Jun 3 2025, 09:57 AM, updated 7 months ago
SINGAPORE - About nine years after she was sexually assaulted by her then colleague from the Ministry of Defence (Mindef), a woman won a suit against her assailant for battery.
The woman had sought legal advice and pursued the civil case after the police decided not to take further action against the man, whom she had dated.
She had filed a police report in 2021 over the 2016 incident.
According to a judgment dated May 23, the woman was awarded $45,000 in general damages, plus interest.
This consisted of $25,000 in compensation for pain and suffering and $20,000 for punitive damages.
She was also awarded $8,697.39 in special damages plus interest, an amount she claimed for medical and related expenses.
The Straits Times is not naming the claimant and defendant to protect the identity of the woman.
According to the claimant, she and her former colleague began a romantic relationship in June 2015, and they were sexually intimate.
While the man wished they could be open about their relationship, the woman asked to keep it secret as she had concerns, including about how their colleagues would perceive them.
The woman said she ended the relationship in December 2015.
While they agreed to remain friends, they still had feelings for each other and continued to hang out together.
According to the woman, the pair and other colleagues went to a club on July 10, 2016. The pair later shared a taxi to return to their homes as they were headed in the same direction.
On the ride home, they became physically intimate, and the woman invited the man over to her place for sex.
When they were in her home, the woman went to shower. After sobering up, she realised she did not want to revisit the past romantic relationship with the man, or give him hope that they were going to get back together.
“She was overwhelmed with regret for having invited him over and for telling him that they would engage in sex,” the judgment said.
After she told the man he should go home, he was taken aback and pleaded with her to get back into a relationship with him.
During a heated conversation, the man was extremely persistent in trying to find out why she did not want to get back together with him, the woman said.
She eventually stopped engaging in the conversation, firmly instructed the man to leave, and went to her bed.
Instead of leaving, the man continued to plead with her. He also removed his shirt and pants and climbed into her bed.
The woman said that before she could react, the man forcefully wrapped his arms around her from behind and restrained her physically.
As she struggled to push his arms away, the man reached into her shorts and sexually assaulted her, she said.
In a state of immense shock and outrage, she said, she pushed his hand away and demanded that he leave immediately, and he did so.
After the incident, she sent text messages to the man to apologise.
In her evidence subsequently, she said she had done so instinctively and tried to converse with the man to de-escalate any tension and return the relationship between them to normalcy.
She said it did not occur to her then that she had been sexually assaulted, and she had not grasped the full gravity of the man’s actions. She said she felt responsible at the time for hurting his feelings, and blamed herself for provoking him into taking out his anger on her.
She said she sought to maintain their friendship after the incident, and there were subsequent occasions when she had revisited their romantic relationship.
She said she believed that she was acting under the warped belief that if the man genuinely loved her and if they entered into a romantic relationship again, then the incident in July 2016 would not matter in the grand scheme of things.
Some time in mid-2017, she was exposed to the rise of the “Me Too” movement.
After reading the stories of various survivors of sexual violence, she realised that she had been sexually assaulted.
She said she had come to understand that the prior romantic relationship between her and the defendant did not negate the fact that she did not give her consent.
She eventually told some of her university friends and a colleague what happened.
On March 2, 2021, the woman wrote an e-mail to the senior management of Mindef, in which she highlighted a sexual assault by a civilian officer.
Mindef strongly encouraged her to file a police report, and she did so. She left Mindef in April 2021.
On Feb 28, 2022, the woman was told that the police had decided not to take further action against the man.
After seeking legal advice, she commenced the civil suit against him in July 2022.
In his defence, the man described their on-and-off romantic relationship as “complicated”, and said he ended his romantic interest around October 2016 after he realised that he was merely someone the woman would turn to whenever she was bored.
He added that he could not recall the exact events that transpired on the day of the incident.
Noting that while the man’s inability to recollect is “superficially plausible”, given that the incident had occurred some years ago, District Judge Sia Aik Kor said she ultimately found this to be lacking in credibility.
She said the woman’s recollection of the events was cogent and convincing, and was corroborated by text messages exchanged between the pair.
The judge also said there was a strong thread of consistency that ran through the woman’s account of the incident with her friends and colleague, which was congruent with her testimony in court.
Her delay in bringing the matter to light had been adequately explained and did not detract from her credibility, the judge added.
The woman explained that she had struggled for the longest time to even begin to describe what had happened to her, as it was extremely embarrassing and shameful to say it out loud.
She also said she felt trapped, as she and the man still shared the same social circles, and she feared that making a report would harm him or cause a rift among their friends.
As for the police’s decision to take no further action, the judge said no evidence was offered as to the reasons behind this decision and that it could not be used to determine if the woman’s claims were true.
“It would be speculative for the court to infer from such a decision that the claimant’s allegations are untrue or fabricated,” she added.
District Judge Sia, however, did not grant the woman all her claims, including one for loss of earnings.
She said the woman failed to prove on a balance of probabilities that her loss of earnings during a period of unemployment after leaving Mindef was caused by the defendant’s act of battery.
Mindef said in a statement that it “had promptly commenced an investigation when the complainant formally surfaced the allegations”.
“From our investigation, we decided to refer the matter to the police due to the serious nature of some of the allegations. The complainant subsequently lodged a police report. Mindef extended support to the complainant during the period of the police investigations,” it said, adding that it is committed to creating a work environment that is respectful and safe for all its personnel.
“Mindef has zero tolerance for workplace harassment and sexual misconduct. All allegations of harassment and sexual misconduct at the workplace will be investigated.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/cour...y-assaulted-her
Woman win civil suit against colleague for sexual, assault
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