Woman sued ex-MINDEF colleague over sexual assault after police dropped case, High Court overturns her win
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/woman-sue-excolleague-sexual-assault-mindef-6015736
Woman sued ex-MINDEF colleague over sexual assault after police dropped case, High Court overturns her win
The High Court found that the woman had not proven the alleged sexual assault and overturned the lower court order for the man to pay her over S$50,000 in damages for battery.
A view of Singapore's Supreme Court in the foreground on Jul 1, 2019. (File photo: Reuters/Edgar Su)
SINGAPORE: A woman sued her ex-colleague for battery after the police chose not to take further action against him for alleged sexual assault.
While a district court awarded her damages of more than S$50,000 (US$39,000) for reasons including "pain and suffering", the High Court overturned the judgment on Wednesday (Mar 25).
Justice Chua Lee Ming found instead that the woman, Ms Kang May Teng Maria Olivia, had not proven the alleged sexual assault.
He granted the appeal by the man, Mr Chua Jun Yang, setting aside the district court's orders. The woman has to pay costs to the man.
There was no gag order imposed in this civil suit.
THE CASE
Ms Kang and Mr Chua first met in 2015 when they were colleagues at the Defence Policy Office (DPO) of the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF).
By May 2015, they were in a sexually intimate relationship but neither of them regarded the other as a boyfriend or girlfriend.
To Ms Kang, the relationship was "not at a serious enough stage", while Mr Chua said it was more of a "casual" relationship which included sex whenever Ms Kang was agreeable.
Mr Chua wanted to be open about their relationship but Ms Kang wanted to keep it secret, with this issue being a constant source of tension in their relationship, the court stated.
According to Ms Kang, she ended the relationship around December 2015 because she felt they were incompatible, but they remained friends.
Mr Chua claimed they were still physically intimate after the end of 2015. He said he ended his romantic interest in Ms Kang after he found out from a mutual friend that he was merely someone Ms Kang turned to when she was bored, as he was "very accommodating" in this regard.
THE ALLEGED INCIDENT
The suit arose from an incident that occurred in July 2016 when the pair had drinks at a nightclub with some colleagues.
They went to Ms Kang's place on her invitation for sex.
According to Ms Kang, she showered in the bathroom and "sobered up", regretting inviting Mr Chua over for sex.
She said she told him to go home but Mr Chua refused to leave and became emotional, pleading with her to get back into a romantic relationship with him.
Ms Kang claimed that the conversation was heated and that she told Mr Chua to see himself out. She then claimed that Mr Chua removed his clothes, wrapped his arms around her forcefully and restrained her before sexually assaulting her.
Ms Kang claimed that she shouted at him to get out, which he did.
Mr Chua said he could not recall what exactly happened at Ms Kang's house, but denied doing anything against her consent.
He said it would not be the first time they were sexually intimate or had sexual relations after visiting a club or having alcohol.
The judgment contained many messages exchanged between the pair past 4am on Jul 10, 2016 when the alleged assault occurred.
This included texts from Mr Chua stating "stop stringing me along if this is going nowhere" and "let's avoid situations that we both don't want to be in".
He also sent messages to another mutual friend that morning, saying "Everyone needs to stop saying that I like Maria" and that "it's going nowhere" and "I've been trying since God knows when".
Ms Kang replied to Mr Chua later that day, apologising and saying that she had to change her pillowcase as no one was allowed on her bed unless they were clean. She said Mr Chua's hair was dirty because he was at the club.
Mr Chua apologised and said he could wash it for her.
Ms Kang added: "I think we could have enjoyed each other last night and had fun and I wanted to. But not for the wrong reasons."
After Jul 10, 2016, Ms Kang continued to text Mr Chua and met up with him. This included asking him to go shopping with her, asking him to give her a wake-up call, and asking him to "hang out".
In Mr Chua's evidence, he said Ms Kang had invited him to spend the night at her place and greeted him dressed only in undergarments around September 2016.
Ms Kang admitted that she made "sporadic romantic advances" towards Mr Chua after the alleged incident.
In October 2016, Ms Kang exchanged messages with a mutual friend about Mr Chua, saying she had called him with no answer.
When asked if he was her "go-to person in boredom", Ms Kang said: "He's very accommodating when I'm bored" and added that he always talks to her, but she guessed she would find "someone else".
The person responded that "this is evil" and later told Mr Chua what Ms Kang had said.
MR CHUA FINDS NEW RELATIONSHIP
Mr Chua confronted Ms Kang and they argued about it. Around October 2016, Mr Chua entered into a romantic relationship with another colleague whom he eventually married.
Mr Chua was rotated out of the DPO at MINDEF in December 2016 or January 2017.
On Jan 11, 2017, Ms Kang texted Mr Chua, asking: "Since you only have that one spot for someone you would go out of your way for, is she in that spot already" and "does she already mean the world to you".
Ms Kang heard a rumour that Mr Chua was dating someone. She met him in January 2017 and asked him to consider giving their relationship one last shot, but he rejected her.
Mr Chua told Ms Kang in February 2017 that he was "official now" with his new girlfriend and Ms Kang thanked him for letting her know.
ACCUSATIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT
Almost a year later, Ms Kang met her university friends for lunch and told them that she was sexually assaulted by Mr Chua in 2016.
The next day, Ms Kang met her colleague for dinner and told him that Mr Chua had sexually assaulted her but that she felt confused as she did not expect someone like him to have the propensity to commit sexual assault.
In November 2020, Ms Kang wrote letters to her friends telling them in detail about the alleged sexual assault.
She submitted a complaint to the senior management of MINDEF in March 2021. She alleged that, when she was a junior officer, a senior officer had asked her if things would have been different between them if he was not her boss and if he was not married.
She also alleged that she was sexually assaulted by a civilian officer a few years later, and that she was sexually assaulted by another officer in 2020.
Ms Kang asked the senior management of MINDEF to investigate whether there was "a serious problem of sexual harassment and assault" and "impropriety in MINDEF/SAF".
The head of MINDEF's human resource department encouraged Ms Kang to file an official report with the SAF Military Police Command and she did.
The Military Police Command redirected Ms Kang to file a police report as Mr Chua was a civil servant. She did so on Mar 26, 2021, alleging that she was sexually assaulted by her ex-colleague between 2am and 3am on Jul 10, 2016.
Ms Kang resigned from MINDEF at the end of March 2021.
Almost a year later in February 2022, the police informed Ms Kang and Mr Chua that, in consultation with the Attorney-General's Chambers, it had decided not to take further action against Mr Chua.
In July 2022, Ms Kang filed a civil suit claiming damages against Mr Chua for battery in the form of sexual digital penetration.
District Judge Sia Aik Kor found in favour of her and awarded her damages in the sums of S$25,000 for pain and suffering, S$20,000 for punitive damages and S$8,697.39 as special damages.
Mr Chua appealed against this decision.
APPEAL JUDGE'S FINDINGS
Justice Chua found that the district judge had erred in inferring that Mr Chua's apology in a message where he said he had "got out of control again" was about the alleged sexual assault.
Justice Chua found the letters sent by Ms Kang, along with her complaint to MINDEF, her police report and what she told her psychiatrist in 2022 not to be corroborative evidence.
"They have little additional evidential value as they were essentially self-serving and cannot be considered independent evidence," he said.
One of the grounds of the district judge's finding that Ms Kang had proved the tort of battery was her finding that Ms Kang's allegation of the sexual assault was corroborated by the text messages.
Justice Chua disagreed with her finding and said the account of sexual assault was not corroborated.
He found that there was an inconsistency in Ms Kang's account, based on what she said in her affidavit and what she wrote in the letters to her friends.
In the letters and in her oral testimony, she had said she warned Mr Chua not to let his dirty clothes touch her bed, because she saw him walking towards her and anticipated or realised that he was getting onto her bed.
This is "materially different" from what she said in her written affidavit, where she said she was lying on the bed with her back facing Mr Chua, who removed his clothes "in a matter of seconds" and climbed onto the bed.
Justice Chua added that Ms Kang did not confront Mr Chua about the alleged sexual assault.
"There was nothing in (her) conduct towards (him) that suggested that the alleged sexual assault had taken place," said the judge.
Instead, she continued to interact with him.
Ms Kang explained that she continued to be friendly with Mr Chua because she had not understood the full gravity of his actions, blamed herself, could not avoid him and that it was "impossible" to cut ties with him because they worked in the same office and had mutual friends.
While the district judge had found Ms Kang's explanations for her behaviour "not implausible or improbable", Justice Chua disagreed.
He said Ms Kang's explanations "are not credible and should be rejected".
"They sound hollow in the light of the frequency, tone and content of her messages and the nature of her interactions with the appellant," said Justice Chua.
He ordered parties to file submissions on costs within 14 days.
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