Prosecutor grills Ken Lim, says woman had no motive to falsely accuse him of sexual comments

SINGAPORE — A woman who reported Ken Lim Chih Chiang for alleged sexually inappropriate remarks had no motive to make false allegations against him, a prosecutor told a court on Monday (Sept 2).
Lim, best known for his Hype Records label and for being a judge on Singapore Idol, is set for five trials over sexual remarks he allegedly made between 1998 and 2013, as well as for an accusation of molesting a 25-year-old woman in his office at Henderson Road in November 2021.
The 60-year-old has denied all seven allegations against him by the five women.
The current trial centres around a single charge of insulting the modesty of a woman, then aged 26 in 2012.
She claimed Lim had asked her “Are you a virgin” and “What if I have sex with you right now” at a car park at Hype Records in July 2012.
She decided to report him to the police after reading news reports when Lim was first charged in court in 2023.
The alleged victim and witnesses cannot be named due to a gag order protecting her identity.
Lim’s defence lawyers previously argued that the woman, an aspiring singer-songwriter, had harboured “some small hope” of being signed by his record label and had been upset about his criticism of her music, lyrics and singing.
Lim previously took the stand and said she was making up “blatant lies”.
On Monday, Deputy Public Prosecutor Sruthi Boppana opened her cross-examination of Lim, asking him about the defence’s case that the woman bore a grudge against him.
“My claim is that she bears a grudge against me. It’s an educated guess,” said Lim.
He also agreed when Ms Boppana asked if he believed that the woman “took advantage” of the reports made by other women and “jumped on the bandwagon” to do the same.
Ms Boppana then argued that the defence’s claim that the woman bore a grudge meant she would have been “plotting” against Lim for more than 10 years. Lim responded that he did not say that.
The prosecutor said it would have to be a “remarkable coincidence” that the woman had raised Lim’s behaviour to multiple individuals from 2012 to 2013, including her sister, father and then-boyfriend.
Lim disputed that what the woman had told these witnesses implicated him in any sexually inappropriate comments to her.
When Ms Boppana added that “save for these allegations, you are irrelevant to the victim’s life and she is irrelevant to yours”, Lim responded that it was necessary to read blog posts the woman had written.
“We can all safely say that she couldn’t accept my criticisms. It’s clearly stated in her blogs.
“Because she couldn’t accept these criticisms she probably just warped our discussions into a false narrative,” he said, adding that this was to save her ego.
“She has nothing to lose by making a police report. Absolutely nothing.”
Ms Boppana also put it to Lim that his claim that the woman had a motive to falsely accuse him was “so unbelievable” that he could not bring himself to explain her motive in his statement to police, in which he described her claim as “frivolous”.
Lim responded that he had met his investigation officer several times by the time that statement was taken.
“It is my view that he has only one objective and that was to charge me with additional charges, as many as possible, in order to create that perception that numbers would provide a perception of guilt.
“So whatever I tell him wouldn’t make any difference,” said Lim.
Ms Boppana said that the defence did not raise this with the investigation officer when he testified in court, and called Lim’s claim “no more than an afterthought, a convenient explanation”.
“I put it to you the only reason the victim continued with the entire investigation process, placed her life on hold, flew back to Singapore to testify about what had happened, what you said to her in the car park, is because all she said is true,” said the prosecutor.
“I completely disagree,” Lim responded.
The trial continues on Monday. Lim is represented by Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng, Mr Paul Loy, Mr Calvin Ong and Mr Samuel Navindran of Wong Partnership.
If convicted of insulting a woman’s modesty, he faces up to a year’s jail, a fine or both. CNA
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