On April 25, the National University of Singapore held a town hall where students grilled the management and aired their feedback and concerns following the Monica Baey incident.

After the town hall, both Monica Baey and Nicholas Lim granted exclusive interviews to The Straits Times (ST), where they shared their views on the incident.

For Lim, it was his first time speaking about it publicly, where it was also revealed that he is the only son of a taxi driver, 69, and a housewife, 59.

Here are some of the most notable things they said in the interviews:

Nicholas Lim:

"I wanted to confess it was me... I did something wrong. I wasn't planning to hide from it, to run.

Lim told ST that right after he took the video, he immediately confessed to his girlfriend.

Both of them met Baey, where Lim owned up and apologised.

He added that he did so not because he was afraid of being caught, but rather, because he felt he did something wrong.

Lim said he did not think of himself as a "victim":

"I don't think I am a victim. I'm the perpetrator. I did what I did."

He also acknowledged that being drunk was no excuse:

"My point is not to justify my action. Not to say I was drunk. Drunk or not, it should never have happened."

In response to the entire incident, Lim described how his parents were "worried" about him:

"My parents were very worried and kept asking if I was okay. As a son, the last thing I want is for them to be so worried about me at their age, when I should be the one taking care of them."

He also talked about the public scrutiny he went through because of the power of social media:

"I hope that people realise the power and impact of social media, and use it for the good of the society. That being said, I am in no position to claim what is fair or not, nor right or wrong. I personally hope that nobody else, along with their loved ones, would have to go through the scrutiny and shaming we did. I would not wish that upon my worst enemy."

However, he thinks that he is lucky to have the support and encouragement of people who are willing to let him redeem himself and give him a second chance:

"I was lucky to have the support and encouragement of my family, friends and even strangers who have kept me going... They were angry at what I did. They were also willing to let me redeem myself - had the faith and belief in the person that I am, to be able to learn from my mistake and become a better person."

Lim also said that he "deserves" the condemnation he has received and seeks forgiveness:

"Nobody should ever be put through the kind of trauma that I caused Monica. People have condemned me and my actions - I deserve it. I condemn myself. I seek everyone's forgiveness."

Monica Baey

In Baey's interview with ST, she shared her considerations in choosing to go to the police, as well as going public with her story on Instagram.

She said that going to the police was not only thinking about herself but also "others he might prey on":

"I didn't know what was the right thing for me to do and there was a lot of responsibility on me -- what if he ended up going to jail? But then I decided to make the police report because I realised I was thinking for the perpetrator. And I needed to think about myself, and others he might prey on."

The police handed him a 12-month conditional warning, which Baey said she tried to question. She also sent in her written statement to NUS after that.

However, the university apparently told her that she had sent in her written statement too late, and a punishment had already been decided on -- something that Baey felt showed a lack of transparency on the university's part:

"NUS said, even if I had sent in my statement earlier, it wouldn't have changed the punishment. There was no transparency in how they had arrived at that decision."

Baey also described why the punishment was not adequate for her to feel safe:

"I saw him on my Instagram -- he was walking around like a free man, and the thought of seeing him on campus next semester, the thought that there might be a chance that he could re-offend, and that victim might be me again, crippled me... It's not just about the severity of the punishment. I didn't feel like NUS had meted out the right punishment to keep me and the rest of the student body safe."

And given how unsafe she felt following the incident, she shared that she was prompted to take her story public on Instagram stories after learning about the difference in how sexual voyeurism cases are handled in United States universities.

Baey was told that offenders there would have faced much harsher punishment, and victims would have received more support from the university.

"This was not about revenge."

Instead, she said she took to Instagram to warn others so such an incident will never happen to them:

"I posted on Instagram simply because I wanted the people in my life - my family and more importantly, my friends in NUS - to know what he did so they can be wary and be on the lookout for people like him, so this will never happen to them."

During the town hall, Baey also offered some suggestions for the university to better handle sexual misconduct cases:

"I see a chance to get some real change and to make a difference, and I have to take it."

Top photo via Monica Baey's Instagram, Google streetview.

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