Sreekamal Asante Parambil Kalesan, 46-years-old, was granted a discharge amounting to an acquittal on 22 November after being accused of molesting a 17-year-old girl during a hypnotherapy session.
He cannot be charged again with the same offence.
Accused of kissing hypnotised girl
Sreekamal was working as a hypnotherapist during the alleged offence on 9 April 2017 and was accused of kissing the hypnotised girl in the face.
District Judge John Ng said in his written verdict that there were no witnesses to the alleged molestation, he said that to find an accused guilty in a situation where the court has to divide whether to believe the testimony of the accused or the alleged victim.
He said that the law requires the victim’s testimony to be reliable and must have no reasonable doubt to the truthfulness of the testimony.
He noted that the girl had difficulty recalling what happened during her hypnosis as she was in a state between conscious and unconscious, affecting her memory.
The judge also noted that it wasn’t easy to determine if the girl was hypnotised or not at the time, as well as highlighting that there were several inconsistencies when she testified – one of the inconsistencies include the girl saying that her eyes were open but then later changed it to being closed.
He said that the unsatisfactory aspects of the evidence made it “unsafe to convict the accused”.