by Elena Chong
ONG Mingwee was sentenced to seven years' jail and eight strokes
of the cane on Tuesday for raping a 22-year-old girl he met hours
earlier at a nightspot. But the 29-year-old self-employed man who
runs a family-owned provision shop at Block 203 Toa Payoh North is
appealing.
He was found guilty, after a nine-day trial, of raping the woman
at a unit above the shop in the early hours of Feb 12, 2009.
Ong was introduced to the woman at Zouk disco at Jiak Kim Street
when he went there with his brother. He claimed that the woman
seduced him when they were dancing at the dance floor. He further
testified in his defence that while taking her home in a cab at
about 4am, they kissed, and she agreed to his suggestion to head
for his place.
But the prosecution's case was that the victim, while still in
her semi-conscious drunken stupor state, made frantic phone calls
to her mother and friend to take her home when she found herself in
a place she did not know. She had cried and said repeatedly that
she wanted to go home but Ong would not let her leave unless she
had sex with him.
The main issue was whether sex was consensual.
District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim rejected his defence that sex was
consensual. She found that the prosecution had made out a case
beyond reasonable doubt.