4 weeks’ jail for former Drew & Napier lawyer who took intrusive photos of female colleague

SINGAPORE — A lawyer was sentenced to four weeks in jail on Monday (June 8) for taking intrusive photos of a female colleague in 2017 when they were both working at Drew & Napier, one of Singapore’s biggest law firms.

Last November, the accused, a Singaporean who graduated with the highest distinction from a local university, claimed trial to all of the four charges he faced — three charges of taking intrusive photographs and one molestation charge. 

But on Monday, the man, whose name and age cannot be revealed due to a gag order protecting the victim’s identity, decided to plead guilty to two of his charges. 

The other two charges were taken into consideration during his sentencing.

WHAT HAPPENED

The court heard that the accused, the victim and another colleague would frequently go for lunches, dinners and movies together. 

If they were both working late, the accused and the victim would often wait for each other to finish work before taking a taxi home separately. 

Sometime in April 2017, he went to her cubicle and took compromising photographs of her while she was seated facing her computer, wearing a dress with a loose-fitting neckline. 

He leaned over her from behind on the pretext of reading something on her computer screen and positioned his mobile phone over her shoulder to take the photographs.

Shortly after, he returned to his room, an office space he shared with another lawyer, to review the photographs he had just taken.

Feeling sexually aroused, he returned to her office a few minutes later to take more photos — this time, sneaking several photographs of her panties.

In another incident on Oct 11 that year, the victim was having lunch in her office when he entered the room and closed the door behind him. 

He started to chat with her while seated on the floor. 

When she swivelled her chair to face him, he started to take upskirt photographs of her using his mobile phone.

The victim started noticing that something was amiss and swivelled her chair back to face her desk. 

The accused continued talking to the victim to try to get her to face him again. 

Twice, he asked her to show him her lunch while his camera lens was still facing her legs.

He later stood up, walked towards her desk, sat on it and pressed his thigh against her upper arm as he spoke to her. 

The victim reported the matter to the police about a month later.

LAWYER WAS ‘SUFFERING UNDER IMMENSE STRESS’

The accused’s lawyer, Mr Tan Hee Joek of Tan See Swan & Co, sought a sentence of two weeks’ jail on Monday, urging the court to consider that he had taken the photographs while “suffering under immense stress”.

He said his client is “not a person who is prone to taking upskirt pictures” and was actively seeking professional help for his stress problems. 

He also said that his client had “swiftly” deleted the photographs after they were taken.

Mr Tan said his client was forced to leave the law firm he was hired at after leaving Drew & Napier as word got round in the legal fraternity when his trial started. 

Deputy Public Prosecutors Kelly Ho and Sheldon Lim, however, argued for the lawyer to be sentenced to six weeks in jail, so as to “speak to the timely demands from our increasingly progressive society for an unequivocal denunciation of the sort of predatory behaviour displayed by the offender”.

“While the offender will... stand to lose a few weeks of his liberty at most, he will be able to put this behind him and move on upon his release. For (the victim), however, the emotional and mental trauma is a lifelong sentence; one that she did absolutely nothing to deserve,” they said.

Following the sentencing, Drew & Napier said that the firm has a “strict zero-tolerance policy towards misconduct of any nature” and that “appropriate steps” were taken when the allegations came to light.

"Our colleagues work hard to maintain a supportive and respectful work environment with an open-door policy,” it said. 

“We are fully committed to ensuring that every single member of our firm feels safe and that reported cases of misconduct, sexual or otherwise, are responded to swiftly.”