2007 09: Woman: Cops harassed me after rape report

The Star online. News. Courts. Friday September 14, 2007

By CHELSEA L.Y. NG

KUALA LUMPUR: A housewife lodged a report after her eight-year-old daughter was raped but instead of giving her protection, policemen harassed her, she told the High Court.

She told Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat yesterday that the police’s inaction led to her then nine-year-old son being assaulted and finally her husband being murdered in October 2001.

“My son and husband were attacked by the thugs so that the rape report would be withdrawn,” she said to questions by her counsel M. Manoharan.

The 32-year-old mother of four said she had not choice but to sue the police who failed to protect her family after the rape report on July 12, 2001.

In the suit, she named two OCPDs, the city police chief, the Inspector-General of Police and the Government as defendants.

She is seeking RM450,500 in special damages.

The defendants denied the allegations and claimed that police surveillance was carried out near her house for the purpose of protecting her and her family.

The woman said that after her husband’s death, she had to give up her last child, a daughter, for adoption as she could not afford to raise the four children by herself.

“My husband was a rubbish scavenger. After his death, I was not harassed by the thugs anymore but by the police,” she said.

The woman said that following her husband’s death, she was asked to go to the Sentul police station and from there brought to the courthouse near Dataran Merdeka here.

“The policemen told me that I had lodged a false police report and I would be charged in court,” she said.

She added that she was later asked to sign a paper, the contents of which she could not understand.

The policemen then took her back to Sentul and left her at a bus stop, she said.

“One of them told me that since the paper had been signed, they would not look for me anymore,” she said.

Cross-examined by senior federal counsel Amarjeet Singh, the woman denied that she had concocted the rape story.

The hearing continues today.