THREE hours after she was allegedly raped, her boyfriend called the police behind her back.

The 17-year-old girl had earlier told him not to tell the cops, threatening to kill herself if he did so.

Yesterday, on the third day of the trial, the court was told that the girl had confided in her boyfriend through online messaging.

The teenager had allegedly been gang-raped at a Woodlands flat between 4am and 6am on 26 Dec last year.

Five youths, Muhammad Shafie Ahmad Abdullah, 19, Mohd Sadruddin Azman, 19, Lim Boon Tai, 20, Rishi Mohan, 17, and Mohamed Firdaus Roslan, 18, are on trial for the alleged attack.

Station Inspector (SI) Kim Lai Kuan testified yesterday that the girl's boyfriend had called the police at about 8.45am on Boxing Day last year.

The boyfriend had told the police: "Around 2am, a group of men dragged my girlfriend into a van and molested her."

He added that his girlfriend did not know he was calling the police and said he was willing to meet the police at his flat.

He also said: "She told me (over online chat) that if I told the police, she'll kill herself."

Hours later, around noon, when three police officers turned up at her flat, the girl appeared "surprised" and "dishevelled".

Her hair was "unkempt" and her black eye make-up was smudged with patches of powder on her face.

The teenager's eyes were puffy and she appeared to be "in a daze".

Sergeant Mohammad Ridzuan Abdul Samad testified yesterday that he and the other two officers had spoken to the girl in her living room.

She told them that she was "brought into a van by a group of male subjects".

He said: "(She said that) subsequently, she was taken to an unknown place, where she was molested."

The unknown place was later established to be the Woodlands flat belonging to Shafie's parents.

Later, under cross-examination by Sadruddin's lawyer, Mr Peter Ong, Sergeant Mohammad Ridzuan said that the girl told them that she had been "abducted from the void deck of her HDB block".

Playing card games

She claimed that she was first sexually assaulted inside the van.

The officer also said that the girl was "not forthcoming" and his female colleague, SI Kim, had to prompt her with questions.

He added that during their conversation in the living room, the girl never mentioned that she had been raped.

But she later asked to speak to SI Kim privately in her bedroom, and that was when she revealed that she had been raped and sexually assaulted.

Continuing her testimony yesterday morning, SI Kim said she had asked the girl why she had initially told them that she had been only "molested".

The girl replied that it was because she felt "frightened and ashamed" of what had happened to her, and did not tell "the whole story".

The court was earlier told that she and the five accused had been playing card games at Shafie's flat.

She drank at least five cups of an alcoholic cocktail, which made her head feel "heavy".

She was also sleepy and tried to resist when Lim made sexual advances at her, but finally gave in and had sex with him.

Under cross-examination by Lim's lawyer, MrRamesh Tiwary, SI Kim said that after they had sex, the girl sat in the living room.

The five accused then went into a bedroom and she was told to enter.

When she went in, the lights were not on. She was then pulled onto a mattress, stripped and allegedly raped.

In court yesterday, Shafie, Sadruddin and Rishi looked more tense compared to Lim and Firdaus, who are both out on $50,000 bail each.

The three, who are in remand, wore prison jackets, similar black-rimmed plastic spectacles and red identification tags on their left wrists.

Lim, dressed in a black long-sleeved shirt with faded blue jeans, wore a chunky gold watch on his left wrist, and yawned occasionally.

The five looked solemn during the trial but during breaks in the proceedings, they looked relaxed and chatted in hushed tones.

The trial continues.

This article was first published in The New Paper.