A 41-YEAR-OLD Singaporean port worker who pulled a Chinese national into his rented room in Geylang and raped her was sent to jail for eight years and ordered to be caned 10 strokes on Monday.

K. Mahendran will also have to serve another two weeks in prison for a separate incident - committed two months after the rape - in which he punched a hotel cleaner who was trying to wake him up after he had spent the night with a prostitute.

Although he is officially registered as living in a Housing Board flat, Mahendran had been living in a rented room in Geylang since early April last year.

For more The Straits Times stories, click here.