Bubble Tea Owner Found Not Guilty to Molesting 2 Teenagers Who Lied Due to a Salary Dispute

Last Updated on 2021-03-01 , 11:19 am

In 2017, a bubble tea shop owner was accused of molesting two of his female employees.

The man faced nine charges of molest, all of which he contested.

Three years later, the court came to the conclusion that no one expected:

Bubble Tea Owner Found Not Guilty to Molesting 2 Teenagers Who Lied Due to a Salary Dispute

Tan Kah Heng was cleared of all charges on Wednesday (24 Feb) after the court found inconsistencies in the alleged victims’ testimonies.

The 55-year-old was given a discharge amounting to an acquittal on eight molest charges; another charged of molest was withdrawn earlier.

District Judge Christopher Goh acquitted Tan as he did not find the girls’ claims and evidence to be “unusually convincing”.

Accused of Grabbing Their Buttocks

The two employees were secondary school classmates, aged 16 and 17 at the time of the alleged incidents, reported TODAY.

According to the 16-year-old, the first incident of molest took place on 12 Nov 2017. When she was making drinks, Tan allegedly grabbed and squeezed her buttocks.

On another occasion, Tan asked her to make a drink and allegedly slapped and grabbed her buttocks for a few seconds after he tasted the drink.

As for the third allegation, the girl said she was experiencing back pain, so Tan offered to show her a “back-cracking technique”. They two were alone in the store at the time.

He then allegedly put his arms around her and persisted in doing so even though the 16-year-old girl kept pushing him away.

She claimed that Tan also called her “baby” over text, even after she told him off for it.

In the same month, Tan allegedly brushed against the 17-year-old girl’s buttocks on five separate occasions.

Both victims lodged police reports and resigned from the store in November 2017.

A full-time manager at the store said she had witnessed two incidents of inappropriate contact between one of the victims and Tan, but not for the other.

Lawyer Accused Victims of Collusion

Tan’s defence lawyer, Chia Boon Teck, pointed out to the 16-year-old that on 12 Nov 2017, when the first alleged incident happened, records showed she was off work that day.

The girl conceded that she may have mixed up 11 and 12 Nov, and said she previously told the police that she was molested on 11 Nov.

Mr Teck then accused the girl of fabricating the first allegation and exaggerating the other offences.

The lawyer also accused her of colluding with her friend to get Tan in trouble over a salary dispute.

Mr Teck described the younger defendant’s testimony as “incredulous and unreliable” and asserted that the other alleged victim had “flip-flopped” on the dates she went to work to align them with the period of alleged molest.

As for the store manager, Mr Teck argued that she was not a credible or impartial witness as she had her own salary dispute with Tan.

Judge: Testimonies Were Not “Unusually Convincing”

In acquitting Tan, DJ Goh said that in cases involving sexual misconduct, allegations are “easy to make and, in most cases, difficult to disprove”.

“Hence it is not surprising that a victim’s evidence should be unusually convincing. In this case, they were not,” he said.

He pointed out, for instance, that the victims did not take action immediately nor inform their parents about the incidents.

The first victim told her parents about what happened two weeks after the alleged incident, after the police report was made, the judge noted.

“Even then, the evidence suggests that she was more concerned about the non-payment of her salary, rather than the acts of molest.”

As for the other defendant, the judge found her evidence “so much less convincing” than the first, citing her inability to pin down the exact dates of the alleged offences and her reactions after the incident.

The judge added that there was no evidence that Tan called the first victim “Baby” over texts.

If convicted, Tan could have been imprisoned for up to two years, fined, or both.

Feature Image: JOKE_PHATRAPONG / Shutterstock.com