Singapore — Speaking out in a Twitter thread about how she felt her sexual assault case was mishandled by the police, one Charmaine Lim shared her story as well as a series of exchanges with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
In a series of tweets that started with the following Straits Times online article: ‘WP MP’s allegations of police mishandling sexual assault case are serious, says Desmond Tan’.
Ms Lim shared a screengrab of the article on Twitter and wrote: “If Desmond Tan believes that police mishandling are just allegations, pack your bags boys, we’re going on a trip because I have some receipts”.
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— char (@BABPLEH) August 4, 2021
In an email to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam, Ms Lim wrote that following the incident where she was allegedly molested during a yoga class on Jul 11, she filed a police report in person on Jul 13. She also submitted a police report online on Aug 18 in order to make sure the facts of her case were recorded accurately.
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— char (@BABPLEH) August 4, 2021
She wrote: I wish to make it clear that I had already earlier told the Officer on 13 July 2020 all the facts contained here in my online report but the Police report dated 13 July 2020 only stated “I was molested” instead of stating the full and detailed account which I had given”.
She added that she had kept aside the pants that she had wore during the incident, and had brought it to the police station. “However, the IO told me on that day that he did not need me to pass it to him as evidence, so I have already washed them”.
Ms Lim explained that she also had screenshots of her text messages with her friends and voice recordings with other possible witnesses which she offered to the IO who allegedly said that he did not need them.
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— char (@BABPLEH) August 4, 2021
Ms Lim wrote that on Aug 22, 2020, the IO messaged her, stating that he had changed his mind about the evidence. She felt that apart from discrepancies regarding the collection of evidence, her IO had minimised her experience, spelt the perpetrator’s name wrongly, and did not follow up on the issue.
In her tweets, Ms Lim shared screenshots of text messages with her IO where she was asked to bring her already-washed pair or yoga pants “for investigation purposes” during a separate interview.
Ms Lim noted that the MHA agreed to change her IO for the rest of the investigation. However, she wrote: “My pants were already washed and only collected 62 days after I made my initial report to the police”.
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— char (@BABPLEH) August 4, 2021
“I hate revisiting this issue (this is so, so triggering for me) and until now my case (as with the other girls involved with Trust Yoga) hasn’t been closed. In an ideal world people who have had to deal with sexual assault shouldn’t have to also deal with internet trolls and incompetency (sic) from an organisation that claims to protect us” she wrote.
Following her Twitter thread, Ms Lim had others reaching out to her on Twitter as well with their own experiences.
TISG has reached out to Ms Lim and to MHA for comment and clarification. /TISG