SINGAPORE: A married man who was invited by another man to rape the latter’s unconscious wife failed in his appeal on Thursday (Feb 27) against his conviction and sentence of 13 years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane.
The 46-year-old finance executive was one of seven men implicated in a case where husbands with wife-sharing fantasies had their own partners drugged and then raped by others.
The man, O, was the only one out of the seven who claimed trial instead of pleading guilty.
He was charged with conspiring with another man, J, to rape J’s wife at J’s flat between 2010 and 2011.
O denied raping J’s wife.
During O’s trial in 2023, J said he invited O over to rape his wife in March 2011 on their wedding anniversary after spiking her wine with sleeping pills.
J was testifying as a prosecution witness during the trial. He had earlier been sentenced to 29 years in jail and 24 strokes of the cane.
J said that when he saw O having sex with his unconscious and blindfolded wife, he felt anger, a thrill and then guilt.
Years later, in chat messages between the two men, J made references to O having sex with his wife on his wedding anniversary.
O said he had gone to J’s flat in 2010, and not in 2011.
He said he believed J had asked him over to confront him for having an affair with J’s wife.
J’s wife and O had consensual sex at a hotel in September 2010 after J asked O to date her and gave him her contact details.
When he went to J’s flat, O claimed he “freaked out” in the bedroom, and when he was asked by J whether he wanted to touch the victim, he pretended to touch himself sexually in an attempt to get out of the situation.
At his appeal hearing on Feb 27, O’s lawyer, Chenthil Kumarasingam, focused on inconsistencies relating to when the incident took place.
He argued that if the incident did not take place in 2011 as alleged by J, the subsequent messages between J and O amounted to “fantasy talk” and did not refer to an actual event that took place.
Kumarasingam also argued that J had a motive to frame his client.
He said that while J was incarcerated, his wife wrote him a letter admitting that she had sex with O.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, saying that the conviction was sound.
The three-judge court, led by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, said the focus on the dates was misplaced.
Chief Justice Menon added that the court took a “dim view” of O’s version of events.
He said the court will issue written grounds at a later date.
The court granted O’s request to defer his sentence. The man, who has been on bail of $120,000, was ordered to surrender himself on March 27.
Kumarasingam said his client needed time to make arrangements for his children’s transport and education matters, for his financial assets including selling his car, and for his father’s medical treatment.
The four other men who raped J’s wife have been sentenced to between 13½ and 22 years in prison. Three of them were each sentenced to 20 strokes of the cane.
One of the men also invited a seventh man to rape his wife, but the attempt was unsuccessful. The seventh man was jailed for three years. - The Straits Times/ANN
