SINGAPORE, Aug 13 — Former Singapore Idol judge Ken Lim Chih Chiang returned to the witness stand today, telling the court that one of his accusers had taken his comments on her music “too personally”.
These comments included her voice “making people cringe” and her lyrics being “too raw”, he said.
The woman, a singer-songwriter, had accused Lim of asking her “are you a virgin” and “what if I have sex with you right now” at a car park on the night of July 25, 2012.
Lim refuted these allegations while testifying on July 22, claiming that such thoughts would not cross his mind because such a scandal would be “bad for business”.
In March last year, Lim was first charged with molesting a 25-year-old woman in his office on Nov 23, 2021.
After that, four other women — including the singer-songwriter — stepped forward to file police reports over sexual remarks that Lim allegedly made to them between 1998 and 2013.
The five women cannot be named due to a gag order protecting their identities.
Lim battles a total of seven charges, which he is contesting in five separate trials.
He is testifying as the first of three witnesses called upon by the defence, which is led by Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng from law firm Wong Partnership.
The other two witnesses, Singaporean singer-songwriter Corrinne May and former Nominated Member of Parliament Gerard Ee, will take the stand at a later date.
During Tuesday’s hearing — a continuation of Lim’s testimony in July — Lim was shown several blog posts made by the woman between 2013 and 2015.
In these posts, she said negative comments on her lyrics and singing “feels like a personal attack”.
When asked by Tan about their relevance, Lim said that the negative comments she highlighted in her blog posts were similar to comments he made about her.
“She obviously was not able to accept these constructive comments and put matters into perspective,” said Lim.
“I was surprised because she basically repeated what I said during our meetings on her blog... I told her she has a voice that makes people cringe and I guess that’s something she couldn’t accept and (that) she found it crushing.”
Lim also told the woman that her lyrics were “too raw”.
When asked by his lawyer whether there was any indication from the woman that Lim’s comments impacted her during their meetings, Lim denied it.
“If I had known she does not have the ability to accept such criticism, I would not have met her. I was trying to be constructive but she took it too personally,” said Lim.
Lim will be back in court on September 2, when the prosecution will begin their cross-examination. — TODAY
