Former SMU student who filmed woman in toilet during internship given short detention order

UPDATE: This story has been amended to include an update from the Attorney-General's Chambers.

SINGAPORE — It all began with filming upskirt videos of women to see if he would gain pleasure from the videos.

However, Hoon Qi Tong quickly lost interest in the act and decided to film women in the toilet instead.

After several unsuccessful attempts, the then-Singapore Management University (SMU) student targetted a woman from his internship workplace.

Hoon, 25, was sentenced to a Short Detention Order (SDO) lasting two weeks and 130 hours of community service on Thursday (19 December) for one count of insulting the woman’s modesty, after District Judge John Ng ruled that the two sentencing options were sufficient to meet the principles of “punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation”.

An SDO, which involves the offender being jailed for up to two weeks, is usually given to low-risk criminals and does not result in a criminal record.

Said DJ Ng on the sentence, “The SDO would result in the offender spending time in jail for his offence and would dispel any notion that he is being let off without being punished.”

“The stint in prison would also serve as a reminder to him of the real and significant consequences of his actions should he be tempted to commit the similar offences again.”

Hoon, who graduated from SMU sometime between July and August, is now working in his father’s construction company as an administrator. In court proceedings, it was stated that he has also been attending financial courses and religious services.

Hoon has been given a stay on his sentence as the prosecution will be filing an appeal against it.

Curiosity about upskirt videos

Hoon pleaded guilty to one count of insulting the modesty of the woman in February, with one count of criminal trespass into the female toilet to be taken into consideration for sentencing. His sentencing was then adjourned to assess Hoon’s suitability for probation, mandatory treatment order (MTO), SDO and community service order (CSO).

Hoon decided to take upskirt videos of women as he was curious to see if he could gain pleasure from such videos. In August 2017, he carried out his plan against a female co-worker in his internship workplace. Soon after, he lost interest in taking and viewing the obscene videos.

He then decided to film women in the toilet instead to see if he would derive pleasure from the act. However, his first two attempts were unsuccessful.

Hoon was attached at the time but had a mutual agreement with his then-girlfriend to abstain from pre-marital sex.

“The accused had no difficulty maintaining this abstinence as he respected his girlfriend,” Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Yanying told the court.

Successfully filmed woman in toilet but was caught

On 13 September 2017 at about 5.57pm, when the victim went into the female toilet, Hoon followed her.

The 31-year-old woman saw Hoon hovering outside the entrance to the male toilet, which is next to the female toilet. After the woman entered the female toilet, Hoon waited outside until he was sure that the victim had entered a cubicle before entering.

He went into an adjacent cubicle and locked the door. Standing on the water closet, Hoon then extended his arm over the cubicles’ partition and began filming the victim relieving herself with his phone in video recording mode.

The woman had earlier heard Hoon’s footsteps and his movement in the adjacent cubicle. When she heard what sounded like someone stepping onto the toilet seat and slipping, she instinctively looked up and saw a mobile phone with its camera lens pointed at her above the partition.

According to the victim’s letter to the court, the woman felt shock and fear, as well as shame at being filmed in an intimate space. She immediately dressed herself and exited to knock on the door of Hoon’s cubicle.

Hoon emerged and did not deny filming the woman, who told him to delete the video. In response, Hoon simply formatted the phone. The victim noted that the entire screen of the phone was filled with thumbnails of other video clips which appeared to have been filmed in the female toilet.

When she told Hoon that she would report the matter, the man grabbed her arm and asked her not to. The victim feared for her personal safety, but managed to slip away from Hoon’s grasp.

The woman reported the matter to her superiors, who alerted the police. Hoon was relieved of his duties immediately and was detained until the police arrived. Police later seized his phone and laptop but could not recover the upskirt videos or toilet videos.

‘I feel angry that I have to feel fear when I did nothing wrong’

In her letter to the court, the woman stated that she could no longer use the toilet without fear.

“When I enter many public toilets, I now always have to check and have a look one round if there is anybody in the toilet. If there is, I would not use the cubicle that is right next to the one that is occupied,” she said, adding that she would have someone accompany her if she was in a public toilet.

“I feel guilty that I have to trouble those around me, and angry that I have to feel fear when I did nothing wrong.”

She also avoided interacting with her colleagues in groups as she did not want to be reminded of the incident.

“Whenever I saw some of my colleagues gather together and talking, I was afraid that they were talking about me and the incident,” she added.

In an earlier hearing, Hoon’s lawyer asked for an array of community-based sentences, including an MTO, probation and an SDO. But the prosecution sought a jail term of eight weeks, pointing out that there was nothing exceptional about Hoon’s case that warranted different treatment from other adult offenders.

DJ Ng agreed that the custodial threshold had been crossed and that harm had been caused, as seen in the victim’s letter. He noted that Hoon had been assessed to be unsuitable for a MTO as his persistent depressive disorder had only been a “mild but existent contributing factor” to his offending act.

Yahoo News Singapore has reached out to SMU for comment on Hoon’s case.

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