BF of alleged rape victim testifies how he tracked her phone and found her in man's bed

Selina Lum
The Straits Times
Apr 6, 2017

The boyfriend of a woman who was allegedly raped after she became intoxicated took the stand on Thursday (April 6) to testify how he tracked her to a house in Hume Heights in the early hours of July 24, 2014, after she went silent on her mobile phone.

He was testifying on Day 4 of the trial of Ong Soon Heng, 40, who goes by name Osh, for one charge each of abduction and rape.

The 28-year-old told the court that in their three-year relationship, his girlfriend has never been uncontactable by phone, even when they had quarrelled.

He knew that his girlfriend, then an intern at a food and beverage company, was at Zouk with her colleagues.

In fact, he had encouraged her to attend the party to bid farewell to a co-worker who was returning to her home country.

At about 3.15am, she stopped replying to his WhatsApp messages.

He assumed she was with her friends.

But two hours later, when she did not pick up his calls even after he rang her seven times, he became worried.

Close to 6am, he hit upon the idea of searching for her using the Find My iPhone app by logging into her Apple account as they share a common password.

The GPS showed that her phone was at Hume Heights.

He got into his van and went to a carpark near five colonial black and white bungalows.

He said he inferred that this was the home of Ong, a person he knew about but had yet to meet in person.

He knew Ong was also at the party; he also recognised a Daihatsu parked there as Ong's car because his girlfriend had used it when Ong was overseas.

The first house he tried, he was almost bitten by a dog and chased out by the owner, he said.

He then noticed his girlfriend's shoes outside the front door of another house and knocked for about five minutes before a man opened the door.

He said when he asked if this was Osh's house, the man became "panicky", glanced at a closed room door inside the house and made a phone call but there was no answer.

The boyfriend said the man agreed to let him into the house.

He opened the room door, switched on the light and saw his girlfriend and Ong lying on a mattress, under a blanket.

He said Ong sprang up and said "I did not do anything".

His girlfriend was wearing a green T-shirt and shorts, while her dress and belt were on a clothes hanger.

He said he shook her very hard but she could barely open her eyes.

He said he pulled her up to a sitting position and then lifted her to a standing position.

She was "extremely weak" and could barely stand, he said.

He said he had to "drag" her to the front door, putting one of her arms over his shoulder and his own arm around her waist.

At the doorstep, she was too weak to put on her shoes, so he pushed her feet onto his own slippers, he said.

He then put her into the passenger seat of the van.

After taking her home, he said she just lay down on the sofa and slept.

She continued sleeping at the accident and emergency department of the hospital and at the police station when they were lodging a police report, he said.

The court earlier heard that a blood test at 12.45pm showed she had 62mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood at the time.

A medical report said that based on calculations, her blood alcohol concentration level at the time she was at Ong's house was between 210.50mg and 254.50mg per 100ml of blood.

The legal limit for driving is 80mg per 100ml.

The trial continues.