Doctor accused of assaulting girlfriend says he can't remember incident

A doctor on trial for brutally beating up his then girlfriend after she refused to have sex with him testified in court yesterday that he had no recollection of what happened.

Taking the stand on the second day of the trial, Clarence Teo Shun Jie, 35, a locum - or stand-in doctor - also admitted that he suffered from severe alcoholism.

Teo, who is represented by lawyer Tan Hee Joek, is claiming trial to two charges - one of causing grievous hurt to Ms Rachel Lim En Hui, 27, and another of wrongfully confining her to his bedroom on Aug 27, 2017, between 2am and around 4am.

He is accused of punching her repeatedly, hitting her head against the wall and leaving her with multiple facial fractures and a fracture to her left little finger.

Teo, who had met Ms Lim on dating app Coffee Meets Bagel at the start of 2017, told the court that they had openly shared with each other about their mental issues.

According to him, Ms Lim said she was suffering from bipolar disorder and was taking three types of medication for it - quetiapine, an anti-psychotic medication, lamotrigine, a mood stabiliser, and zopiclone, a sleeping pill.

Teo, in turn, told her he had a serious drinking problem, and had lost jobs and had relationships affected because of it. He said he was asked to leave Gleneagles Hospital after turning up for work drunk.

On one occasion, he had also called his superior in the army and scolded him in a drunken stupor.

Teo said: "I did crazy things... I had woken up in the streets of Vietnam. I presumed the bar people had thrown me out... The list goes on.

"I did inexplicable things that were quite shameful and embarrassing."

Teo told the court that on Aug 26, 2017, the night of the alleged assault, Teo and Ms Lim went for dinner at a restaurant.

They then went to a karaoke studio to sing, and Ms Lim said she wanted to order some drinks because it would help her sing better.

After that, they went to a Thai disco and continued drinking.

SEX IN CAR

In the car ride back to his flat in Redhill Close, Teo claimed that Ms Lim had given him oral sex while he was driving, and it was not the first time it had happened.

This was different from Ms Lim's testimony on Monday, where she said they would have sex in the car occasionally but she had never performed oral sex on him while he was driving.

Teo then said he remembered that they went to his flat and had sex.

He said he had a vague recollection of someone arresting him and then woke up in a cell the next day.

In contrast to his testimony, Deputy Public Prosecutors April Phang and Amanda Sum told the court on Monday that Teo had become enraged and aggressive when Ms Lim expressed reluctance to have sex with him.

"When she tried to leave the room to escape from him, he pursued her, forced her back into the room and locked the door," they said.

"This was followed by a violent assault wherein the accused punched the victim's face repeatedly with great force and hit the victim's head against the wall."

Teo said yesterday that he did not even know where he was when he woke up and someone told him that he was in the Police Cantonment Complex.

After he was bailed out, Teo said he went home and saw Ms Lim's bottle of zopiclone on the table.

He then vaguely recollected that Ms Lim had offered him the medication the night of the incident, contradicting Ms Lim's earlier testimony that she had never given him "medication to eat".

The court heard that no tests were done on Teo to check for the presence of medication.

Teo also said Miss Lim had offered zopiclone to him before as he would become like a "peaceful cat" after taking the medication.

He had also taken another of her bipolar medication, quetiapine, but had flown into a rage and started screaming at Ms Lim and threatening her over the phone.

Teo also said he had an agreement with Ms Lim that he would not drink in front of her and that he would seek treatment for it.

RELAPSE

But he claimed he suffered a relapse after she attempted suicide by swallowing hundreds of pills around her birthday in mid-2017, which landed her in hospital.

Teo said he would go home and continue drinking alone after visiting her.

The court heard that Teo had stopped drinking since October 2017 and has been going for Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He is also seeking treatment for his alcohol abuse.

Teo is now out on bail of $15,000.

The trial resumes today.