SINGAPORE — A 43-year-old father convicted of sexually abusing his daughter told the High Court on Tuesday (Oct 2) it was sheer coincidence that he found a second witness who was willing to testify that he has an out-of-shape penis.

The witness, who used to play football with the man, even produced drawings of the penis that were submitted to the court. The witness claimed that he had never seen a penis like it, that was why he remembered.

The convicted man cannot be named to protect the identity of his daughter. He was found guilty last year of sexually abusing her between 2011 and 2014, and was sentenced to 23.5 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane by the High Court. The victim was just 11 years old at the start of the abuse, and the oldest of three children.

During the trial that stretched almost three years, the father’s defence has been the same — that it would not have been physically possible for him to sexually penetrate his daughter as he had a botched penis enlargement procedure in 2009. His wife and daughter, however, had testified that it looked normal even in April 2014.

In trying to appeal against his sentence and conviction, he found two witnesses to corroborate his claim that he has a “deformed” penis. The Court of Appeal sent the case back to the High Court, where Justice Aedit Abdullah will have to determine the truth of the new evidence, before the appeal hearing can continue.

Recounting how he met his second witness by chance, the man told the court on Tuesday that it happened shortly after his first witness decided not to testify.

It was on Feb 3 this year that he met Mr Muhammad Ridzwan Idris, his former football buddy whom he knew from 2012 and had not met in three years.

On the day, he said that he was sitting along Bussorah Street, feeling “depressed and confused” that his first witness had backed out of filing an affidavit as the witness’ wife did not want him to get involved in the appeal.

After bumping into Mr Ridzwan, they exchanged pleasantries and he decided to tell his friend about his predicament.

That was when Mr Ridzwan told him that he had seen his penis before, and could be a witness to help him prove that the daughter was not telling the truth.

Asked when he saw his penis, Mr Ridzwan told him that it was in 2013, when he was at a urinal next to him, in a toilet at the Singapore Expo convention and exhibition centre. The two of them were then working alongside each other at a snack stall during an event there.

The man told the court: “I felt relieved when someone wanted to come forward and testify on my behalf.”

He then referred Mr Ridzwan to his lawyer, without asking more details about what else his friend saw, he added.

Mr Ridzwan later affirmed in an affidavit on Feb 9, stating that his friend’s penis was “round like a doorknob” and “didn’t look normal”.

The affidavit came with two drawings — a front view and a side view — of what he saw.

FRIENDS PAID TO TESTIFY?

In her cross-examination of the father on Tuesday, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) April Phang said it is “incredible and unbelievable” that Mr Ridzwan could produce the detailed drawings with just a quick glance.

As for the appearance of Mr Ridzwan now, DPP Phang said it did not make sense that the appellant did not produce any witness to corroborate his testimony during the length of his trial, but it was only after conviction that he found two “with the exact same testimony” within a span of less than a month.

“Your efforts now to produce witnesses is a last-ditch attempt to try to say that your daughter is lying,” she said.

She put it to him that he had managed to convince his first witness to “testify falsely” for him, and when that did not happen, he conspired with Mr Ridzwan to come up with a “fictitious incident at the Expo toilet”.

“I suggest that you had provided some financial motivation to such friends who are sympathetic to testify on your behalf,” she said. The man disagreed with her, but did not elaborate.

DPP Phang also found loopholes in the appellant’s claim that he was excited to have found someone who could overturn his case.

Referring to the eventual date that he called his lawyer about the second witness, she said: “Fair enough, you didn’t call on the 3rd (of February, as it could have been late, but) you didn’t call him on the 4th… (You did not call on) Monday, which was the 5th, or Tuesday, which was the 6th (as well).”

She concluded that he was thus not at all “excited” about finding the new witness.

“I put it to you that you didn’t call (your lawyer) because there was absolutely no coincidental meeting with Ridzwan on Feb 3, 2018,” she added.

She reiterated that between May 15, 2014, when he was called up by the police to give a statement, and Sept 4, 2015, when 10 charges were read to him for his caution statements to be recorded, he had not said anything about being unable to commit the offences because his penis was deformed.

Mr Ridzwan will testify on Wednesday morning.

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