SINGAPORE, May 24 — A mathematics teacher at a secondary school was jailed 18 weeks today (May 24) for taking voyeuristic videos of another teacher by planting a camera under her workstation, while others were away for character and citizenship education lessons.

The 46-year-old Singaporean, who pleaded guilty to two voyeurism charges, cannot be named due to a court order to protect his victims’ identities. The school cannot be named as well.

Court documents stated that he was in charge of the school's robotics co-curricular activity, and had 15 years of teaching experience until he was caught last year.

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He was the second teacher to be jailed today for sex-related crimes, with the first being another man who targeted a 15-year-old student. In that case, the victim committed suicide following the offences.

The court heard that the math teacher came up with the idea of planting a camera at his colleague’s table in the staff room after watching some pornographic videos involving voyeurism. He found the victim attractive and wanted to masturbate to the illegal clips he recorded.

He owned a mini camera at the time which could record high-definition video footage.

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On January 13 last year, he took the device to school, keeping it in his pocket while waiting for an opportunity to plant it.

When other teachers left the staff room for character and citizenship education lessons at around 2pm, he then went to the victim’s workstation, taped the camera under her desk out of her view, and positioned it to face her chair.

The camera recorded video footage of the victim’s pelvis area and her underwear for at least a few hours.

The man could not retrieve the device that day. When he returned the next day to do so, he realised it was no longer there. The victim had discovered it and lodged a police report.

The police later found that the mini camera also captured footage of the man as he was installing it under the desk.

His mobile phone was seized and an upskirt video of another woman was found in it, court documents said.

Investigations revealed that on the day after filming his colleague, he met his second victim for dinner at Paragon mall in Orchard.

The court heard that he took a video of her underwear by positioning his mobile phone camera at the opening of her shorts while they were going up an escalator.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Heershan Kaur asked for 18 to 28 weeks’ jail, citing sentencing considerations such as premeditation and the use of a recording device.

The prosecutor also noted that it was “merely fortuitous” that the victim had discovered the camera, adding: “Should the tape have fallen into the hands of other parties, the trauma and embarrassment that the victim would have had to endure would have been unimaginable.” Those convicted of voyeurism can be jailed for up to two years, fined, caned, or punished with any combination of the three. ― TODAY