SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): A 21-year-old cleaner broke into a two-storey house in the middle of the night in 2022 while he was drunk, undeterred even after he cut his hands on barbed wire while climbing over a fence.
After getting into the house through an unlocked window, Andrew Kumaravel searched for money. He then entered a bedroom and tried to rape the 58-year-old woman sleeping there.
She woke up and put up a struggle, and he fled the house, leaving behind his shorts and underwear.
The Malaysian man was arrested on the same day after he was traced through fingerprint analysis.
On Sept 16, Kumaravel, now 23, was sentenced to 9½ years’ jail and six strokes of the cane after he pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted rape, a charge of housebreaking, and a charge of voyeurism for an unrelated incident.
Four other charges, including a charge of voluntarily causing hurt to the 58-year-old woman, were taken into consideration during sentencing.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Claire Poh told the court that on the night of April 14, 2022, Kumaravel was drinking beer and watching pornographic videos on his mobile phone in a storeroom at his workplace, which was in an industrial building separated by fencing from the house next to it.
WWhen he stepped out for a smoke, he spotted the victim changing clothes in her bedroom.
Shortly before 2am the next morning, he decided to break into the house. He first climbed over a barbed wire fence, cutting his hands in the process, then climbed over the metal fence of the house.
As the door to the house was locked, he tested multiple windows and eventually found one that was unlocked.
Once inside, he searched for money on the first floor, then decided to go up to the second floor, knowing that the victim was in one of the rooms.
After opening the door to her room, he took off his shorts and underwear, and placed them by the doorway with his other personal belongings.
He then climbed onto the woman’s bed and restrained her. The woman, who had woken up by this point, shouted and struggled with him on her bed.
Kumaravel choked the victim and tried to pull down her shorts, but she resisted and grabbed his neck.
He bit her finger, and in defence, she bit him on the arm. At some point during the scuffle, he intentionally hit her in the eye.
The woman’s mother, awoken by the commotion, then shouted, asking why there was so much noise.
Fearing he would be caught, Kumaravel stopped struggling with the victim and ran out of her room.
He left the house the same way he had entered, returned to his workplace at about 2.30am, and threw his T-shirt into a dustbin there.
The victim called the police at about 2.40am on April 15. Kumaravel was arrested at about 11.40am that day.
The attempted rape was committed while he was on bail for voyeurism.
Kumaravel used to live with several other people in a unit with just one toilet for them to use.
One of his housemates, a 44-year-old Malaysian woman, spotted his mobile phone placed on a pipe while she was showering on March 5, 2022. She made a police report two days later.
Kumaravel was arrested on March 8, 2022, and released on personal bond. His phone was seized by the police.
Aside from the recorded video of the complainant, the phone contained another video of two other housemates in the shower on March 6, 2022. - The Straits Times/ANN
