A piercing, fearful scream.
I think tt we should contact reporter Melissa Sim to enquire how we can help the victim (s), financially or otherwise . . . The first came to SG to work but will soon leave very, very traumatised. . .
http://www.straitstimes.com/portal/site/STI/menuitem.c2aef3d65baca16abb31f610a06310a0/?vgnextoid=6fadbe120b93a010VgnVCM1000000a35010aRCRD&vgnextfmt=vgnartid:90f11fbb1e832110VgnVCM100000430a0a0aRCRD:vgnpdate:1177883940000 In case:
http://sg-bloggerbee.blogspot.com/2007/05/rapists-case_01.htmlST 28.4.07: Victims still haunted by attack
IT'S no wonder one victim of the Balestier rapist suffers nightmares - she still sleeps in the bedroom where the brutal attack occurred last November.
The 18-year-oldfrom China has remained at the ground-floor flat but is still clearly traumatised by her ordeal at the hands of Ser Eng Siong.
She has difficulty sleeping, has nightmares and has become withdrawn and fearful of men, according to a report by consultant psychiatrist Bernadine Woo.
The woman's distress was evident when the The Sunday Times visited her last week after she had just return from work.
Dressed in a red T-shirt and shorts, she said in Mandarin that she would be going home in a week.
Why didn't she do that after the incident? "Things are complicated," she said with her head buried in her pillow on the bottom bunk of a rickety metal bunk bed.
When Ser went to the toilet to wash his hands after raping her, she did not flee but instead hid her valuables for fear they might be stolen.
It suggests finances may have played a part in delaying her departure for China.
When asked what she thought of Ser's sentence - 28 years behind bars and 24 strokes of the cane - she said: "I don't know. I don't want to know."
The woman, who lived with her mum before corning here, did not say if she had told her divorced parents of the rape.
Ser's two other victims have left the flat where they were attacked but the incident still haunts them.
A report by consultant psychiatrist Joshua Kua found that the 20-year-old woman, a virgin at the time, avoids using the toilet alone and is startled if someone suddenly opens the door.
The third victim, a 22-year-old student, frequently locks her room for fear of intruders: and is afraid to take the lift alone.
She once saw a man with tinted hair in a crowd and fled, fearing it was Ser.
And while the 18-year-old was non-committal in her answers, once left alone, she expressed her anguish in another way - a piercing, fearful scream.
Melissa Sim.
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