SINGAPORE - The victim of an alleged gang rape had told her boyfriend and police officers attending to her that she had been put in a van by several men and molested.

But the 17-year-old student later revealed privately to a female police officer details about the alleged rape that took place on Boxing Day last year.

The girl was still wearing the clothes from the previous night when officers first visited her, with smudged make-up on her face and her eyes puffy, Station Inspector Kim Lai Kuan of Jurong Police Division told the court.

According to her, the girl also appeared moody and in a daze.

Five young men aged between 17 to 20 are in the dock for allegedly raping and sexually assaulting the girl in a flat in Woodlands between 4am and 6am on Dec 26 last year.

Hours after the alleged attack, her boyfriend called the police, saying his girlfriend had been "molested" by a group of men in a van.

She had confided in him in an online chat but threatened to kill herself if he called the police, the court heard.

After SI Kim arrived at the flat with her two colleagues, SI Mohamed Azmi Chomil and Sergeant Mohammad Ridzuan Abdul Samad, they interviewed the girl in the living room.

The girl, now 18, repeated the story of being molested in a van.

When pressed by SI Mohamed Azmi for a description of the van, she was not "forthcoming" and requested to speak to SI Kim in private.

In her bedroom, she recounted to SI Kim the ordeal of how she had too much to drink in a Woodlands apartment and was raped by five men, one of whom was a friend of hers.

The case was later referred to the Serious Sexual Crimes branch of the Criminal Investigation Department.

The court was not told why the girl had first claimed to be molested in a van. She is likely to give evidence behind closed doors next week.

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