He sees friend raping woman but does nothing

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http://news.asiaone.com/news/crime/he-sees-friend-raping-woman-does-nothing

Mr George Tan Xiang Long was woken up by the sound of a woman screaming. She was trying to fight off his friend, who was raping her in the bedroom.

His friend, Lim Jia Yi, 23, was sentenced on Wednesday to eight years' jail and eight strokes of the cane for raping the woman last year.

The woman, now 25, cannot be named as she is the victim of a sex crime.

She had befriended Lim, who was a full-time national serviceman, in April or May 2011, at a drinking session in a pub. They then met two or three times to smoke at the void deck of her block.

Lim asked her to go for a drink at about 10.30pm on Jan 10 last year. It was the first time they had gone out together. Together with Lim's friend, Mr Larry Ng Teck Meng, and his girlfriend, they went to Barbarella pub at Sembawang Road and drank beer.

They left at about 1am to go to Club Nana in Central Mall, where they had more drinks and danced.

They left in a taxi at 3am and dropped Mr Ng's girlfriend off before heading to a Yishun flat, where Mr Ng shared a room with Mr Tan.

Mr Tan was asleep on the lower bunk of a double-decker bed. Mr Ng took out a mattress for Lim and the woman to rest on before turning off the lights and going to sleep on the upper bunk. Lim then forced himself on top of his victim, covered her mouth with his hand and used the other to pull down her tights and panties.

She struggled and shouted for help, crying out: "Bu yao" ("don't want" in Mandarin). But Lim ignored her attempts to break free, even when she bit him, and raped her for about 10 minutes.

But her screams woke Mr Tan up. He saw the attack and did nothing, the court was told. Even when she later locked herself in a toilet and shouted for help, Mr Tan did not help or call the police.

She tried to find ways to escape as she feared having to return to the room, the court was told. She then broke the glass panels of the windows, stuck her head out and screamed that she had been kidnapped.

An occupant in the flat below, Miss Amanda Wang, 20, heard her shouts and called the police.

Domestic helper Lucia Habah Sumaway also heard the screams and alerted Mr Tan and Mr Ng. Mr Tan forced open the toilet door and told Lim and his victim to leave.

The woman then ran downstairs to the void deck and called the police.