SINGAPORE, June 25 — A 43-year-old man was sentenced to 12 weeks’ jail on Thursday (June 24) for persistently filming up women’s skirts last year, including that of a colleague whom he targeted after they had lunch together.

She later felt guilty about calling the police, and even asked her husband to take upskirt videos of her to check if it was physically possible for the man to have done it.

She worked as an accounts executive at their firm, where he was a trade manager. He was not her direct supervisor but she occasionally approached him to sign documents, the court heard.

The Singaporean man, who pleaded guilty on Thursday to two charges of voyeurism, cannot be named due to a court order to protect the victim’s identity.

He struck between June and July last year, when the circuit breaker period that restricted movement and activities to stem the spread of Covid-19 had just been lifted.

In that period, he tried to take 11 upskirt videos of the victim and other unidentified women around the vicinity of Bukit Purmei in Bukit Merah and other unknown locations. 

Once, he went to the extent of placing his mobile phone in the rubbish bin next to his seat in his office, as he knew the victim would be there for a work discussion.

Some of the incidents took place in MRT trains and other places where the women, who were wearing dresses or skirts, sat directly in front of him. However, he did not manage to properly capture their underwear in the videos.

By the time his colleague, now aged 41, caught him on July 8 last year, he had successfully recorded six upskirt videos of her within the past month.

That afternoon, they had gone for lunch in the Bukit Purmei area. She usually ate with him as they spoke the same language and she felt she could relate to him better.

At about 1.50pm, they were walking back to their office building when a member of the public shouted at him, having seen him filming up her skirt.

She did not call the police immediately as she trusted him and thought he was "not a person who would take upskirt videos of her”, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) R Arvindren told the court.

When she asked him to show her his mobile phone, he complied and told her he had accidentally turned the camera mode on. 

She accepted this as she had done this before herself. He then deleted the video and she noticed that he was shivering.

Shortly afterwards, after her friend advised her to lodge a police report, she called the police for help and said she felt unsafe. He was arrested on the same day.

She felt affected by the incident and could not sleep that night from guilt. She also entertained the thought that he might not have intentionally done it, and did not wish to break up his family.

During investigations, the man admitted to his offences and said he had the urge to take upskirt videos "when they dress skimpy”, DPP Arvindren said.

For each voyeurism charge, the man could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned, or received any combination of the three.

The offence of voyeurism took effect from Jan 1 last year. 

Earlier, those who secretly filmed others were convicted under Section 509 of the Penal Code for insulting a woman’s modesty — a provision that has been repealed. — TODAY