S'pore Court of Appeal reserves judgement for former Wah!Banana actor's jail sentence over rape conviction

The Court of Appeal will be reserving its judgement after a 30-year-old former Wah!Banana actor appealed against his jail sentence for raping a woman.

The Straits Times reported the Court of Appeal as saying that more time was required to look over the evidence.

An earlier report mentioned that Lev Panfilov, then 29, was sentenced to 11 years and six months in jail, as well as 12 strokes of the cane on May 19, 2025.

He had been convicted of raping, sexually assaulting and molesting a woman he met on Tinder, and committed the offences in his flat on Jan. 12, 2021.

Defence urged acquittal

In that regard, the defence urged the Court of Appeal to acquit the Russian national and Singapore permanent resident Panfilov of all four charges involving rape, sexual assault, and molestation.

According to a Facebook post by Eugene Thuraisingam, Panfilov has been serving an 11-and-a-half-year sentence, with 12 strokes of the cane yet to be carried out.

CNA reported that the defence argued that the alleged victim's account had material inconsistencies and that evidence she presented had allegedly been fabricated.

Johannes Hadi, who argued the case alongside Eugene Thuraisingam, had pointed to an inconsistency in the woman's account of whether she screamed during the assault.

According to CNA, since the case had no witnesses, the key issue was whether the sexual encounter was consensual, as maintained by Panfilov, or not, as the woman alleged.

The complainant's evidence had to be "unusually convincing" to convict in such a situation.

It was a legal standard that Justice Pang Khang Chau had previously found satisfied, which resulted in his conviction of Panfilov.

However, CNA reported that Panfilov's latest set of lawyers argued on Aug. 13 that the standard had not been met.

Screaming

According to the Facebook post, Hadi noted an inconsistency in the woman's account of whether she screamed during the assault.

She had told a doctor, in verbatim contemporaneous notes, that she screamed during the assault.

The woman added that Panfilov had then choked her with his hands and pressed a pillow on her head to stop her screaming.

But she testified at trial that she had wanted to scream but did not, and a flatmate who was home that night said he heard no commotion.

ST reported that the court had accepted that during the incident, there had been at least one other person, Panfilov's flatmate, in the house.

"On this point, there is a discrepancy between what she said to the doctor and what she said in court," the judges said.

"If the contention is that she did scream, it then runs into a problem with the fact that there were at least one or two witnesses in the flat at the time.”

Whether the woman had told the doctor if she screamed came into play as when the case went to trial, the woman said she meant she had wanted to scream, ST reported.

The doctor had also reportedly made a mistake and misunderstood her, resulting in her accounts being inconsistent, the woman said.

The court said: “If she had screamed, others would have presumably heard it. There is certainly a doubt of whether the evidence changed because of the significance of surrounding evidence.”

To that, ST reported the prosecution as saying they accepted that the doctor's notes were, in all likelihood, accurate.

"We can’t go beyond the evidence. Our submission is simply the victim may have misspoke. Our position was that there was a misunderstanding."

Bloodied underwear

According to CNA, Hadi also argued that woman had initially told police there was no evidence of rape, before later producing a pair of bloodied underwear retrieved from a laundry hamper.

The defence argued the blood was consistent with her period, which began two days after the alleged assault, rather than an injury,

It was a distinction the Health Sciences Authority said could possibily have been tested by external parties, but was not, the Facebook post stated.

Hadi also said the woman cried at home after the rape upon seeing blood in her underwear while taking it off.

Though she explored making a police report a few days later, she decided not to in fear of not being believed since there was no evidence of the assault, she told the officer.

"This is very peculiar, for someone to go to the police and say they are worried they wouldn’t be believed as there was no evidence... knowing there was a pair of bloodied panties at home," the post stated Hadi as saying.

Memo

ST reported Hadi as arguing the woman visited a doctor around four days after the assault to ask for a memo to state she had suffered vaginal injuries and had been raped.

When the doctor rejected her request, given she would first have to make a police report, the woman asked the doctor to cancel any records of her visit.

"This is not a minor detail," said Hadi.

"Asking for a memo was the predominant reason for her visit to the doctor. The doctor's evidence was that when she declined to provide the memo, (the woman) did not even accept any medication for her pain."

Text messages

Chief Justice Menon said that he was troubled by the pair's exchange of text messages following the incident, as well as the Panfilov appearing to be content for the woman to leave.

"I mean, if what had just happened was a violent rape, one would've thought there'd be concerns, if the person who had apparently tried twice to flee, whether that person would go to the police," he added.

CNA reported the woman's evidence as Panfilov texting her after she left his flat, where he asked how everything was and whether she had arrived home safely.

To that, she responded positively.

CCTV footage

The judges also raised the CCTV footage of the pair in the lift lobby of Panfilov's apartment, ST reported.

She had been seen almost without a hair out of place, they said.

This was in the context of the woman saying in her statement that she was suffering from a 10-out-of-10 pain from the assault and that Panfilov had manhandled her.

CNA reported that the defence, did not push that point any further based on concerns of stereotyping how victims of sexual assault react.

However, the Chief Justice intervened.

Lawyers are advised not to make arguments that amount to victim-blaming or questioning why victims may react a certain way, given that trauma responses can vary widely. But Chief Justice Menon said this did not apply in this case.

Instead, analysing the CCTV footage was a matter of considering the physical evidence, which was relevant to the case.

The woman had said her hair was "manhandled" during the assault, but this did not appear to be the case in the footage, CNA reported.

ST reported the court as saying: "My point is if you’ve been through that and you’re not disheveled, one would expect an explanation. But if there's no explanation, then it is inconsistent with the account of what had happened."

The prosecution responded that the woman had explained her hair was not easily messed up due to its nature and texture.

She added being able to walk without difficulty after the assault and had tried to manage her pain internally.