Having already been molested on the MRT, a woman had to go through another nightmare when she was at the receiving end of a different kind of harassment on the witness stand.
Defence lawyer Edmund Wong Sin Yee had the gall to cause distress to the molest victim in court as he posited offensive questions and acted inappropriately towards her. So bad was his conduct that the judge dedicated six pages in his 44-page grounds of decision towards Wong, calling his behaviour deserving of disapprobation and completely unacceptable, The Straits Times reported.
Wong — who runs his own firm S Y Wong Law Chambers — was tasked with defending 24-year-old student Xu Jiadong who had brushed his forearm against the breast of a woman on board an MRT train on July 9, 2014. Xu was found guilty of his charge of outrage of modesty on Wednesday and got five months in jail as his sentence.
Justice was served — but the list of things that Wong did during the court trials were as reprobate as the outrage of modesty itself:
Leering at the molest victim
At one time, Wong asked the victim to stand up. The reason for the request? “Your Honour, I want to see… how attractive (she is) when (she) stands up…” he said.
Slut-shaming the victim
When asked if Wong is going for the victim-shaming angle, he replied:
“Well, it’s always that there must be a temptation. There must be something attractive for a person to do such a thing. So if you get an old lady, you think people want to molest her?
“So that is important and I want to show that if she is wearing a very low cut (top) with a very voluptuous breast protruding out, (of a) half cut (top), then of course… the higher the tendency that people might commit such an offence.
Making inappropriate remarks about the victim’s breast size
He continued: “So I’m trying to put my case that, you know, looking at the day (how) she was dressed and… her breast size and all these things… whether there is temptation for anybody or the accused to do such a thing.”
District Judge Shawn Ho didn’t stand for Wong’s offensive conduct. He rapped the lawyer for making the victim re-live her “odious experience”, causing her distress, as she was said to have held back tears in court. He added that humiliating victims of sexual crimes in court would discourage future victims from coming forward as well.
“Put simply, the defence counsel’s conduct is completely unacceptable and deserves disapprobation,” Judge Ho said. “His conduct is plainly not in keeping with – and fell far short of – the best traditions of the Singapore Bar.”
