SINGAPORE, Sept 18 — When the freelancer came across websites where people sold upskirt videos online for money, he thought he could get another source of income by doing so.

Around August 29 last year, the 34-year-old began filming and selling upskirt videos, but he managed to earn only S$30 (RM 90.74) before he was caught red-handed two days later.

Kuah Wee Beng Kelvin, who worked in a warehouse as a freelance operations staff, was sentenced to 10 weeks’ jail today after pleading guilty to taking upskirt videos of two women in the Daiso store at Waterway Point in Punggol.

Two other similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing. His victims cannot be named due to a court gag order.

The court heard that after learning that each upskirt video could fetch around US$50 to US$100 (RM207.13 to RM414.25) on some websites, Kuah felt it would be “thrilling and exciting” to take his own videos. It would also be another “source of income”, given his unstable earnings.

The freelancer even considered selling the videos to citizen journalism website STOMP for additional income.

On August 31 last year, at about 7.38pm, he came across his first victim, who was browsing some items in Daiso. He approached her from behind and used his mobile phone to take two videos of her, lasting almost two minutes in total.

A few minutes later, he approached his second victim from behind and then from the front. He took two upskirt videos of her, which lasted almost six minutes in total.

At about 8.16pm, a security officer called the police stating that they had detained Kuah in their command centre for taking upskirt videos. A member of the public had alerted the officer to Kuah’s actions after noticing him committing his offences.

Court documents revealed that two days earlier, sometime around 9.45pm, he had taken upskirt videos of two other women at PunggolT Station.

For each charge of intruding upon a woman’s privacy with the intent to insult her modesty, Kuah could have been jailed up to one year and/or fined.

In July, a taxi driver was sentenced to four-and-a-half months’ jail for taking more than 200 upskirt photos, many of which were also taken in a Daiso store in an unnamed shopping mall. — AFP