A NIGHT of heavy drinking back in 2001 left a 27-year-old woman so drunk, she hailed a cab and promptly fell asleep in it, without stating her exact destination.

When she awoke the next morning, she found herself naked in bed in a Geylang hotel with her former colleague, with whom she had been drinking the night before.

A district court heard on Wednesday what happened in the intervening hours and closed the case by bundling the ex-colleague, Foo Chirk Leong, off to a seven-year jail term and six strokes of the cane for raping her on Dec 1, 2001.

He absconded to Malaysia after that and was arrested only last year.

The court heard that when the taxi driver realised his passenger had dozed off, he called the police.

It was while the police officer was going through the woman's belongings to verify her identity that Foo, then a 24-year-old bartender, called her cellphone.

The police sergeant took the call and, believing Foo to be her boyfriend, asked him to pick her up from Jurong Police Division.

Foo did so, and afterwards, took her in a cab to a hotel in Geylang, where he checked them into a room and raped her.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ferlin Jayatissa said the woman had asked Foo out for drinks the night before, and had left the pub without his knowledge when she became drunk.

Foo's lawyer Ms Gloria James said her client realised he had committed a serious offence and pleaded for leniency.

He could have been jailed up to 20 years and fined or caned.

elena@sph.com.sg