Ken Lim’s alleged victim did not make police report to ‘fix’ him
A singer-songwriter who made a police report against music producer Ken Lim for making sexual comments towards her did not do so because she was out to “fix” him for not signing her to his label, her younger sister said in court.
The alleged victim’s sister said this during a trial on July 10 in response to the defence team’s suggestion that the sisters had “finally found an opportunity to fix Ken Lim” because he did not offer the singer-songwriter a contract in 2012.
Lim, 60, who was the executive director of record label Hype Records at the time of the alleged offence, is represented by a legal team from Wong Partnership led by Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng.
Lim, who is best known for being a judge on talent show Singapore Idol, is contesting seven charges involving five alleged victims and will go through a trial for each victim. The charges comprise one count of molestation and six counts of insulting modesty.
His current trial involves a woman, then 26, who alleged that he had asked her “Are you a virgin?” and “What if I have sex with you right now?” at a carpark on July 25, 2012.
The woman decided to file a police report 11 years later, on June 28, 2023, after seeing news reports that Lim had been charged over similar offences.
The prosecution said earlier in its opening statement that the woman did not report Lim in 2012 as she had not known that uttering sexually inappropriate words to someone is a crime.
The woman, who cannot be named due to a gag order to protect her identity, took the stand against Lim in May and testified in proceedings that were closed to the public and the media.
Her husband and father also testified that month in open court.
During the July 10 hearing, the woman’s sister testified that she had spoken to her sister on July 25, 2012, after the alleged incident.
She said: “What I recall from our conversation is that (my sister) had met Ken Lim to talk about her music. He said her music was too innocent and made sexually inappropriate comments to her.”
When Mr Tan from the defence suggested that the woman had reported his client to the police to “fix” him for not offering her a contract in 2012, the woman’s sister disagreed, saying her sister did not mention anything about a contract with Lim.
Mr Tan questioned the credibility of the alleged victim’s sister as a witness, suggesting that the woman could have prepared her family members on what to say to the police.
Earlier in May, another lawyer from the defence team, Mr Paul Loy, had also cast doubt on how credible the woman’s husband and father were as witnesses.
Referring to chat logs that were sent by the woman to her family members after she had filed a police report, Mr Tan quoted the woman saying, “preparing (her parents) would be harder”.
Addressing the woman’s sister, Mr Tan said: “It is clear from these messages that after (the woman) told you what to say, she was going to prepare her parents.”
The woman’s sister disagreed, saying her sister was merely trying to tell her family what to expect as she had already met the police.
When asked by Deputy Public Prosecutor Gail Wong what the woman meant when she said “ugh” in a text message before her second meeting with Lim on July 25, 2012, the woman’s sister said her sister was likely feeling dread or disgust about meeting Lim.
Mr Tan responded, citing chat logs, that there was no sign of apprehension in the family after the woman’s first meeting with Lim on July 19. He questioned if “ugh” could have instead expressed anxiety with meeting a famous producer.
Earlier in the day, Senior Staff Sergeant K. Vigneswaran, who took the woman’s statement when she filed the police report, was also cross-examined.
It was revealed that in the alleged victim’s first information report, she alleged that Lim had told her to get “on the dark side”.
According to the report, the woman said what Lim meant by that was to “sleep around, cheat on (her) boyfriend, and take drugs”.
The trial continues on July 11.
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