Full-time national serviceman admits to uploading nude videos, photos of cousin in revenge act
Upset at his female cousin for mocking him in front of his family, a full-time national serviceman spitefully recorded her showering on two occasions and uploaded the footage along with other photos of her onto various websites.
The 19-year-old also identified his 17-year-old cousin’s name and school in the captions of the content he posted onto the Tumblr microblogging site and Vimeo video-sharing website.
At the State Courts on Wednesday (1 August), the youth – who cannot be named to protect his cousin’s identity – admitted to one count each of insulting her modesty and transmitting obscene material. Two other charges of a similar nature will be taken into consideration for when the teen is sentenced later this month.
According to the prosecution, the teen downloaded a motion sensor video application for his mobile phone in June last year to commit the offences. He paid for a upgraded version of the application, which allowed him to record high-definition videos.
On 18 June, while visiting his cousin’s home, he placed his mobile phone in her toilet with the camera angled towards the shower cubicle and activated the application before leaving the room.
His cousin later entered the bathroom to shower. She discovered the accused’s mobile phone but did not suspect that anything was amiss and returned the phone to him once she was done showering.
From checking his phone’s photo gallery, the accused found that he had captured one video and two photographs of his cousin fully nude while showering. The same day, he uploaded one nude video and one nude photo of his cousin onto Tumblr and one nude video of her onto Vimeo.
The accused also had in his possession another video and six photographs of his cousin showering, which he had filmed on an earlier occasion in December 2016.
On 3 September last year, the teen uploaded a total of two nude videos and eight nude photographs of his cousin onto Tumblr. He captioned the videos and photographs with the victim’s details, such as her name and school, in order to identify and humiliate her.
On 12 September, an unknown person told her via the Snapchat messaging application that her nude photos and videos had been uploaded on Tumblr. The person also revealed that he had located the victim after conducting a Google search on her name, which he obtained from the captions.
By then, the accused had already uploaded a total of at least three nude videos and 10 nude photographs of the victim on various online platforms.
Upon viewing the photo and videos, the victim realised that they had been taken at her home. She then recalled having found the accused’s mobile phone in the bathroom while showering.
The victim’s brother later confronted the accused, who then admitted to uploading the explicit material and then deleted the Tumblr account. A police report was lodged.
Both the prosecution and defence lawyer asked for a probation suitability report for the teenager.
The accused’s lawyer, Peter Keith Fernando, said that his client has the “utmost shame and regret” for what he had done.
“(He) makes no excuses for what he had done and wishes to state in open court… to the victim that he is sincerely sorry for the embarrassment that he had caused her to suffer,” said Fernando.
Noting that the nature of the offence was “very serious” and the damage caused was “terrible”, District Judge Eddy Tham called for a probation report for the youth.
The accused will next appear in court on 29 August.
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