SINGAPORE – Former Singapore Idol judge and music producer Ken Lim appealed to the High Court on Sept 11 against his conviction and 13-month jail sentence for molesting a 25-year-old woman.
He was convicted by a district court in September 2025 of molesting the woman on Nov 23, 2021, at the office of Hype Records, his music production and artiste management company.
His lawyer, Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng, argued that it was “totally unsafe for the conviction to hold”, given the “multitude of contradictions” in the woman’s testimony.
He asserted that her testimony was at odds with what she told her then boyfriend and two close friends, and that it was “impossible” for her to be groped in the manner she described.
The senior counsel also took issue with a “missing” segment of CCTV footage of Lim and the woman leaving the office, which he said would have shown that she was behaving normally.
Another of Lim’s lawyers, Samuel Navindran, said the 13-month jail term imposed by the district court was excessive, and that a sentence of about eight months’ jail would be in line with past cases.
Deputy Public Prosecutor James Chew, on the other hand, contended that the woman was completely consistent on the material aspects of what happened at the office and how Lim had molested her.
He argued that the accounts of the boyfriend and two friends were generally consistent with the complainant’s testimony in terms of how she was molested and her demeanour when she confided in them.
The prosecutor said: “The court is not looking for identical accounts. That’s simply not realistic.”
Chew said the defence’s claim of impossibility was “a complete non-starter”.
The CCTV footage issue was inconsequential and a red herring, as the woman’s account that she pretended as if nothing had happened could already be seen in the footage from other CCTV cameras, he said.
He added that the sentence of 12 months’ jail, with an additional month in lieu of caning, was not manifestly excessive.
Justice Hoo Sheau Peng will give her decision at a later date.
The complainant, who was talent-spotted by Hype Records, met Lim at the office on three occasions between Nov 16, 2021, and Nov 23, 2021. The molestation occurred at the third meeting.
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