Yale-NUS student voyeur gets 27 weeks' jail
SINGAPORE — A former Yale-NUS College student who filmed four of his female housemates showering on campus over a one-and-a-half year period was on Friday (7 February) jailed for 27 weeks.
The 26-year-old man, who was expelled from the college in October last year, had pleaded guilty on 13 January to eight out of 16 charges of insulting the modesty of a woman. The remaining charges were considered in sentencing.
He cannot be named due to a court-imposed gag order to protect the victims’ identities.
Apart from filming his housemates, the man also recorded upskirt videos of unknown women inside classrooms at Yale-NUS College.
Yale-NUS College is Singapore’s first liberal arts college, established in 2011 as a collaboration between Yale University and the National University of Singapore.
Deleted incriminating videos
The man had stayed at a suite residence with five other female students between August 2017 and May 2018, and again between January and March last year.
These students comprised the four victims, all of whom were 22, and one other female housemate. The students stayed in separate individual bedrooms in the suite, but shared a common bathroom.
On 3 March last year, one of the victims took a shower at about 8pm. The man recorded a video of her showering by standing in front of the bathroom door and placing his phone above the door.
The victim heard noises outside the bathroom and saw a pair of feet when she looked under the gap of the bathroom door. She then looked up and saw the phone camera pointed towards her.
The culprit then ran to the sofa in the living room of the suite and deleted the four-second video that he took of the victim showering, along with other incriminating videos.
To deflect suspicion from himself, he also lied that the fifth housemate had entered the suite, raised the possibility that someone from an on-going party on the 10th floor of the building might have entered the suite, and even suggested that the victim lodge a school report.
Confessed, but didn’t come clean
At about 11pm, the victim told the perpetrator that she would be making a police report. She also told him that she did not suspect him to be the culprit.
But just as she was about to head to a police station half an hour later, the man gathered his suite mates and confessed to them.
“However, he then lied to them that it was his first time doing such a thing, and that at that point in time, he had yet to activate the video-recording function on the phone, hence there was no video recorded,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor Gabriel Lim.
Believing the culprit’s story, the victim decided against lodging a police report that day. After a subsequent meeting between the victim’s and culprit’s parents organised by their church, the victim then made a police report on 13 March last year.
Investigators seized the man’s phone, iPad, laptop and hard drive. A forensic examination uncovered incriminating videos which had been deleted.
“According to the accused, he recorded videos of his suite mates showering as it helped him to destress from his academic pressure,” said DPP Lim.
“After recording the videos, he would store some of them into the hard drive which was connected to his MacBook. Most of the videos would be automatically uploaded to his iCloud account. He also re-watches the said videos on his handphone whenever he felt overwhelmed with schoolwork.”
Strong propensity for reform: lawyers
In asking for at least 30 weeks’ jail, DPP Lim said there was a strong public interest in deterring such crimes involving students in educational institutions, who are entitled to feel safe.
The culprit had abused the trust of his fellow housemates, the prosecutor said, and students staying in hostels are entitled to safety and privacy in their second homes.
Meanwhile, the man’s lawyers Josephus Tan and Cory Wong of Invictus Law highlighted a litany of awards and scholarships that he had, and called for a 20-week jail term. The perpetrator also has several anchors for rehabilitation, they said.
“He enjoys the strong support of a loving community comprising his own immediate family, his fiancée, and her family too,” said the lawyers. The couple are planning to wed later this year.
The man also has support from his church fellowship, and has been attending therapy sessions with a psychologist at the Institute of Mental Health to help him curb his urges to make such videos. He was not suffering from any mental disorders.
“(The man) is arguably an atypical offender who can be readily distinguished from the usual less meritorious (insulting modesty) offender. We even go as far as to suggest that (his) instances of offending were wholly out of character,” the lawyers said.
For each of his charges, the man could have been jailed for up to one year and also fined.
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