Teen took upskirt videos of his teachers, filmed sister’s friend showering
The teenager pleaded guilty to three counts of insulting the modesty of a woman, one count of possessing an obscene object and one count of criminal intimidation.
SINGAPORE — A teenage boy not only filmed up the skirts of two of his teachers, but also uploaded semi-nude photographs of a female student on Instagram, and took a video of his sister’s friend showering in their bathroom.
On Wednesday (May 8), the young man, now aged 17, pleaded guilty to three counts of insulting the modesty of a woman, one count of possessing an obscene object and one count of criminal intimidation. Another eight similar charges will be taken into consideration for sentencing on a later date.
He was aged 14 at the time of one of the offences, 15 at the time of two others, and 16 at the time he committed the other two offences.
District Judge Eddy Tham called for reports to assess whether the teenager is suitable for probation or reformative training. He was placed in remand for the purposes of compiling the reports.
The judge also had harsh words for the teen, who cannot be named due to a court gag order — to protect the identities of his victims — saying it was “very disturbing” that he took advantage of his teachers to perform his “perverse acts”.
The court heard that he committed the upskirt offences against at least two of his secondary school teachers in February and March 2018. The name of the school was redacted from court documents.
During their lessons, he would set his mobile phone to video recording mode, then place it on top of his school bag with the camera lens facing upwards.
He then raised his hand to ask the teachers some questions about his school work. When they came over to his table, the phone would record up their skirts.
He ended up taking four such videos each of his 47-year-old mathematics teacher, as well as his 47-year-old Mandarin teacher.
Separately, on Aug 10, 2018 at about 6.20am, he was at the void deck of a block of flats at Fernvale Road when he saw a woman sleeping on the bench. He did not know her, but had seen her before.
He then used his mobile phone to film himself masturbating with his private parts exposed in front of his victim.
Later that day, his sister’s friend was over at their home for a sleepover. Before she entered the bathroom to take a shower, he placed his mobile phone on top of the shelf in the bathroom to record a video of her showering.
Meanwhile, on March 20, 2017, he uploaded photographs of a 15-year-old female student in her underwear on the social networking platform Instagram. It was not stated how they knew each other.
He claimed that he got the photos from the Tumblr website, but the victim claimed that she only sent them to her boyfriend sometime in 2016, and that neither of them circulated the photos on social media or the Internet.
The accused then sent a message through Instagram to the victim, threatening to post the photos online unless she sent him her nude photos.
Her school’s discipline master made a police report three days later.
In mitigation, the teenager’s lawyer, Rajan Supramaniam, said that his client acknowledges he has committed serious offences and is determined to turn over a new leaf. His mother and older sister now closely supervise him as well.
He has also been going for counselling, and is currently waiting to enlist in National Service, the lawyer added.
