SINGAPORE — A 26-year-old woman, who accused her doctor of raping her during a late-night consultation in 2015, had visited his clinic about 20 times that year - mostly for stomach problems.

This was revealed during the cross-examination of the victim’s mother at the fifth day of the trial on Friday (May 4). The victim cannot be named due to a court gag order to protect her identity.

The victim had accused physician Wee Teong Boo of raping her on 30 Dec, 2015, during a late-night consultation in the examination room of the doctor’s clinic, Wee's Clinic & Surgery, in Bedok North Avenue 2 at 11.30pm.

Wee’s lawyer Edmond Pereira revealed in court that the victim had visited the doctor about 20 times that year, which the victim’s mother testified she was unaware of.

When pressed by Mr Pereira on whether she was surprised by the revelation, the victim’s mother said she was not.

“If the problem was serious, she would tell me. It could just be a normal stomachache… She wasn’t suffering continuous pain, and I thought if she took Panadol, that would resolve the issue,” she added in Mandarin through a translator.

At the trial, it was also revealed that the victim used to work at another clinic nearby when she was younger.

On Monday, the court heard that the victim — a 23-year-old student then — was a regular patient of Wee, having seen him for a year for her gastric and acne issues. On the day of the incident, she was seeking treatment for frequent urination and an itch.

She was allegedly getting her lower abdomen checked by Wee when she felt him molest her, before he proceeded to rape her, Deputy Public Prosecutor Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz noted then.

On why she did not ask how many times her daughter had visited Wee before the incident, the victim’s mother said that since her daughter was the victim, she did not wish to cause her more distress by asking her.

The mother said she had also refrained from asking how the incident affected the young woman as she was “already feeling very sad”.

She further revealed that the victim — her only daughter, and the second-eldest of her four children — had never complained to her about having stomach problems, though they had a “close relationship”.

“She doesn’t want me to know (about her medical problems) and I never asked,” the mother added.

The morning after the alleged incident, the mother went into the victim’s room at about 4.30am to collect some laundry. Noticing that her daughter was tossing around in bed and seemed to be awake, she asked her what was wrong.

The victim told her that she had visited Wee, and the doctor had violated her. The victim also said she was very angry and wanted to lodge a police report.

As the mother was about to leave to work as a cashier, she could not follow the daughter to the police station. When the older woman got to her office, she told her supervisor that she had to apply for urgent leave before returning home.

That day, she also informed her husband and eldest child about what had happened.

Assistant Superintendent Razali Razak, from the police’s Serious Sexual Crimes Branch, also took the stand on Friday.

He told the court that he and two other police officers from his team seized three items of clothing from Wee’s home in the afternoon of Dec 31, 2015. The doctor had been wearing a pair of boxer shorts, trousers and shirt at the time of the alleged incident.

The trial will continue next week.

The prosecution is expected to call more witnesses to the stand, including Dr Janice Tung Su Zhen, an associate consultant with KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, who examined the victim a day after the alleged rape incident.

Wee has also been charged with outraging the modesty of the same victim on Nov 25, 2015, about a month before the said rape incident. She alleged that he had molested her during the course of an examination that day too.

If convicted of rape, Wee can be jailed for up to 20 years and fined. As for molest, Wee could be jailed for up to two more years more if convicted.