Police say they are awaiting the results of medical tests before they can verify an Australian woman’s rape complaint against a tuk-tuk driver and another man.
In a complaint filed with the Taling Chan police station, the woman said that a tuk-tuk driver and another man sexually assaulted her in scrubland near the deserted Wattachak building on Boromratchonnanee Soi 43 in Taling Chan district around 4am on Dec 5.
Metropolitan Police Bureau chief Sanit Mahathavorn said on Saturday that police had examined footage from closed-circuit television cameras in the area during the time the assault was said to have occurred. The footage showed a total of 20 tuk-tuks travelling from Phra Nakhon district of Bangkok across the Pin Klao Bridge to Thon Buri during that time. Of the total, five passed the scene of the alleged rape.
Investigators would look into whether any drivers of the five vehicles were involved. The backgrounds of all tuk-tuk drivers would be checked, Daily News Online reported.
Pol Lt Gen Sanit said CCTV showed the Australian woman walking with a foreign man on Khao San Road in Phra Nakhon district one hour after the night spots in the popular tourist area closed on Dec 5. About one hour later, the pair were seen at the Khok Wua intersection, just 400 metres or 10 minutes away by foot.
The city police chief said investigators wanted to establish where the woman and the foreign man had gone during the one-hour interval.
The results of the medical checkups would take about two weeks, he said. If a false complaint was made, legal action would be taken against the woman, he added.
Pol Col Thanawat Taraka, chief of the Taling Chan station, said on Friday that police had found contradictions and inconsistencies in the woman's story. There were no bruises on her body when she filed the complaint with police on Dec 5, Thai media reported.