The pivotal speech she made in parliament on Aug 3, 2021 did not always contain her false anecdote of the rape victim, but she added it in a few days before.
She sent Singh a draft of her speech, and he circled a part of the anecdote, writing “substantiate” before returning it to her, but did not speak to her about it.
Not understanding “the severity of what he wrote”, Ms Khan did not make any changes. She delivered the speech on Aug 3, 2021, and it set off a series of probes, discussions and clarifications.
Ms Khan testified about how “terrified” she felt that her lie would be exposed – mainly because she would have to share her own account of sexual assault, which she had kept private to herself, her husband and a therapist.
She continued her lie, telling Singh the truth only over a phone call on Aug 7, 2021, when he asked her point-blank about it.
After Singh roped her into the meeting on Aug 8, 2021 with Ms Lim and Mr Faisal Manap, Ms Khan said her impression was that they were to take it to the grave.
This was because Singh said “this would probably be something that we would have to take to the grave”, and because Ms Lim said the issue probably would not come up again.
On Oct 3, 2021, a day before another parliamentary sitting, Singh visited Ms Khan’s home with his wife.
According to Ms Khan, Singh said “something along the lines of – I don’t think the issue will come up but if it does come up he’s not going to judge me for continuing with the narrative”.
Ms Khan took this to mean that Singh would not judge her if she continued to lie.
She said she was prepared to lie again on Oct 4, 2021, because she was “terrified of what would happen” if she told the truth, and because “it seemed that Pritam was supportive of me continuing to lie”.
When parliament sat on Oct 4, 2021, Law Minister K Shanmugam spoke about Ms Khan’s anecdote and requested further details from her on when it happened, which police station it was at and which police officers were involved.
This was for the purpose of investigating the issue.
In text messages shown to the court, Ms Khan texted Singh while in the parliament chambers, asking: “What should I do, Pritam”.
She testified that she was “really terrified” and did not know what to do.
Singh did not reply immediately. When called on by then-speaker Tan Chuan-Jin to respond to Mr Shanmugam, Ms Khan maintained her lie and said she did not wish to share further details, citing confidentiality.
Singh later replied to Ms Khan to say they would speak after the parliament sitting, and asking her to keep Ms Lim and him posted.
Ms Khan testified that Ms Lim later spoke to her about standing orders and what procedures will be like with a COP, which Ms Khan took to mean Ms Lim was outlining what may happen if the issue was pressed.
Ms Khan later sent messages to a group chat she had with then-WP cadres Ms Loh and Mr Nathan, saying: “I’m trying not to panic, but I’m really scared”.
Fearing that someone was reading their messages, the group agreed to delete some messages from the chat. Ms Khan said she thought the deleted messages were about the fact she had lied.
Ms Khan then prepared a draft statement responding to Mr Shanmugam, where she wrote about feeling disappointed that the government had pushed her to break “all forms of confidentiality and consent” and instead focused more on grilling her.
However, Ms Loh told her this “would be a terrible thing to say” and Ms Khan did not ultimately make this statement in parliament.
Ms Khan said that late at night on Oct 4, 2021, towards the end of that day’s parliamentary sitting, she asked if she should come clean in a meeting with Singh and Ms Lim.
“I did say, should I tell the truth? And Pritam’s response was, ‘It’s too late for that’,” she testified.
Ms Khan was also asked why she did not mention that Singh and other WP leaders had known about her lie earlier, when she came clean in parliament on Nov 1, 2021.
“I wanted to protect them. I didn’t want to implicate anybody else in the mistake that I made and I wanted to take full responsibility for what happened,” she said.
