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A 47-year-old Singaporean man was convicted of breaking into a 39-year-old woman's house and raping her after he met her at a KTV lounge in Bugis.

The man, Yap Pow Foo, previously pleaded not guilty and claimed trial to the rape and housebreaking charges.

However, the High Court found him guilty of both charges.

In his judgment published on Jan. 16, 2023, Justice Tan Siong Thye explained the grounds of his decision.

What happened

The incident happened in January 2017. The victim is a Chinese national.

Yap, who was 42 at the time, met her for the first time at the KTV lounge on the night of Jan. 29, 2017.

The victim was celebrating Chinese New Year with her friends when Yap joined them at around midnight.

Victim was heavily intoxicated

Yap and the victim had chatted for a short while at the KTV lounge before she collapsed from heavy intoxication.

Yap then offered to drive the victim and her group of friends to their respective homes.

They went to the victim's apartment first.

As the victim was completely intoxicated and unconscious, her friends had to carry her to her house.

Yap initially remained in the car to clean up the victim's vomit, but he later went up and helped put the victim on the bed.

When they were leaving the house, one of the victim's friends locked the main door and slipped the key underneath the door.

Returned to her apartment and entered on his own

After sending the rest of the victim's friends back home, Yap returned to her apartment.

Prior to that, he had called the her phone numerous times and there was no response from her.

When he reached her apartment, Yap used a satay stick he found near some rubbish bins to retrieve the key that was slipped under the door earlier.

He then entered the house and raped the victim in her bedroom.

After Yap left, the victim called the police to lodge a report. When they did not arrive at her house immediately, she made another six calls.

Yap was subsequently arrested.

It was later found that Yap offered to pay the victim monetary compensation after he raped her.

Prosecution's case

During the trial, the prosecution established that Yap had entered the victim's house without her permission, and that the purpose of the unlawful entry was to rape her.

The prosecution argued that Yap was aware that the victim was heavily intoxicated and was unable to give her consent when he raped her.

To support their arguments, the prosecution relied on reports from two Institute of Mental Health (IMH) psychiatrists.

In May and July 2019, the victim was assessed by an IMH psychiatrist who concluded that she was in a state of "high alcohol intoxication" when she was raped.

The psychiatrist explained that the victim would not have had sufficient cognitive abilities or mental capacity to consent or reject Yap's request for sexual intercourse.

Another IMH psychiatrist assessed Yap on three separate occasions in September and October 2020.

He concluded that Yap was not suffering from any psychiatric disorder at the time of his offences.

However, the psychiatrist found that Yap had a "past history of fetishistic sexual interest" and that his increasingly severe sexual conducts warranted future psychiatric monitoring as they "demonstrated an augmented degree of risk of serious sexual offending".

Defence's case

During the trial, Yap claimed that he did not enter the victim's house without her permission.

He said he knocked on the door and rang the doorbell, and that the victim invited him into the house.

Yap also testified that the sexual intercourse with the victim was consensual and that he "did not fully penetrate" her.

Explaining the discrepancies between his testimony and his statement to the police, Yap claimed that he had a "phobia" of the police.

He also said police stations "held [him] back from telling the truth".

The defence submitted that the victim was not so intoxicated that she was unable to give consent.

It added that she appeared to be "awake and conscious, although slightly intoxicated".

The defence also suggested that the victim had lied about the rape allegations against Yap as she had two ulterior motives, one of which was to obtain monetary compensation from him.

Judge's decision

Justice Tan wrote in his judgement that he was "satisfied" that the prosecution had established the elements of both the rape charge and the housebreaking charge.

He also found the victim to be "an honest and forthcoming witness" whose evidence was consistent.

On the other hand, Tan found that Yap's account was "inconsistent internally and externally".

"He also embellished his narrative. Thus, he is not truthful, and his testimony is unreliable."

Tan added that Yap's alleged phobia of the police "is nothing but a mere excuse to distance himself from the incriminating evidence that he had voluntarily given to the police".

Tan concluded that the victim's evidence, together with the evidence presented before the Court, constitute "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" that Yap was a "sexual predator who sought to take advantage of and exploited the victim’s vulnerability".

Tan's full written judgement can be found here.

Top image by Andrew Koay (for illustrative purposes only).