Man jailed, fined for filming women changing in flats, possession of obscene films

SINGAPORE: A 44-year-old man was sentenced to jail and fined on Tuesday (Jul 31) for filming women changing and for the possession of obscene films.

Lo Ji Sum, a sales manager, met his alleged accomplice Khoo Fook Mun, a shipping executive who is of the same age, on the Sammyboy Forum website. 

They used the site, as well as other similar websites, to watch videos of women undressing.

Court documents said they have known each other for more than 20 years.

In early July 2016, the two men were having breakfast at a coffee shop when they began discussing how women dressed. They made a plan to roam around a block of flats in Queenstown to see if they could watch any woman changing.

They planned to do this at around 8am as women would be getting ready for work at that time, court documents said.

TARGETS PICKED AT COFFEE SHOP

Lo and Khoo visited three blocks in Queenstown as they were near Khoo's workplace and they could go to nearby coffee shops to eat.

While eating, they took note of which units had lights on in them, and later checked on the units to see if there were any women inside.

Khoo was on the lookout while Lo recorded videos of the victims. They picked units with silver grilles and windows so that Lo's phone, which was silver, would be less visible. They carried this plan out about 15 times in July 2016. 

Their victims included a pair of sisters aged 29 and 33. On the morning of Jul 25, 2016, the sisters were in their bedroom getting ready for work.

Their bedroom faced the common corridor and the row of louvre windows at the top half was open.

The two men walked past the victims' unit in search of women dressing for work and noticed that the louvre windows were not secured.

Lo took his iPhone 6S Plus and slid it through the window with the camera facing down. He took two photos and two videos of one of the sisters changing from a towel into her work clothes, while Khoo kept a lookout.

Lo then took two photos and two videos of the other sister. The videos showed her changing out of a towel into work clothes, while the photos showed her putting on make-up.

When she turned around and saw Lo's phone, she shouted and Lo immediately withdrew his phone and ran away with Khoo.

Later that same day, Lo used the Airplay function on his iPhone to send the two videos of the first sister to Khoo.

NABBED BY POLICE IN QUEENSTOWN 

Police identified the two men and arrested them at a lift lobby in Queenstown on Aug 1, 2016, while they were preparing to scout for women again.

Forensic investigations on Lo's phone revealed three obscene photos of Lo and his wife in the nude. Further investigations showed that Lo had sent these photos to Khoo in 2015.

Other devices including a Macbook Pro and thumbdrives were seized as case exhibits after the men were arrested.

Forensic investigations found 1,424 video files containing the same number of films without a valid certificate in Lo's possession. Lo also had 413 obscene films.

On Tuesday, District Judge Carol Ling sentenced Lo to 12 weeks' jail on six charges of insulting the modesty of a woman, distributing obscene material and offences under the Films Act.

He was also fined S$20,000 for possessing films without a valid certificate.

Lo could have been jailed for up to a year and fined for insulting the modesty of a woman, and jailed for up to three months and fined for distributing obscene material by electronic means.

For possessing uncensored films, he could have been fined at least S$100 per film up to a total of S$20,000.

Lo's alleged accomplice Khoo will be in court next month.