Senior public servant accused of molesting 2 colleagues 'gives a lot of guidance’, can be ‘demanding’, court told

SINGAPORE — A senior public servant accused of molesting two female colleagues over the course of about nine months is an exacting boss who is “almost demanding”, one of his subordinates told the court on Thursday (Feb 13).

Of one of the projects that the duo had worked on together, the middle manager said: “I had to counsel some of my younger colleagues who wanted to give up after going through two to three drafts. And I counselled them to persevere.”

Despite having high standards, his boss was someone who “gives a lot of guidance” to junior officers, he added, pointing out that some officers departing the workplace would leave thank-you messages for him.

Asked how his boss usually conducted himself, he said: “Very well and very professional.”

The 66-year-old public servant is standing trial on nine molestation charges over offences allegedly committed from mid-March to mid-December in 2016 at the workplace and on overseas work trips.

Their workplace and all parties involved in the case cannot be named due to a court order to protect the identities of his alleged victims, who were 43 and 55 years old.

The alleged victims testified on Monday and Thursday, but those parts of the trial were held in-camera and the media was not allowed to attend.

Court documents stated that the accused caressed the 55-year-old on her arm in a circular motion during a work trip to Manila, the Philippines. He also allegedly hugged and kissed her shoulder during a work trip to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and placed his hand on her thigh when they were on another work trip in Yangon, Myanmar.

For the 43-year-old, he is accused of hugging her so tightly that her breasts were pressing against his body on several occasions at their workplace, the court heard. He also allegedly squeezed her buttocks and pressed his private parts against her shoulder.

The middle manager who testified on Thursday was a senior officer in whom the 43-year-old woman confided.

The middle manager had known the woman for more than 14 years since she joined the statutory board and had been her direct supervisor for about six months. When she told him about the alleged incidents, she was no longer under his charge.

He told the court that he arrived at work before 7am when it was still dark. The woman had approached him asking if she could tell him “some personal problems”.

He testified that he and the woman did not have this sort of interaction on a regular basis, and had “not even met for lunch once” even though they were “friendly” and “almost trusting” colleagues.

After the woman approached him, they went to the hawker centre nearest to their workplace to talk over coffee. It was then that he heard that the accused had once allegedly brushed her arm with his lower body while she was seated in the office.

This prompted the middle manager to ask whether the accused had exposed himself to her, to which she said “no”.

He asked this because he had learnt, as a senior officer, that he should first establish whether a matter is criminal or not when told of an incident like this. If it was, he would advise her to make a police report, he said in his testimony.

He then asked her whether it was the first time the accused had done that to her. She revealed that it was not.

The middle manager then decided to take up the matter with their chief executive because he felt that it was not a problem that he could solve since he was no longer her reporting officer, and the accused happened to be his own direct supervisor.

The first thing he did after returning to the office was to draft an email to their chief executive.

“I made sure that I didn’t describe what she told me because my intention was that (the chief executive) should find out for herself and hear from (the woman) her complaint,” he told the court. The chief executive ended up indicating that she would see the woman at 10am.

He and the alleged victim did not discuss the case again until after a police report was made in 2018 about her case.

He said he was surprised to learn that she was involved in police investigations after he was called in for an interview with an investigating officer.

After the police got involved, the middle manager said that he started to “become very careful” about what he said around the 43-year-old to the extent that he had “consciously and overtly” stopped talking to her unless it was absolutely necessary.

The accused is represented by Mr Gary Low and Mr Terence Tan from Drew & Napier.

Mr Low, when cross-examining the middle manager, asked him to relate what he knew of the women’s working experience with the accused.

The witness said that the only time that he had heard the accused ever losing his cool at work was in relation to the 55-year-old in early 2018. He understood that the accused was “angrier than normal” as he was not happy that she had done something against his instructions.

However, he said that the accused had not shouted or been vulgar at that time.

“I would say that I was surprised to hear that,” he said. “Normally at (the workplace), we don’t do this. If we have a problem with our junior officers, we will have a private meeting.”

As for the 43-year-old alleged victim, whom he described as an “above average worker”, he said that the accused had in 2017 reprimanded her for doing something against his wishes and she remained “quite unrepentant” about being corrected.

“She voiced her disagreement to me after the meeting… At that time... the impression (I had of her) was, in my own terms, unteachable,” he said.

He took note of that incident because he had personally developed a “habit of not teaching people who were unteachable”, he told the court.

A molestation conviction carries a jail term of up to two years, a fine, caning, or any combination of the three. However, offenders above 50 years old cannot be caned by law.

Any public servant who is a Singapore citizen or permanent resident is deemed to have committed an offence in Singapore if he does it in the course of his employment overseas.

Earlier this week, the man’s employer and the ministry in charge of his employer declined to comment when contacted by TODAY.