Son admits to lifting sleeping mum's nightie

But he denies raping her; accusations are aimed at forcing him to leave flat, he says

File photograph of a posed sex predator. PHOTO: THE NEW PAPER

A 33-year-old man accused of raping and molesting his biological mother yesterday denied the allegations she made against him.

He did, however, admit to lifting up his mother's nightdress while she was asleep because he was drunk and "wanted to see her private parts".

His 56-year-old mum woke up and asked him: "Apa ini, Boy?" - what is this, Boy, in Malay - but he pretended not to hear her and went to lie on his mattress, said the accused, who is known to his family as Boy.

She then woke him up several hours later and had breakfast with him at a nearby coffee shop, as if nothing had happened, he said.

The accused, who was testifying on the seventh day of his trial, is facing one charge each of rape, molestation and aggravated molestation.

His mother has accused him of forcing himself on her after he returned home at about 2.30am on Oct 4, 2013. "I'm willing to swear to God, that did not happen," he said.

Speaking in English, he said his mother and stepfather had conspired to accuse him of rape, in a bid to make him leave the one-bedroom flat they shared.

"She wanted me to be in jail for good," he said, when asked by his lawyer, Senior Counsel Harry Elias, why she would do this.

The accused said this was because he often returned home drunk, was rude to his mother and stepfather, liked to play music loudly and intruded on their privacy.

But the prosecution sought to poke holes in his story. Deputy Public Prosecutor S. Sellakumaran said based on the accused's own account, it was his mother who had invited him to live with her in March 2013.

"If she didn't want you in the house anymore, she can just say 'leave the house'," said Mr Sellakumaran. The accused replied: "It's difficult for her to tell me to leave the house."

If his mother had wanted to get him into trouble, Mr Sellakumaran said, she could have reported him for lifting her nightdress, which was enough to constitute an offence.

"Instead, your mother made up a more embarrassing story? That is what you want us to believe?" he asked. "Yes," said the accused.

Mr Sellakumaran said when the mother was on the stand, the accused's version of events about the nightdress and the coffee shop never even came up in questioning. "This story is something you thought about after she took the stand," he said. "No, this is something that happened on Oct 4," the accused replied.

In his testimony, the accused talked about how his mother was absent in his childhood years.

He and his two brothers were cared for by their paternal grandmother and later placed in a welfare home for six years. She never visited them, he said. Once, when he was 15, he went to her house to look for her, to seek "motherly attention"; she was wearing only a bra when she saw him, gave him $2 and told him to go back, he said.

In 2006, he lived with his mother, stepfather and brothers in a four-room flat before he moved out in 2009. He said he often quarrelled with his mother and called her names like "cheap whore", while she called him a "bad Muslim" for drinking. But at his birthday celebration in 2013, she kissed him on the cheek and asked him to live with her, he said.

The trial was adjourned yesterday and will resume on Sept 7.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on July 23, 2016, with the headline Son admits to lifting sleeping mum's nightie. Subscribe