THE STRAITS TIMES
FEB 9, 2003
The two faces of Raymond Pok
Devoted son
Good boyfriend
Model worker
Posing as a teen and promising cash for sex, Pok lured girls into a rape trap and threatened to blackmail them with photos. But to friends and family, he seemed anything but the sex fiend that he was. BEN NADARAJAN reports
EVERY night, Raymond Pok would spend almost an hour on the phone whispering sweet nothings to his girlfriend, May, in Thailand.
Then he would get off the phone and go online to prey on young girls, inviting them to be his 'temporary girlfriends' for cash.
Last March, barely four months after he hooked up with May, he raped two girls, aged 13 and 14.
May, a 19-year-old undergraduate who speaks fluent English, says she knew nothing of his dark side. Her Pok was a 'sweet gentleman' who visited her often in Bangkok and always made her feel confident and good about herself.
Yes, he did ask her for sex, she admitted in an overseas call with The Sunday Times.
'But I told him I am not comfortable with it and he accepted it and we just hugged and kissed.'
Never once was he rough with her or force her to do anything against her will, she said. He was arrested last July, and she found out only when she called his home while he was in remand. His family told her everything.
'I did not know what to say,' she recalled. 'I wanted to hang up the phone and dial again to check if I had called the correct number.
'I did not believe it was him because it sounded so different from the man I know.'
Even though Pok pleaded guilty, she still loves him.
'I wondered how I could still love a person who did so many bad things, but even now, I cannot get him out of my mind,' she said.
She used up much of her savings to come here last November for two weeks. She did not get to see him as only family members are allowed to visit prisoners on remand.
So Pok's mother, Madam Chua Bee Eng, played postman, passing love notes and messages between the pair.
Madam Chua said her son's last message to May before she went home was: 'I love you very much, but please do not wait for me. Find yourself a good man to take care of you and love you.'
May broke down on hearing those words.
Pok's colleagues at the Sony Precision Engineering Center, where he had worked as an assistant engineer since December 2000, described him as very shy and quiet.
Thin and bespectacled, Pok was especially shy around women, said one man who worked with him.
'He always seemed to blush when we talked about women and relationships but he mentioned that he had found a girl he loved in Thailand,' said the man in his 30s.
Pok was also a model employee. His manager, Mr Kan Shik Mang, told the court that Pok was 'always willing and able to take on increased responsibility'.
He called Pok a 'quick learner with sound analytical skill' and said he has a 'positive attitude and is very hardworking and independent'.
Pok's mother, a production operator, says he was hardworking but rather childish. She told The Sunday Times a day after he was sentenced: 'Until his arrest, he was still asking me to shave him,' she said in between sobs.
When he came home from work, he often planted himself in front of the computer for hours, refusing to eat.
'I thought he was busy doing his work, so I did not disturb him,' said Madam Chua.
Pok kept his feelings and his activities to himself. p> She said: 'After he was arrested, he just said to me, 'Mummy, I did very bad things which will make you lose face. I would rather have died than make our family embarrassed.' '
A sex fiend who used Net to find rape victims
THE pervert took over as soon as Raymond Pok went online.
Usually it would be in the dark, while his sisters, with whom he shared a bedroom in the family's three-room flat in Bukit Purmei, were sound asleep.
Last March, he posted this message in an Internet chatroom, Teens' Channel: 'Will pay $500 for temporary girlfriend.'
He spun a sob story any teen could empathise with: His girlfriend had dumped him and he wanted to show her he could find someone else.
He had done it before. In 1999, a 14-year-old girl who responded to his message carried on a sexual relationship with him for more than two years.
The two young girls who responded to his ploy in March did so out of curiosity. He claimed to be a teen like them and spent hours coaxing them to meet him, claiming he only wanted kisses and affection. Instead, he took them separately to a multi-storey carpark and raped them.
His promised the 14-year-old a $50 hongbao if she did what he wanted.
But he not only raped her but switched the $50 in the hongbao with a piece of paper. All she got was chlamydia, a sexually-transmitted disease that can cause infertility.
He took the 13-year-old to the same carpark, with a video camera that he started even as he began undressing her.
One of his victims spoke to The Sunday Times after Pok was sentenced on Tuesday. She said she'd never had a boyfriend before.
'I was just too curious for my own good. I wanted to see if this guy was cute and why he had to find a girlfriend on the Net,' she said.
She described Pok as a sweet-talker who gave the impression that he was a sensitive guy looking for some affection.
'He always had a way of countering any arguments I had for not meeting him.'
However, when they met, he hardly said a word and did not seem interested in anything about her, 'except for my body', the girl recalled.
Tears welling in her eyes, she added: 'I always had the idea that my first sexual encounter would be with someone I love and who loves me. But that beautiful dream will now always be just a fantasy.'
She has avoided chatrooms ever since and rarely goes online now except to do research for her schoolwork. The traumatised teenager is now seeing a psychiatrist.
Pok had threatened to post the girls' nude pictures online or send it to their friends and family. He did this to buy their silence and to get more sex. His first victim allowed herself to be raped three more times.
But it also led to the second girl reporting him to the police because she could not take his harassment any longer.
Pok was arrested in July after police officers laid a trap and arrested him at Joo Chiat Complex. His saving grace was probably that he pleaded guilty early, sparing his victims the embarrassment of having to speak in court.
