NTU student who took upskirt videos of colleagues, friends jailed 15 weeks
While interning at an accounting firm, a university undergraduate took upskirt videos of his colleagues.
The student, who is now 24, also secretly took obscene videos of his friends.
For his actions, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) undergraduate, was jailed 15 weeks on Tuesday (8 January) after he pleaded guilty to six counts of insulting the modesty of a woman.
Another 12 counts of a similar nature were taken into consideration for his sentencing.
Took videos of friends, colleagues
The student said during investigations that he “became curious and was tempted to record upskirt videos” after seeing such videos on an adult forum.
In 2017, while searching for porn on the forum, he came across a thread discussing upskirt videos and learnt of a smartphone application that would let him taken videos surreptitiously.
The application allows users to turn off a smartphone’s display screen while it is in video recording mode. The student then downloaded the application for the purpose of making obscene videos.
Between May and July 2017, the student recorded at least 17 upskirt videos and one video down a woman’s blouse.
The videos – which he made of his friends, colleagues and acquaintances – involved nine women in total. The accused would film his victims while attending events, such as birthday parties.
While at his workplace on 3 July 2017, the student’s colleague was standing beside his desk discussing work with him when he positioned his phone behind her legs and recorded an upskirt video of her.
The 28-year-old woman felt the accused’s phone brush her thigh but thought the contact was accidental. After the woman left the desk, her manager informed her that the accused had been behaving suspiciously.
The woman then confronted the accused and asked to see his phone. When the accused handed over the phone, she found the upskirt videos. A police report was later lodged by the company’s human resource deputy director.
Accused has voyeuristic disorder
“After the victim saw the upskirt video, she felt insulted and disrespected,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor Kong Kuek Foo, who asked for the accused to be jailed at least 15 weeks.
The DPP noted that, according to an Institute of Mental Health (IMH) report, the student had a voyeuristic disorder but had not been deprived of self-control at the time of the offences.
He also showed a high degree of premeditation as he had downloaded the app specifically for the purpose of taking obscene videos, said the DPP.
Kelvin Ong, the accused’s lawyer, said that his client had immediately sought treatment at IMH following his arrest.
Ong told the court that the accused should have graduated from NTU in May last year but had his degree withheld from him pending the court case. The student is currently volunteering as a teacher to give free tuition and is also helping out in his church’s finance department.
He is remorseful over his actions and no longer has any desire to take upskirt videos, said Ong.
In handing down the sentence, District Judge Kessler Soh took into account the accused’s age and future prospects. “The court has to send a clear message that such offences would be punished severely,” said the judge.
For each count of insulting a woman’s modesty, the student could have been jailed up to one year, fined, or both.
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