Man who illicitly filmed 1,391 clips of women over 13 years in 'most prolific' case gets jail
Photo illustration of a man taking upskirt photos. (Photo: Jeremy Long)
SINGAPORE: A married man who took nearly 1,400 videos of women in states of undress over 13 years was sentenced to two years and three months' jail on Thursday (Jun 4).
The 35-year-old man cannot be named due to gag orders protecting the identities of the victims, which include his family, friends and fellow church members and prepubescent minors.
The prosecution had called for three years' jail, describing the case as the "most prolific" of its kind.Â
"None of the (previous cases) to date come close in scale to match the accused's depraved behaviour, either by duration of offending, or by the sheer number of 1,391 videos recorded," said Deputy Public Prosecutor Kenneth Kee.
Between January 2003 and April 2016, the man took upskirt photos and videos of women relieving themselves in the toilet and showering or changing.
He did this on more than 800 occasions in 2011, 2012 and 2013 alone, and used a host of common household items disguised as spy cameras.
These include five spy watches, two spy pens and a spy clock.
READ: Married man pleads guilty to illicitly filming hundreds of women over 13 years in 'most prolific' case
He filmed women changing at retail shops, and also filmed his friends and family in the shower at his own home.
He also took upskirt clips of women on public transport, and left a camera device in a toilet at his church where he captured images of prepubescent minors.
On one occasion, he also filmed a bride and her bridesmaids in a hotel room.
He was caught red-handed by a colleague in April 2016. The woman was trying on a dress she had received for her birthday in the toilet when she noticed the phone aimed at her.
She tried to snatch it, but the man managed to pull his phone away before running off. As he fled, the victim looked through the window and recognised her colleague.
District Judge Adam Nakhoda noted that while the man had been diagnosed with voyeurism after a psychiatric assessment, it was merely "a descriptor of deviant behaviour".
There was no diagnosis of an impulse control disorder, said the judge, who rejected arguments that the man was "exposed to sexual priming from a young age" and had "a sick mind".
He accepted that the man has expressed remorse and pleaded guilty, but noted that he was actually caught red-handed.
The man pleaded guilty in February to four charges of insulting women's modesty, with another nine charges taken into consideration.
The penalties for insulting a woman's modesty are a jail term of up to a year, a fine, or both.
