

The complainant testified that the masseur had shown her porn when she was in secondary school.

She later opted out of sexual education classes because she found them “boring”, given that they had talked about the same thing as the pornographic videos.

She also accepted during cross-examination that there were times she saw such videos while scrolling through the masseur’s gallery, and that the latter either took his phone away or shut it off.

“Given the conflict of evidence between the complainant and the first accused, I assessed that there is no clear basis for me to prefer the complainant’s evidence over the first accused’s, especially having regard to the view I had taken of the credibility and reliability (of the) complainant’s evidence in relation to the other charges,” said Justice Pang.

The complainant’s mother had said in her police statement that the masseur had shown her daughter a pornographic film once or twice to explain that if a guy did a certain act to her, it was not good and she could “get infected by toxins”.

She said he treated her like his daughter and was trying to educate her. However, at trial, she clarified what she meant here and said she did not see what the man showed her daughter and could not say whether it was pornographic.

The judge thus acquitted the man of the pornography charge.

As he had acquitted the man of the sexual abuse charges, he similarly acquitted the woman of conspiring with him to commit them.

The mother faced one other charge of showing pornography to her own daughter in 2011, when the girl was in Primary 4.

The prosecution said the complainant’s evidence should be preferred over her mother’s, as the latter was shifting and inconsistent.

The mother did not deny showing pornographic videos to her daughter at some stage, but said it happened only when her daughter was in Secondary 2 and for educational purposes.

The defence said in their case that the woman had shown her daughter a scene from a pornographic film when the girl was in Primary 5, as the girl had gone for a sexual education class in school and was curious about what she had been taught.

However, at trial, she said she had shown her daughter porn when she was in Secondary 2 because the girl did not want to attend sex-ed in school and her teacher had told the mother to teach her at home.

The complainant said her mother had shown her sexual videos after Primary 4, after she had her first period. However, she later said her period started in Primary 4 or 5, which was in 2011 or 2012.

The judge said it could not be concluded that the girl’s first period actually occurred in 2011 as stated in the charge, and not 2012.

Therefore, he found that the charge was not made out and acquitted the mother.

The masseur was represented by Mr Charles Ng and Edwin Lee from Eldan Law, while Ms Renee Oei and Ms Stephanie Looi from Constellation Law represented the woman.

The prosecution’s appeal will be heard at a later date.