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Rape suspect calls teen accuser names, says she had sex with his friend

SINGAPORE — Calling her a “stranger” and a “slut”, the man accused of raping a girl, then 13, vehemently denied all charges against him as he took the stand for the first time on Tuesday (Jan 23).

At the trial, Koh Guang Rong painted the girl as one who slept around with gang members. He said she was boastful and needed to be put in her place. Photo: The New Straits Times

At the trial, Koh Guang Rong painted the girl as one who slept around with gang members. He said she was boastful and needed to be put in her place. Photo: The New Straits Times

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SINGAPORE — Calling her a “stranger” and a “slut”, the man accused of raping a girl, then 13, vehemently denied all charges against him as he took the stand for the first time on Tuesday (Jan 23).

Koh Rong Guang, 25, also claimed to have never been out alone with the girl, now 17, who cannot be named due to a gag order.

Koh, who is self-employed, faces 12 charges, including four for allegedly raping the teen between November 2013 and January 2014, in various locations in Choa Chu Kang.

The other charges include one of sexual assault by penetration, three of criminal intimidation, two of committing an indecent act with a young person, one of causing hurt, and one of circulating a nude photo of the girl.

At Tuesday’s trial, Koh painted the girl as one who slept around with gang members. He said she was boastful and needed to be put in her place.

He denied threatening to hit his friend Fu Yiming and the girl with a brick before one of the alleged rape offences took place, as well as taking compromising photos of her and Fu after the assault.

Instead, he claimed that he had initiated a meeting with the girl because he wanted to clear up rumours about her “going around telling people that she was the ‘big sister of Teck Whye’”.

There was a plan for Fu “to be the good guy” while he “would be the bad guy” — Koh said he would scare her, and then Fu would “save” her.

They met at a food court in Yew Tee, but Koh noticed that the girl looked disdainful, so he left Fu and the girl “to talk” somewhere else.

Koh told the court: “I knew what was going on… (they) went away to have sex.”

He later said he “had assumed” they had done so.

It was also during that time, Koh said, that Fu sent him three pictures of the girl and Fu in compromising positions, which Koh later posted on social media.

During the cross-examination by the prosecution, transcripts of WhatsApp chats between Koh and Fu were presented. In one exchange, Koh told Fu that the victim was someone he did not regard highly.

He also used a vulgar term to describe his relationship with the girl, and the chats were peppered with a four-letter word, which Koh said had no sexual connotation when he used it. “It means to beat up… to discipline (someone),” he told the court, claiming that it was part of his “gang lingo”.

Later, when questioned by Judicial Commissioner Audrey Lim about the text transcripts, Koh said that in using the vulgar term on the girl, he meant she was someone he would have sex with and then cast aside.

Koh, who is represented by lawyer Irving Choh, claimed that he had never been alone with the victim, nor did he take her out on his own.

He told the court that he “did not know her (well)"; "because I didn’t like her, because she was a slut.”

The hearing will resume on Wednesday.

If convicted of statutory rape, Koh faces eight years' to 20 years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane.

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