Taking the stand for the first time, former Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) chief Ng Boon Gay on Monday came clean on his relationship with former IT sales executive Cecilia Sue.
Accused of four counts of sex-related graft, Ng said he had a three-year extra-marital relationship with Sue during which they had oral sex 20 to 30 times in various car parks and other secluded spots across Singapore.
Among these locations were the Singapore General Hospital car park, a car park in Mount Faber, East Coast Park and the Halifax car park in Novena.
The first encounter occurred at East Coast Park, about two to three months after they first met at around the end of 2008. Each intimate session that followed throughout the time they were together was consensual and lasted about 30 minutes, he said.
“She was a willing party and we were enjoying it together,” he said, contradicting Sue’s earlier testimony denying they had a sexual relationship.
Ng is accused of corruptly obtaining
sexual gratification on four occasions from Sue from June to December
last year by assisting to further the business interests of her then
employers Oracle Corporation Singapore and Hitachi Data Systems in dealings with CNB. If convicted, he faces a maximum fine of $100,000 for each of his four charges or up to five years of imprisonment or both
Sue claimed that on each of the four occasions cited in charges against Ng she was an unwilling partner and that in a few occasions, Ng had forcibly pushed her head towards his crotch in the car and there was contact between her mouth and his private parts.
Responding to this, Ng denied that he had ever forced her into performing fellatio on
him, even adding that their intimate sessions were "routine", following
their dinner dates.
"She was clearly a willing party, there was no force used," he said. "It was quite a routine for us to proceed to quiet spots after our dates... in most instances Cecilia would be the one who drove the car. We would go to some quiet spot, depending on where we were, we would talk in the car, we would hug and kiss, and sometimes we would engage in oral sex, sometimes not, depending on our mood and the situation. That carried on throughout the whole period (from 2009 to end-2011)."
During his cross-examination by defence counsel Tan Chee Meng, Ng asserted that there was no break in their sexual relations, apart from a short spell during the advanced stages of Sue's pregnancy where it was "inconvenient" for them to meet.
"Throughout the whole period we continued to meet up for meals, for drinks, for chit-chat, and also called each other to talk on the phone, SMS each other," he said. "We also gave each other gifts, presents, and we talked about many things... (she) consulted me on various issues during that period," he added.
They had intercourse only once in May or June 2009 in a Great World City service apartment, after which a pregnancy scare deterred them from doing it again, he recounted.
Ng said on his first meeting Sue, “I found that she was attractive, cheerful, a very interesting person to talk to.”
They got closer chatting on the phone and talking about how cancer had affected their mothers. Sue’s mother died of cancer some years back and his mum had been diagnosed with the disease at that time, he said.
She “could appreciate the stress, worries and fears that I had. Cecilia provided me with great support,” he said.
Ng took the stand after the district judge Siva Shanmugam earlier Monday ruled that the former civil servant had a case to answer.
Earlier Monday morning, deputy chief prosecutor Tan Ken Hwee
asserted that elements of corruption charges against Ng have been satisfied and
that there is a presumption of guilt when the person accused is in government
employ.
In response, Ng’s defence lawyer Tan Chee Meng argued that the prosecution’s
case did not show there was impropriety in relation to the contracts involving
Sue, and that their intimate ongoing relationship "rebuts any corrupt intent" that could have been presumed.
During the almost three hours he spent being cross-examined by Tan on Monday afternoon, Ng also answered questions about a sum of surplus budget that the CNB had from a number of ongoing projects.
The amount was eventually earmarked by CNB's IT department for the purchase of the SAN-virtualisation system from Oracle Corporation, where Sue was employed.
When asked about it, Ng said he had asked whether the extra budget could be used for renovations on the CNB building's eighth floor offices, which he said had not seen upgrades over the last decade.
The defence resumes its cross-examination in court on Tuesday morning.
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