Former auxiliary police officer who abetted rape of his girlfriend sentenced to jail, caning

SINGAPORE — What started out as a birthday staycation for her boyfriend soon took a turn for the worse for a 27-year-old woman, when he invited a stranger to have sex with her while she was bound and blindfolded.

On Monday (Nov 26), her boyfriend — who cannot be named to protect the woman’s identity — was sentenced by the High Court to 23 years and 11 months’ jail, with 24 strokes of the cane.

The 27-year-old former auxiliary police officer pleaded guilty to two counts of abetting Srihari Mahendran to rape the woman, and another count of abetment of sexual assault by penetration.

Another 54 charges — including the making and possession of obscene films, as well as abetting Srihari to outrage his girlfriend’s modesty — were taken into consideration for sentencing purposes.

Srihari has claimed trial for his offences, and the case will be heard in the courts next year.

THE FIRST TIME

The court was told that the man was a fan of soft bondage — a type of sexual practice — after watching the movie 50 Shades of Grey, and asked his 27-year-old girlfriend to engage in such acts with him.

She was reluctant at first, but relented after he persuaded her to try out new things to “spice up” their relationship. The couple had started dating in 2014.

The prosecution said: “The victim allowed herself to be physically bound… as she wanted to please him, and also because she loved and trusted the accused.” 

The man got to know Srihari, now 22, through social networking site Tumblr. The court heard that the victim's boyfriend used the website to view pornography, and “engage in sex-related discussions with like-minded users”.

Both men began trading “lurid details and photographs of their sexual conquests,” the prosecution said.

In the course of their conversations, the man revealed to Srihari his sexual fantasy of watching a third party have sex with his girlfriend.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Asoka Markandu told the court: “Fuelled by his desire to see his fantasy come true, the accused conceived of a plan for himself and Srihari to engage in a threesome with the victim.” 

The man kept Srihari’s participation on the planned threesome a secret because his girlfriend did not agree to the idea.

On the night of April 29 in 2016, the couple checked into a budget hotel in the Bugis district. He bought a rope, tied her up and blindfolded her.

Unknown to the woman, her boyfriend had invited Srihari to the hotel. Srihari entered the room silently to avoid suspicion.

The man initiated sexual acts with the woman before asking Srihari to continue. Srihari then sexually penetrated the woman and performed other sexual acts on her.

The entire episode was recorded on the man’s mobile phone.

THE DISCOVERY

On Aug 6 in 2016, the couple was celebrating the man’s birthday with a staycation at a hotel. Once again, the man hatched a plan to have Srihari have sex with his girlfriend without her knowledge.

When the woman was asleep in the hotel room, the man tied and blindfolded his girlfriend before asking Srihari — who was waiting at the hotel lobby — to come up to the room.

Srihari performed sexual acts on the woman while she was drifting in and out of sleep. Then, when she realised that there was more than one pair of hands on her, she tried to remove the blindfold, but heard her boyfriend telling her to go back to sleep.

She was able to remove the rope as it was tied loosely around her hands, and pushed the person kissing her away.

Removing the eye mask, she realised to her utter shock that there was a third person in the room. She could not make out the man clearly as she did not have her glasses on.

While Srihari was trying to make a dash for the door, the man tried to stop his girlfriend from pursuing him.

Srihari had left the room by the time she put on her spectacles. It was then that she noticed her boyfriend’s laptop was turned on, and that the sexual encounter had been recorded.

She realised the full extent of what had happened after watching the videos, and confronted her boyfriend.

“This is clearly rape, do you know what you have done?” she told him.

She wanted to make a police report, and demanded that he ask Srihari to return, which he eventually did.

The woman told her friend about what had happened, and the latter met her at the hotel lobby.

Srihari returned to the hotel, where he was ushered by hotel staff members before the police arrived to arrest him.

‘SOLE MASTERMIND’

Urging the court to impose a jail sentence of 25 years, with 24 strokes of the cane, DPP Eunice Lau said that there was “significant planning and premeditation” on the man’s part.

She added that he was the “sole mastermind… who initiated and conspired with Srihari to participate in his criminal endeavour”, so that he could “fulfil his perverse fantasy of seeing another male engage in sexual acts with his girlfriend”.

The woman had placed a lot of trust in her boyfriend, despite her initial discomfort with being filmed, or engaging in soft-bondage acts, DPP Lau noted.

“The victim complied with the accused’s preferences simply because she wanted to please her boyfriend — a man whom she loved and trusted — yet he betrayed the victim by exploiting her trust to create opportunities for Srihari to assault her,” she added.

The court also heard that the man had deleted the “incriminating evidence” of the incident, and asked Srihari to do likewise.

In asking for a jail sentence of 20 years, with 24 strokes of the cane, the man’s lawyer Mohamed Baiross acknowledged that what his client did was “heinous”, and that he understood the “magnitude” of his actions.

“He is genuinely remorseful… (and) craves the forgiveness of society and the victim,” the lawyer added.

On Monday, the man, dressed in a black suit and tie, wore no expression as Judicial Commissioner Audrey Lim read out his sentence.

Judicial Commissioner Lim granted a one-month reduction of sentence — he was originally sentenced to 24 years’ jail — because he was remanded for a month in 2016.

The man will begin serving his sentence on Jan 3 next year. For abetting rape, he could have been jailed up to 20 years, with fine and/or caning, for each charge.