Dear expats, here’s a word of caution when you hit the dance
clubs — steer clear of girls and drinks together.
Lawyers The New Paper on Sunday spoke to say they have
spotted some surprising similarities in a series of outrage of
modesty cases they have handled in the past year.
The story is usually the same. Mr Expat goes clubbing, gets
drunk and accepts the advances of women who snuggle up to them on
the dance floor. Not long after, he is confronted by a group of men
accusing him of molestation (or molest in local lingo). And because
Mr Expat is too drunk to recall details, he chooses to compensate
the woman rather than fight it out in court.
There were 96 cases of outrage of modesty reported in nightspots
island-wide last year and 108 cases the year before.
The seeming trend of club-goers attempting to make a quick buck
out of expats here is beginning to worry lawyers.
“By targeting expats, the chances of getting money from them are
high as they can’t afford to get into trouble with the law,” said
lawyer Chia Boon Teck, a partner at Chia Wong LLP. “Sometimes, they would even be
willing to pay on the spot.”
“Some of them have to travel frequently for work and may not
want their cases to drag or their passports to be taken away. They
do have a great urgency to settle the cases.”
Last year, Mr Chia handled three such cases involving
foreigners, two of whom hold high positions in multinational
companies (MNCs). Police reports were made in all three cases.
Two paid S$5,000 and S$8,000 respectively to the alleged
victims. The third refused to pay and was prepared to go to trial,
where the case was later dropped.
“All three cases are fairly similar,” explained Mr Chia. “They
took place on the dance floor. There was no befriending prior to
the allegations. It was very straightforward — ‘I was on the dance
floor and he molested me’.”
“These women would come forward and say that they can tell the
difference between an accidental touch and molest.”
“If they claim trial and the men go to court and tell the judge
that they were too drunk to remember what happened, the women’s
side of the story would be unchallenged.”
“Unless (the women) are caught telling lies on the witness
stand, the judge would have little choice but to accept their side
of the story.”
Mr Chia added that one can even be caned or jailed in the
worst-case scenario of an aggravated form of molest involving the
breasts and private parts.
“Don’t go alone. Make sure that there is at least someone sober
to be a witness,” advised Mr Chia.
While ruling out the idea of organised scams, lawyer Steven Lam
of JTJB LLP, too, warns men to be wary when they
drink.
One of the cases he handled last year involved a high-profile
foreign businessman who was drinking with his associates when they
were joined by a group of young men and girls. He was later
confronted and accused of a crime he couldn’t remember if he
committed. One of the men then proposed to settle the case for
S$10,000, which the expat did, on top of some alcohol for the whole
group.
The lawyers said they can never be sure about such cases,
however.
Said lawyer Amolat Singh from Amolat and Partners, “Maybe these expats tend to
take greater liberties as they are in a club and they might have
been misinformed or have a misconception about women here as
compared to those back home.
“Maybe the women are really victims.”
For a woman to scream molest, she does not need many witnesses,
said a bouncer who wanted to be known only as Yusz.
“The dance floor is too packed, and even if we play back the
CCTV footage, we may not be able to see much on camera,” said Yusz,
33, who used to head the security unit of a chain of 14 clubs here.
He usually got about five or six cases of molest reported from the
14 clubs every month.
Said Mr Dennis Foo, chief executive officer of St James Holdings, “Today’s women…know their
rights and the law. Even though they may seem very liberal on the
dance floor, that doesn’t mean that men can take advantage of them
easily.”
“If you don’t want to be accused of molest, don’t get drunk,”
agreed Miss Deborah Dayani, a 25-year-old public relations
consultant who parties twice a month. “And keep your hands to
yourself.”
She noted that some local women, who “literally dirty-dance with
the ang mohs (Caucasians)”, are sometimes responsible for
sending out wrong signals too.
While ‘touch and pay’ may seem like the easiest option for most
expats, Mr Paulo Filvino Assis Brito, 27, prefers relying on the
law.
Said the Portugal national who has been working here as an IT
analyst in a French bank for three years: “It’s normal to be
rubbing against one another on the dance floor. If a woman is
sticking so closely to me and I touch her butt, that is
normal.”
“If she wants to make a police report, I would tell her to go
ahead.”
-- Yahoo!