Court of Appeal reserves judgment over TikToker’s appeal against 2025 rape conviction, sentence

AI generated

SINGAPORE - Former Wah!Banana scriptwriter-actor and TikToker Lev Panfilov on Aug 13 appealed against his conviction and sentence for raping a woman he had met on Tinder.

The Court of Appeal said it would be reserving its judgment as more time was needed to look over the evidence.

Panfilov had been sentenced to 11½ years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane on May 19, 2025, after being convicted by the High Court over two counts of rape, one count of sexual assault by penetration, and one count of outrage of modesty.

The incident took place on Jan 12, 2021, in Panfilov’s bedroom after he invited the woman back to the flat he shared with flatmates to work on her script.

Panfilov does not deny he had sex with the woman but said the encounter was consensual. He said she had made the first advances – laughing at his jokes, tapping on his leg and stroking his thigh.

The woman, who was then 30 years old, had worked as an actress and model and was trying to branch out into comedy writing. The pair had met on dating app Tinder and chatted online before meeting at a restaurant in Robertson Quay.

She had previously testified she had met Panfilov as she wanted to get some advice from him on scriptwriting.

On Aug 13, Panfilov’s lawyer Johannes Hadi had questioned why the woman told the doctor at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital that she had screamed for help during the assault, but later recanted it during the trial.

Said Hadi: “Our theory as to why there is an inconsistency about why she said she screamed and why she recanted it later during the trial is because she knew there were others in the flat at night.”

Discrepancy

The court had accepted there was at least one other person, Panfilov’s flatmate, at home during the incident.

Said the judges: “On this point, there is a discrepancy between what she said to the doctor and what she said in court. If the contention is that she did scream, it then runs into a problem with the fact that there were at least one or two witnesses in the flat at the time.”

The court said the materiality of whether the woman had told the doctor if she screamed came into play because when the case was brought to trial, the woman said she meant she had wanted to scream. The woman also said her accounts were inconsistent because the doctor had made a mistake and misunderstood her.

The court said: “If she had screamed, others would have presumably heard it. There is certainly a doubt of whether the evidence changed because of the significance of surrounding evidence.”

In response, the prosecution said they accepted the doctor’s notes were in all likelihood accurate.

Said the prosecution: “We can’t go beyond the evidence. Our submission is simply the victim may have misspoke. Our position was that there was a misunderstanding.”

Hadi said according to the woman, she cried at home after the rape when she saw blood in her underwear while taking it off.

A few days later, she explored making a police report but later decided not to as she told the officer she was afraid she would not be believed as there was no evidence of the assault.

Hadi said: “This is very peculiar, for someone to go to the police and say they are worried they wouldn’t be believed as there was no evidence... knowing there was a pair of bloodied panties at home.”

Memo request denied

Hadi argued the woman visited a doctor around four days after the assault to ask for a memo to state she had suffered vaginal injuries and was raped. When the doctor rejected her request as she would have to make a police report first, the woman asked the doctor to cancel any records of her visit.

Hadi added: “This is not a minor detail. Asking for a memo was the predominant reason for her visit to the doctor. The doctor’s evidence was that when she declined to provide the memo, (the woman) did not even accept any medication for her pain.”

The judges also brought up the CCTV footage captured of the pair in the lift lobby of Panfilov’s apartment - pointing out that from a purely physical evidence standpoint, she was seen almost without a hair out of place.

This was in the context that the woman had said in her statement that she was suffering from a 10 out of 10 pain from the assault and she had been manhandled by Panfilov, the court added.

Said the court: “My point is if you’ve been through that and you’re not disheveled, one would expect an explanation. But if there’s no explanation then it is inconsistent with the account of what had happened.”

In response, the prosecution said the woman had explained her hair was not easily messed up due to the nature and texture of it. She had also said she could walk without difficulty after the assault and had tried to manage the pain internally.