SINGAPORE — The Court of Appeal acquitted on Wednesday (June 10) a general practitioner who had earlier been found guilty by the High Court of sexually assaulting and molesting a long-time patient in his Bedok clinic.

Dr Wee Teong Boo, 69, was sentenced to 10 years’ jail last year but filed an appeal.

While he was originally charged with raping the patient, a High Court judge convicted him after a trial of a reduced charge of sexual assault by penetration, as well as molestation on a separate earlier occasion.

The prosecution then appealed against the rape acquittal and sentence.

The patient, now 27, had accused Dr Wee of raping her during a late-night consultation at his clinic in Bedok on Dec 30, 2015. She was seeking treatment for gastric problems, frequent urination and an itch on her genitals.

She also accused him of molesting her on Nov 25, 2015.

Dr Wee’s version of events and his level of sexual function had come under scrutiny during the trial. Among other things, his wife testified that he could not have raped his patient as his penis was “soft like a noodle” even when stimulated.

Justice Chua Lee Ming cleared Dr Wee of rape, accepting medical evidence that he had erectile dysfunction at the time of the alleged incidents.

But he convicted Dr Wee of sexual assault by penetration with his fingers. 

The doctor had testified that he had penetrated the patient with his fingers, but argued that he was only doing an internal pelvic examination, using his saliva as a lubricant. The judge rejected this defence. 

PATIENT ‘FAR FROM CONVINCING’

On Wednesday, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Judge of Appeal Steven Chong and Justice Belinda Ang said in the apex court’s 72-page written judgment that they found many aspects of the patient’s testimony “incredible”, or not persuasive.

They also upheld the rape acquittal.

The patient had testified that during the second incident, Dr Wee removed her shorts and underwear before “poking" her, and she could only see him moving forward and backward while he held onto her knees.

She said she thought he was examining her, and that when he brought her to a half-sitting position she saw his penis partially in her vagina. 

She testified she had been in “auto-pilot mode” throughout the visit and left the clinic after getting her medicine.

Dr Wee and the clinic assistants had testified that the patient had appeared calm with no complaints that night.

The apex court noted that while different people react differently to sexual assault, they found it “far from convincing” that the patient — who was aged 23 and had had no sexual experience then — could have accepted the alleged acts as being part of a medical exam.

“To put it bluntly, this would have been a violation of the person at the most horrific and abusive level, and we find it difficult to understand how (the patient) could have failed to appreciate that. 

“The question here is not so much one that concerns a victim’s reaction to a sexual assault after the trauma of the incident; rather, it is the credibility of a victim’s claim of what she thought was happening, while it was happening,” the judges said.

It was “impossible” that the alleged victim could have thought Dr Wee’s conduct was part of a medical examination after allegedly seeing him penetrating her, the judges added.

The patient also did not mention the alleged rape to her mother when they spoke several hours afterwards, the apex court noted.

The three judges agreed with the High Court that it was doubtful Dr Wee would have attempted to rape the patient, as clinic assistants and other patients were waiting in the clinic. The sliding door to the examination room was also unlocked at the time.

The judges then accepted the defence’s argument that the sexual assault conviction was “highly prejudicial for any one of a number of reasons” — most importantly, that the patient claimed she had seen Dr Wee penetrating her with his penis, not his fingers.

Because of that, the prosecution could not argue for Dr Wee’s conviction on sexual assault by his fingers to be upheld.

Had Dr Wee been originally charged and tried for sexual assault, he would have conducted his defence differently as well, the judges said.

They also criticised the prosecution for failing to provide a medical report on Dr Wee’s erectile dysfunction before the High Court trial began.

As for the alleged molestation that the patient accused Dr Wee of committing in November 2015, the judges found two inconsistencies in her account that led them to overturn the conviction for that charge.

The patient had alleged that Dr Wee stroked her private parts for a “very long” time, which led the apex court to find once more that it was “incredible” that she could have thought at the time that this was a medical exam.

The three appeal judges said they were troubled by the “significant delay” of 36 days between this incident and it being reported to the police.

The patient had said she was reassured that Dr Wee was medically examining her after she went to a polyclinic. However, records showed that she had gone to the polyclinic for a different ailment altogether.

The two alleged sexual violations were similar, and it could not be that the patient suddenly realised this only after the purported rape, the apex court said. It was also “odd” that she had not mentioned the alleged molestation to the polyclinic doctor, they added.

Dr Wee’s lawyers from Eugene Thuraisingam LLP told reporters after Wednesday’s hearing: “We are happy that the hard work put in the case has paid off with an innocent man being acquitted in court.”