Doctor on trial for molestation: Court to examine recording of phone call between accused and victim's boyfriend

SINGAPORE — A general practitioner, on trial for allegedly molesting a 24-year-old patient, did not tell the court that he had a phone recording of the patient’s boyfriend making demands in an apparent bid to blackmail him.

Then on Tuesday (April 7), just when his lawyer was about to close a re-examination of him as a defence witness, Lui Weng Sun, 47, suddenly informed the court of the presence of the recording that would detail what the 44-year-old boyfriend of his alleged victim had told him.

The boyfriend had apparently said something along the lines of: “I don’t know about you doctors. You have money and lawyers. I am afraid you may accuse me of threatening you. I am also afraid of threatening you. 

“To me, this is a small matter. To you, this is a big matter. I have already gone to the police station to enquire but did not make a police report.” 

Lui told the court that this was what the boyfriend said. 

The doctor is contesting one charge of outraging the female patient’s modesty at Northeast Medical Group clinic, located along Jalan Tiga off Old Airport Road, by allegedly placing a stethoscope on the woman’s breast and touching her nipple with his finger.

Lui is also said to have turned the woman’s bra cup outwards to perform the act.

The said phone call that lasted about 15 to 20 minutes was made several hours after the alleged molestation on Nov 6, 2017.

Lui believes that the patient’s boyfriend had fabricated the allegations against him to extort money from him.

He had testified last August that the patient’s boyfriend asked for a “jiao dai” (“account for” in Chinese) and that sounded like a request for monetary compensation.

Both the victim, who turns 27 this year, and her boyfriend cannot be named due to a court order protecting the victim’s identity.

DOCTOR ‘EXPLOITED’ A MOMENT

Tuesday’s hearing started with Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Ng Yiwen cross-examining Lui.

DPP Ng claimed that the doctor had violated the woman in the consultation room during the one-and-a-half minute that the duo were alone. 

DPP Ng said that Lui was pulling up the victim’s shirt in the consultation room when he was interrupted by a clinic assistant, who opened a door linking the room to the reception area to give him some forms.

Lui reacted by pulling down her shirt, DPP Ng said, but became “emboldened” when he saw that the victim did not react adversely to having her shirt pulled up.

After the sliding door closed, he lifted the shirt back up, DPP Ng added.

Knowing that the chance of another clinic assistant opening the door is low, Lui then “exploited” the moment, the prosecutor said, by placing the stethoscope above the patient’s left breast, pulling her bra outwards and pressing her in the area directly.

Lui denied before District Judge Jasvender Kaur that these had happened.

WHY HE DID NOT ASK FOR DETAILS

Without knowledge of Lui’s recording of the phone call yet, DPP Ng took issue with the doctor’s earlier testimony that the patient’s boyfriend had, without going into specifics, accused him of touching the patient.

“If you are truly innocent and aggrieved (with the allegations), it is truly in your interest to press him for details,” the prosecutor said. 

Lui replied that during the phone call that was made after 9pm, he was tired from seeing many patients by the end of the workday and was interrupted whenever he tried to speak. The call was, to him, “more like a monologue”, he added.

Furthermore, the boyfriend had suggested meeting him face to face, Lui said. “Since I was meeting him the next day, I thought I would ask (him for details) when he had cooled down.”

DPP Ng later asked Lui how he would have known which body parts the boyfriend claimed that he had touched when he did not have the details of the allegations.

Lui said that touching the upper parts of the woman’s body was the only thing that he was thinking of. Her boyfriend gave the impression that he was angry with the way the doctor conducted a respiratory examination on her.

WHAT HE TOLD THE BOYFRIEND

It was not until close to the end of Lui’s re-examination by his lawyer, Mr Shashi Nathan, that he said he forgot that he had indeed told the patient’s boyfriend that he had examined her lungs.

“I did say that I examined the patient’s lungs,” he told the court, referring to some notes that he had taken after the phone call and that he was “flustered” on the stand earlier.

When asked what notes he was talking about, Lui took the next 10 minutes to read out an electronic “note” dated Aug 18, 2019, which Mr Shashi later clarified is a transcript of a voice recording of the phone call.

Based on the note, Lui had allegedly told the victim’s boyfriend that day: “From my records, I only remember that (the victim) had flu and fever. Maybe I was a bit too detailed, but I never had intentions to offend her. I just wanted to examine to ensure that there is no lung infection.

“If there is, it would be more serious and we would have to start on antibiotics and it would be more troublesome.”

With the new evidence to be adduced, Mr Shashi asked for his client to be stood down as a witness until the prosecution gets a copy of the recording and its transcription.

The trial continues on Wednesday, when two clinic assistants are expected to take the stand.