SINGAPORE: Former Singapore Idol judge Ken Lim Chih Chiang was convicted on Friday (Sep 26) of molesting a 25-year-old woman during an interview at Hype Records in 2021.
Lim, 61, had contested the charge in what was the second of five trials slated for him. He was earlier acquitted of making sexual comments to an aspiring songwriter in 2012.
Principal District Judge Lee Lit Cheng found the woman in the molestation accusation to be a truthful witness, while Lim was “untruthful”.
She said Lim’s “emphatic denials” in court about what he stated in his police statement demonstrate that “he is an unreliable witness willing to make bald claims to defend his own interest”.
She rejected the defence’s argument that it would have required “a lot of contortion” for Lim’s hand to reach in and touch the victim’s breast in the position she described.
The judge saw no doubt as to how Lim was able to do so, given that the pair was kissing in close proximity at Lim’s request.
The judge said the repeated narration of the incident by the victim to her boyfriend and her friends does not add weight to the contents of the allegations, but neither do the lack of details or inconsistencies in her boyfriend’s and friends’ testimonies cast any doubt on the veracity of the victim’s evidence.
This is because victims of sexual assault do not necessarily disclose details of the offence when confiding in others, and that the testimonies of the witnesses were affected by their own recollection of what the victim had said to them.
“I find (the victim) to be a truthful witness who did not attempt to embellish her testimony,” said Judge Lee.
Conversely, she found Lim to be an “untruthful witness”.
She gave an example of how he claimed that a statement he gave to the police was inaccurate, but that he had signed it because the recording officer had promised him that there would be a subsequent meeting to address the accuracy and contents of the entire statement.
The officer also purportedly told Lim that a further statement would be recorded from him in two weeks’ time.
The judge found that Lim had fabricated these allegations because two officers present during the recording had refuted his statement, and because Lim had made numerous handwritten amendments to his statement, showing that he was able to and did amend it.
