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SINGAPORE: Former Singapore Idol judge Ken Lim Chih Chiang has been acquitted of making sexual comments against an aspiring singer-songwriter 12 years ago.

The verdict was handed down by District Judge Wong Peck in the state courts on Wednesday (Dec 11), in the first of five trials Lim is fighting.

Lim was accused of asking a 26-year-old woman if she was a virgin and what would happen if he had sex with her at that time on July 25, 2012.

This is said to have happened during their second encounter, when the woman met the music producer at his office at Hype Records for advice on a career in the industry.

More than ten years later, in June 2023, she reported the incident to the police after seeing it news reports indicting Lim making sexual comments to other women.

Lim was charged in September 2023 with insulting the woman’s modesty, which carries a prison sentence of up to one year, a fine or both.

During the trial, the prosecution relied on evidence from the woman, as well as that of her husband and her relatives, on what she told them after meeting Lim.

Lim, 60, took the stand in his own defense during the trial, saying the woman was telling ‘blatant’ lies And took his comments about her music “too personally”..

So did his defense team, led by Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng of WongPartnership has called singer-songwriter Corinne May and former candidate MP Dr. Gerard Ee as witnesses.

On Wednesday, Judge Wong said she did not find the alleged victim’s testimony “unusually compelling”, which is the legal test for establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Instead, the judge found that the woman had embellished evidence about her meeting with Lim, and that she was not a credible witness because she could not clearly remember the material aspects of the meeting.

She also found that the woman had a motive to falsely implicate Lim because she was hurt by his criticism of her singing and songwriting, and that the defense’s argument that she was a “copycat” complainant could be believed.

In a statement, Lim said: “I am very happy with the outcome. I would especially like to thank my wife and my two boys, and all my friends for supporting me.”

He also thanked his lawyers, Mr Tan, Mr Paul Loy and Mr Samuel Navindran.

Lim faces six more charges involving four different women. He is fighting the charges in four other lawsuits.

The identities of all women in his care are protected by silence orders.

INCONSISTENCY IN THE WOMAN’S EVIDENCE

Judge Wong described the woman’s evidence as “full” of inconsistencies, noting, for example, that the sequence of events she recounted varied.

In the woman’s police statement, she said Lim uttered the allegedly offensive words before they smoked, but in her testimony at the trial she reversed this order.

The judge ruled that she had reversed the order “to make her version more plausible … because she had claimed after the incident that she was traumatized and in a haze”, but she could still remember their smoking session.

The woman’s evidence sometimes “didn’t make sense”, such as the claim that Lim said the allegedly offensive words after he had already told her he was not signing her to his record label.

It would have made more sense for the producer to make an indecent proposal before informing her that he was not contracting her, while she would still have an incentive to accept the proposal, the judge said.

The woman also claimed that during their meeting, Lim said Ms May, the local singer-songwriter, was “unsuccessful” and “just a kindergarten teacher”.

Judge Wong ruled this was not true, based on Ms May’s evidence that Lim knew her well and knew she had never been a nursery school teacher.

The judge believed Lim’s testimony that he would never discredit Mrs May’s background and singing, as she had sung at his wedding, and he had written her a letter of recommendation to a prestigious music school.

Judge Wong also said the woman could “selectively remember some details and easily forget other details”, such as how long she and Lim spent in the car park where the crime allegedly took place.

“Most importantly, she admitted that she did not remember telling prosecution witnesses, such as (her sister, husband and father), the exact words of the offensive words on the night of the alleged crime.”

Overall, evidence from other prosecution witnesses did not support the claim that Lim had uttered the offensive words, the judge said.

REACTION AFTER THE MEETING

The judge said the woman’s reaction in front of family and friends after her meeting with Lim did not indicate she was traumatized by the alleged comments, as she had claimed.

Noting that victims of sex crimes cannot be expected to act or react in a uniform manner, the judge highlighted the woman’s evidence that she was traumatised, in a haze and in a ‘survival mode’ after the meeting.

However, a few minutes after he left his office, the woman took to Twitter to respond to fans to thank them for their support, and she did so in an upbeat tone.

In court, the woman explained that she did this out of habit and that she was just in a haze about Lim, but not about her fans.

“This statement was untrue as such a statement amounted to the assertion that one can be selectively hazy about one specific thing and clear-minded about everything else,” Judge Wong said.

“Even considering the prosecution’s case at the highest level, because her response to her fans was not unusual for a victim of a sexual crime, I found that there was other evidence indicating that after the second encounter she did not was in a state of trauma. “

The judge pointed to cheerful conversations the woman had with her sister and boyfriend, as well as a 2013 blog post in which she wrote that she was “lucky not to have experienced significant trauma.”

THE “DARK SIDE”

The judge ruled that the allegations were also not substantiated by the text messages exchanged between Lim and the woman at the time.

During the trial, the woman alleged that Lim asked her to go to the “dark side”, which involved cheating on her boyfriend, smoking and using drugs.

She claimed that Lim said her music was “too innocent”, and that she needed to experience the “dark side” to write songs that would enjoy mainstream success.

Lim testified that he would never say this and that no music producer would give such advice because such behavior would lead to scandals.

“I found that the defendant did not advise her to turn to the dark side as she alleged,” Judge Wong said in her decision.

The judge said Lim’s confusion during a WhatsApp conversation with the woman on August 7, 2012, made it clear he did not know what she meant by the “dark side”.