SOURCE: The Straits Times
POLICE, laboratory technicians, a psychiatrist and a urologist were all harnessed to look at the mystery of a drop of semen on the thigh of a woman on a bus.
Did it appear because of a hair-trigger ejaculation of a male passenger – said to be a rare condition?
Or was it the act of a pervert?
The 24-year-old woman had cried molest after she claimed an undergraduate on the bus brushed his private parts against her thigh.
When the police were called, they found a drop of semen on the woman’s thigh.
DNA tests showed that it belonged to Chong Weien, 28, who was then a psychology student at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
He has since graduated at the top of his class and has been accepted to do his Master’s programme with an Australian university, the court was told.
But this may have to wait as he was found guilty of one charge of outrage of modesty after a trial. He was jailed 15 months’ and given three strokes of the cane.
The prosecution is appealing against the sentence, while Chong is appealing against his conviction and sentence. He is now out on bail.
His defence was that he suffers from spontaneous ejaculation – a condition which causes him to ejaculate without physical stimulation. He claimed this was what happened on the bus.
Two experts, a psychiatrist and a urologist, who examined him, testified that this was possible.
Crowded
The disturbance on the bus happened at about 9.30pm on 14 Sep, 2006.
The court heard that Chong boarded it at NUS and stood next to the woman, who was sitting along the aisle.
The seats on both sides of the bus were elevated. Because of this, his crotch was level with her thigh.
He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. He had a haversack with him and was holding his jacket in his left hand at waist level.
The woman said that as the bus got more crowded, Chong moved closer to her, so much so that she could hear him breathing.
She then felt a warm object on her right thigh and a wet sensation later on.
She suspected that it was Chong’s private parts. But she could not see what it was because it was blocked by his jacket.
When the bus reached a stop, she stood up and asked him: “What did you do on my leg?”
She then snatched his jacket and slapped him, causing his glasses to fall off.
He asked her if they could talk outside the bus. So when the doors opened, she got off, followed by Chong.
Her male friend, who was on the same bus, got off at the same stop to assist her.
She said that Chong asked her if there had been a misunderstanding, and if he had stepped on her feet.
The woman told the court that she had not seen Chong exposing himself.
But she said that after they alighted, Chong had offered to let her look in his bag.
She found some CDs and a plastic bottle of water, which was not warm and had not leaked.
As such, her conclusion was that those items could not have caused the warm sensation that she had felt on her thigh.
She was still furious and hit Chong a few times before she was pulled away by her friend.
That was when her friend noticed wet spots on Chong’s jacket. He took it, smelled it and realised it was semen.
Her friend then told Chong: “This is yours, right? We are all men, you should know what this is.”
The woman claimed Chong apologised and told her he would not do it again. She then called the police.
But was it possible that Chong’s semen ended up on the woman’s thigh after she snatched his jacket from him on the bus?
She told the court that she had grabbed it with her right hand, and the jacket had come into contact with her left hand, causing it to feel wet. She then wiped it with the jacket.
She insisted she did not touch her thigh with her hands because she felt they were dirty.
In his defence, Chong said that he realised he had ejaculated only when the woman’s friend commented about the wet spots on his jacket.
He said it had happened twice before, when he woke up in the morning and when he was queuing at an ATM. There was no mention of when the two incidents occurred.
Chong denied brushing himself against the woman’s thigh.
He said that he would have to untie the string on his waistband to expose his private parts, which was a difficult task on a crowded bus.
‘Untruthful’
How did his jacket become stained with semen then?
Chong explained that it was because the legs of his shorts were loose and part of his jacket was hanging below the seam of his shorts.
But District Judge Jill Tan said she found Chong to be an untruthful and unconvincing witness.
He had a ready answer for every question that was put to him, and she found his evidence to be too detailed and well-explained at every turn, such that it seemed rehearsed.
She pointed out how Chong had recalled shifting around his haversack on the bus. But this seemed to be his attempt to show that what the woman had felt was his haversack and not his private parts.
The judge also said that the crux of the case was whether Chong had brushed his penis against the woman.
As for Chong’s medical condition of spontaneous ejaculation, it was a “secondary issue”.
The judge said that even if the accused had a spontaneous ejaculation, there was no reason for him to brush his penis against the victim’s thigh.
It was not Chong’s first brush with the law.
In 2002, he was jailed 15 months’ and given three strokes of the cane, also for outrage of modesty.
Chong, who was 21 then, had been teaching two girls, aged 13 and 14, to play the drums. During the lesson, he placed his penis in their left hand, which he had earlier told them to put behind their back.
Chong continued with his studies at NUS after his release from prison.
In his mitigation, Chong’s lawyer, Mr Ravinderpal Singh, asked the court to impose a minimal sentence without caning.
He said that the victim was not a minor. He added that Chong had done volunteer work with ex-offenders and had also participated in various community projects.
For outrage of modesty, Chong could have been jailed two years and caned.
“...too detailed and well-explained at every turn, such that it seemed rehearsed...
– District Judge Jill Tan, who found Chong to be an untruthful and unconvincing witness, on Chong’s answers in court.
“Even if the accused had a spontaneous ejaculation, there was no reason for him to brush his penis against the victim’s thigh.”
– District Judge Jill Tan
CHONG Weien was diagnosed as suffering from spontaneous ejaculation by two doctors.
One of them, Dr Lionel Lim, a consultant psychiatrist, told the court that it was an uncommon but recognised medical condition.
He saw Chong but did not conduct a physical examination on him.
But, based on Chong’s previous medical reports, Dr Lim’s opinion was that he was sexually aroused easily.
Those reports stated that Chong had ejaculated without physical stimulation while being examined.
Dr Lim added that the condition is a sexual dysfunction.
Dr Joe Lee, a urologist at the National University Hospital, also took the stand.
He had given Chong a body checkup but said he was unable to comment on the amount of stimulation Chong needed to ejaculate.
He added that sufferers have poor control over their ejaculation, which can happen with just a light touch or an urgency to urinate.
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