A 28-year-old Indian in Singapore was sentenced to two years and 10 months in jail for spiking his female flatmate’s drink with the intention to rape her, PTI reported. Annadurai Prabakaran will also receive three strokes of the cane.

Prabakaran, a private bus driver who has worked in Singapore for more than seven years, planned to drug the 21-year-old and have sex with her while she was asleep, Channel NewsAsia reported, quoting court documents.

He bought two of what he thought were sleeping pills on December 9. He tested one to see if it would dissolve in water. Three days later, he used the other one to spike his flatmate’s water bottle. The woman took a sip of the water and spat it out as it tasted bitter. Suspecting that Prabakaran might have put something in the water, which appeared cloudy, the woman called her uncle’s friend for help. The friend, a woman, turned up with an older man and they confronted Prabakaran.

Prabakaran admitted to them that he had spiked the 21-year-old woman’s water bottle and pleaded for forgiveness. Then, he grabbed the water bottle and poured out its contents to erase any evidence of wrongdoing, The Straits Times reported.

However, there was still some water left inside the bottle, and the older man picked it up and alerted the police. The Health Sciences Authority analysed the water and found that it contained sildenafil, which is used to treat erectile dysfunction.