Private tutor who took 252 upskirt videos of 142 women jailed 6 months
Over a span of two years, Low Boon En took upskirt videos of 142 women without being detected.
But the private tutor, now 40, was eventually caught in the act on 26 June 2016. A witness spotted a blinking light from a video recorder inside a tennis racket bag that Low had placed under a victim’s skirt.
By that point, he had amassed a total of 252 videos and stored them in his computer and an external hard drive.
At the State Courts on Tuesday (8 January), Low was jailed for six months, having earlier pleaded guilty to 12 counts of insulting the modesty of a woman. The remaining 130 charges were considered in sentencing as part of his plea bargain.
Caught red-handed
Low was caught red-handed at the Popular bookstore in Tampines Mall. He had been shopping at the store when he spotted a 20-year-old woman whom he found to be pretty.
Low was also “curious about how sexy a girl can be as he did not have a girlfriend”, said the prosecution.
He activated his video camera’s recording mode and placed it in an opening at the top of his tennis racquet bag with the lens facing upwards.
The video recorder came with a wireless viewer which Low held in his other hand. Low was able to control the positioning of the camera lens of the video recorder using the viewer.
He positioned his bag under the woman’s skirt, and used the viewer to adjust the positioning of the camera lens of the video recorder. He then monitored what the video recorder captured using the viewer, and positioned the camera lens and his bag accordingly so as to take an upskirt video of the victim while she was unaware of it.
Another man at the bookstore noticed Low pacing about and then placing his bag under the woman’s skirt. The man also observed a blinking light coming from a device inside the bag and spotted another device in Low’s hand.
Shortly after, the witness confronted Low, who denied any wrongdoing. When the witness threatened to call the police, Low removed the SD card from his video recorder and placed it in his left pocket.
Low discarded the SD card before policemen arrived. Officers seized the video recorder found in Low’s bag along with the hand-held viewer.
Took videos to relieve stress
A day later, Low was brought back to his home where police officers raided his bedroom and seized his hard drive. He later admitted that he had taken upskirt videos to relieve stress.
Police found upskirt videos dated between 18 October 2014 and 10 May 2016 taken at various venues, including supermarkets, MRT station escalators, as well as Daiso and Uniqlo outlets.
While Low suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, it did not contribute to him committing the offences. He has been seeking treatment at the Institute of Mental Health regularly since around May 2017 and has been assessed to be at low risk of reoffending.
For insulting the modesty of a woman, Low could have been jailed up to one year and fined per charge.
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