Court of Appeal gives full written reasons for acquitting content creator Lev Panfilov

SINGAPORE – The unresolved inconsistencies in the testimony of a woman who accused online content creator Lev Panfilov of raping her gave the Court of Appeal reason to doubt her account of a violent sexual assault.

But neither her account of a rape nor Panfilov’s account of consensual sex was more believable than the other, the court said in written grounds issued on Nov 5.

“In such a situation, the court could only be guided by the ‘cornerstone of our criminal jurisprudence’ that, where the evidence may lead to two equally reasonable results, that suffices to establish reasonable doubt.”

In a 92-page judgment, the court, comprising Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Justice Ang Cheng Hock and Justice Sushil Nair, set out its detailed reasons for acquitting Panfilov on Sept 2.

The woman had accused Panfilov of sexually assaulting her in his bedroom on Jan 12, 2021.

He was then a scriptwriter and actor with YouTube channel Wah!Banana. She had worked as a model and actress and was trying to branch into comedy.

They “matched” on Tinder in early January 2021. A few days later, on Jan 12, they met at a restaurant at Robertson Quay, and made their separate ways to Panfilov’s condominium unit, which he shared with flatmates.

They sat on Panfilov’s bed to work on her script. For about 1½ hours, they talked about writing characters and watched videos that they found funny.

On Jan 18, the woman lodged a police report alleging that he had raped and sexually assaulted her.

Panfilov maintained that they had consensual sex. He suggested that she made the police report because she was not happy that he later “ghosted” her, referring to a situation in which one person cuts off communication with another.

He was initially sentenced to 11½ years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane in May 2025, after a High Court judge convicted him on two counts of rape, one count of sexual assault by penetration, and one count of outrage of modesty.

On Sept 2, he won his appeal and was acquitted of all four charges.

In its written grounds on Nov 5, the court went into detail on the various inconsistencies and unresolved questions.

One of them related to whether the woman had screamed during the alleged assault.

When she was medically examined on Jan 18, 2021, she told the doctor that she had screamed and only stopped because Panfilov forcefully prevented her from doing so.

On the other hand, her testimony in court implied that she made a deliberate choice not to scream because, among other reasons, she was fearful of him.

The court rejected the prosecution’s characterisation of this as a “minor inconsistency”.

The change in her testimony “suggested that the complainant may have embellished the facts” and gave force to the defence’s theory that she abandoned her original account because of a belated realisation that it could not be reconciled with the evidence of others in the unit on the night of the incident.

More to come.

Selina Lum is senior law correspondent at The Straits Times.