A 24-year-old boy who accepted an offer from another man to join two sexual trysts with the latter’s girlfriend sans her knowledge and consent was convicted of rape in Singapore on Friday.
A court in Singapore rejected accused Srihari Mahendran’s plea and said there were enough grounds that the woman, blindfolded on both occasions, had consented to having a threesome, The Star reported.
Justice Pang Khang Chau said text messages between the two men, a video recording of the sex acts and hotel surveillance footage indicated that Srihari knew that the plan for him to join the couple was to be kept a secret from the woman.
The judge also found the boyfriend, a key prosecution witness, to be a reliable witness who had no clear motive to falsely implicate Srihari as he had already been sentenced.
The 28-year-old boyfriend, a former police officer, is languishing in jail term of 19 years and 11 months for abetting Srihari to rape and sexually assault the victim.
He cannot be named due to a gag order to protect the identity of his 29-year-old ex-girlfriend.
The boyfriend testified that he wanted to indulge his fantasy of engaging in a threesome with his girlfriend and another man, but she rejected the idea when he floated it to her.
He then hatched a plan to secretly bring another man into the hotel room to have sex with her, while he watched and filmed the acts.
He was able to carry out such a plan because the couple engaged in sexual practices which involved the woman being bound and blindfolded.
On the night of April 29, 2016, the man let Srihari into a room at Hotel 81 Bugis while she was bound and blindfolded.
In the second incident on Aug 7,2016, he again had Srihari join them at the M Social Hotel in Robertson Quay.
This time, she sensed something was wrong and removed her blindfold to catch a glimpse of a person leaving the room. Both men were later arrested at the hotel.
Justice Pang found Srihari guilty of four counts of rape, one count of sexual assault by penetration, four counts of outrage of modesty, and one count of making an obscene film.