Warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual assault and self harm. Reader discretion is advised.

A 52-year-old man was arrested for sexually assaulting a then 13-year-old girl in his wife's pet shop on Jun. 22, 2020.

Toh Lam Seng denied the allegations and was subsequently convicted after trial of one count of molesting a girl under 14 years old.

The district judge explained her decision in a judgment made publicly available on Dec. 14, 2023.

Wanted to treat her pet hamster

According to the victim's testimony and statements, she said she had been a frequent visitor of the pet shop for two years.

She'd started dropping by after school to play with the hamsters there and eventually bought one for herself in 2020.

On the day of the incident, the victim visited the shop to purchase some powder to treat her hamster’s skin condition.

Toh told her to bring her hamster down to the shop.

After being shown how to use a powder on her pet hamster, she decided not to buy the product after consulting her mother on the phone.

"Do you want to see my hamster?"

While leaving, Toh stopped the victim and asked: "Do you want to see my hamster or not?"

After she agreed, Toh returned with a baby hamster and handed it to her.

She played with both hamsters, with each hand holding a hamster while on a small stool in the corner of the store.

It was then that Toh made his move.

The victim recounted in court how he molested her in the chest and private parts.

Victim didn't know what to do

She described herself as “frozen” at the material time and was at a loss for what she could have done.

She tried to escape by telling him she needed to go home and managed to push back the stool before leaving with her hamster.

After leaving the pet shop, the victim testified that she was still in shock over the incident and was pacing around nearby to decide what to do.

Didn't want to tell her mother

She contacted two friends and told them what Toh had done to her. She said she didn't want to tell her mother about it because she was ashamed about what happened.

She felt that her mother thought she was "being stupid in not doing anything and failing to heed her advice to be careful around [Toh] and stop visiting the pet shop".

After speaking with her two friends, her handphone battery died, which caused her to panic.

She bumped into two other classmates, who advised her to go to school for help if she didn't want to go home.

The victim eventually went to school, crying on the way there, and told a teacher she was molested.

Finally told police the full extent of the crime

What the victim told her friends, the teacher, and eventually the police, her mother, and a psychiatrist became a contentious issue in the trial.

The victim told her friends that Toh assaulted her private parts with his fingers but only told all the adults he "touched a little bit of the outside of [her] private part".

She only revealed the details to the police one week before the trial.

She said she felt too embarrassed to tell the people she didn't know personally about it and was ashamed to face her mother.

She finally told her mother when she was worried that others would think that Toh "didn't do that much" to her.

Despite her mother's persuading her to "drop the case", the victim said she could not do so as she felt the need to be heard and understood on what had happened to her.

Girl devastated

A child and adolescent psychiatrist testified in court that in some cases, the victims did not reveal all the details at once but might reveal parts at a later stage due to fear of the consequences of revealing everything in the beginning.

She added that the victims might be embarrassed to talk about matters involving a sexual nature.

While the psychiatrist did not state a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in her report, she said the victim exhibited symptoms of PTSD.

She said the victim displayed feelings of sadness, fear, and anger and was afraid to walk past the pet shop or to school after the incident.

The victim also had recurrent thoughts, nightmares, and flashbacks of the incident and became easily startled.

Her mother also observed that the victim had grown quieter and kept to herself after the incident.

She also said the victim had suicidal ideation, even right before the trial.

Man was helping to shoo birds from girl: Defence

In the judgment, the judge described the defence's case as one of "bare denial".

The defence claimed the victim had shouted very loudly when one of the pet shop's "free-roaming" birds flew near her, so he swept the bird away.

They further cast aspersions on the victim's character, alleging that she stole pet food from the store.

The judge said, "It was an unsettling bid by [Toh] to portray the victim in less than positive light".

"Deception and prevarication": Judge on man's testimony

The judge noted that Toh's testimony was "unreliable", "fraught with material inconsistencies", and "marked with deception and prevarication".

For example, he claimed he would not let the victim play with the hamster when a customer was in the shop, yet he also said he had passed the hamster to the victim before serving another customer.

The judge also found the Toh lying and said it was evidence of his guilt.

Toh claimed that a claw machine repairman was outside of the shop during the offences, and he wouldn't be able to molest the girl as the repairman would hear her screams.

However, the repairman testified that he had never seen the victim before and couldn't have been at the shop during the day as he usually did the work at midnight to avoid disrupting business.

On the other hand, the judge believed the victim's words as even though she initially omitted certain details, the testimony was consistent and corroborative with other evidence.

"Viewed in its entirety, I was fortified in finding that the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt the case against [Toh] on the present charge," the judge concluded.

The judgment did not disclose the next hearing date for deciding Toh's sentence.

Anyone convicted of molesting any person below 14 years of age can be handed a prison term of up to 5 years, a fine, caning, or any combination of such punishments.

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