British trio accused of rape plead guilty to reduced charges

SINGAPORE — Four days into their trial for raping a 23-year-old woman when she was drunk and unconscious, three British men yesterday pleaded guilty to reduced charges of aggravated outrage of modesty.

Khong Tam Thanh, 22, Vu Thai Son, 24, and Michael Le, 24, admitted to one count each of outraging the woman’s modesty and wrongfully restraining her, while she was intoxicated and unconscious.

Khong and Vu were also convicted of an additional charge of molesting the victim, who cannot be identified due to a court order.

They are expected to be sentenced on Tuesday (Aug 15).

The prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutor G Kannan, is seeking caning and jail terms of six to seven years for the trio. The court heard that the three men, who are of Vietnamese descent, and their friends had arrived in Singapore on Sept 9 last year for the stag-night celebration of Khong’s brother.

They planned to attend the Ultra Music Festival the next day and stayed at Carlton Hotel, where they shared three rooms.

That night, they went to Zouk nightclub, where Ahn Viet Trinh, a member of the group also known as Richard, met the victim. The woman was also visiting Singapore with her friend, and had arrived the same night.

She suggested going to Mr Ahn’s hotel room, where she fell asleep after they had consensual sex.

Khong, Vu and Le returned from Zouk later, and gathered in another room with the rest of their friends.

At around 4am, Mr Ahn let Khong into his room, where the woman was asleep, and left him alone with her. Khong molested the woman and sexually assaulted her.

He left the room around 25 minutes later, and he also left the door ajar.

Vu then entered the room at around 4.30am, where he similarly molested her and had unprotected sex with her.

Le was the third to enter, having heard from Vu that he had just had sex with the woman. He undressed himself, and sexually assaulted her.

At this point, the victim suddenly woke up and saw Le sexually penetrating her. Demanding to know who he was, she pushed Le away and covered herself with a blanket.

She told Le she would never “have agreed to have sex with someone as ugly as him”, the court heard.

After Le left the room, she locked the door and only allowed Mr Ahn in at around 5.20am. She confronted Mr Ahn about this, suspecting that he was involved in what had happened, but he denied any knowledge of it.

The woman then called a friend to pick her up, telling him that one of Mr Ahn’s friends had sex with her while she was asleep. A police report was made later that day.

Khong’s mobile phone records also showed a series of messages sent to Mr Ahn from around 5.30am to 5.45am. Among other things, Khong asked Mr Ahn to “throw the (condoms) out of the window”.

Later that afternoon, Mr Ahn replied, saying that they were “all gone”.

The prosecution is seeking for a six-year jail term, with caning, for Le, and seven years’ imprisonment, with caning, for both Khong and Vu.

For aggravated outrage of modesty, each faces a jail term of two to 10 years, and caning.