LOH SIANG PIOW @ LOH CHAN PEW v PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

Facts

Mr Loh Siang Piow, a long-serving track and field coach and former Vice-President of the Singapore Athletics Association, appealed in Magistrate's Appeal No 9695 of 2020/01 against his conviction on two charges of outrage of modesty under s 354(1) of the Penal Code and a global sentence of 21 months' imprisonment. The complainant, Ms C, was an 18-year-old athlete who trained under him from December 2012. At the time, coaches commonly gave trainees massages after intensive training, and Mr Loh admitted massaging her once or twice.

Ms C alleged that during one-on-one sessions at the old Tampines Stadium he rubbed her vulva region over her tights while massaging her thighs, first on 24 February 2013 on a bench by the track and then on 15 March 2013 in an equipment room. She lodged a police report in 2016. Mr Loh denied the charges, denied giving her individual sessions, and put forward alibis, including a family Chap Goh Meh celebration on 24 February 2013 and a school training session at Bishan Stadium on 15 March 2013. There were no eyewitnesses. The District Judge found Ms C unusually convincing, rejected the alibis on a balance of probabilities, treated two alibi accounts as deliberate lies supporting guilt, and inferred a guilty conscience from Mr Loh bringing photographs of the two complainants to his police interview. On a remittal for fresh evidence about how he learned their names, the District Judge maintained the conviction.

Issues

1. Whether the District Judge erred in finding Ms C's uncorroborated testimony unusually convincing
2. Whether an accused bears only an evidential burden in raising an alibi, and whether Mr Loh's alibi accounts were deliberate lies corroborating the Prosecution's case
3. Whether a guilty conscience could be inferred from Mr Loh knowing the complainants' identities before his police interview

Holding

Hoo Sheau Peng J allowed the appeal and set aside the convictions, acquitting Mr Loh on both charges. It was unnecessary to decide his complaint that the Prosecution breached its disclosure obligations.

Reasoning

On the first charge, Ms C was unclear where she was touched and accepted the contact might have been accidental; an innocent brushing during a genuine thigh massage was an equally reasonable inference. Her messages to friends and a former teacher described events in a room and did not match this incident, she did not mention it in her first police report, and both parents contradicted her evidence that she told her mother and that her father came to the next session for that reason.

On the second charge, Ms C changed the date mid-trial from Sunday 17 March to Friday 15 March after evidence showed Mr Loh was at a relay event that weekend, which undercut her earlier certainty and her account that sessions were on Sundays. Even with a doll she could not show where she was touched, her description of the experience as an orgasm was adopted after a friend suggested it and appeared to be embellishment, and hours later she posted cheerful messages online. Her complaints to friends could not corroborate her own testimony.

The court held that an alibi carries only an evidential burden, so the District Judge applied the wrong test. The 24 February alibi did not exclude a trip to the stadium, but the evidence of teachers, a student and a prison officer raised a reasonable doubt about 15 March. None of the accounts were shown to be deliberate lies, and defence witnesses deserved the same allowance for lapse of time as prosecution witnesses. A complainant's message, phone records and a new witness supported Mr Loh's account that the investigating officer had revealed the names, so no guilty conscience could be inferred. Ms C was not unusually convincing, and weaknesses in the defence could not fill gaps in the Prosecution's case. The judge also urged the athletics community to review post-training massages and adopt safeguards.

From the judgment