SINGAPORE — A man who used to work as a beach-patrol officer in Sentosa was on Monday (July 18) convicted of raping and sexually assaulting a drunk partygoer at Siloso Beach in 2012.

A High Court judge found that the prosecution had, over the 15-day trial from last August to April this year, proved beyond reasonable doubt that Pram Nair, 27, had committed both offences on the resort island. Nair will be sentenced at a later date.

In the prosecution’s closing submissions, they pointed to holes in Nair’s testimony, noting that his evidence was “inconsistent, self-serving and even incredulous at points”.

The court earlier heard that the victim, a relief teacher then, had decided to go with a friend to attend a beach party at Wave House, a surfing and restaurant-bar venue on the island, on May 5 that year. At the party, she drank shots of whisky, Cointreau liquor and juice before Nair approached and chatted with her and her friend.

They also played a drinking game where Nair poured the orange-flavoured Cointreau liquor from the bottle directly into the victim’s mouth for 20 seconds, since she had just turned 20 years old.

Noticing that the victim looked like she was “really drunk”, her friend wanted to leave the party and went to collect the victim’s bag. When she returned, she could not find Nair and the victim.

The victim testified that she remembered waking up on the sand as she felt the pain of Nair raping her and tried to push him away, but was too weak and drunk.

Two eyewitnesses saw the two of them on the beach and one of them called the police after he noticed the victim trying to push Nair away.

The victim’s friend, who had been looking for her, found the victim lying on the sand, the lower half of her body naked. Nair told the friend that he found the victim at that spot, completely naked. He walked away but was later arrested by the police.

One of the inconsistencies highlighted by the prosecution was that Nair had initially put to the victim that she had performed oral sex on him but changed his account during cross-examination. Later, he reverted to his original statement that she did indeed perform oral sex on him.

The prosecution also said that Nair lying about how he found the victim on the beach completely naked was evidence of his guilty conscience.

The defence made the case that even though Nair wanted to have sex with the victim, he could not get an erection. This point was, however, not mentioned to the doctor during examination when it would form a “material aspect” of the defence’s case, the prosecution said.

When asked in court how the incident had affected her life, the victim said that this was a “painful, painful lesson” and she still feels “disgusted” with herself at times. She also mentioned that she was terrified for a time that she might have contracted HIV.

“I’ve never been more sorry to my parents because they raised me up really well,” she said, “and because I was disobedient and went out on that one night... it brought so much pain that there’s a long time after that where I couldn’t even lie in bed without feeling like ripping my own skin off because I just couldn’t remove myself from what happened to me.”