SINGAPORE: A 40-year-old man used spy cameras to film videos of female friends and co-workers using the toilet in several locations, including his home, his friends’ homes and his workplace.
Among his victims was a close friend of 30 years, whom he had known since childhood. They were part of a group that regularly met up and travelled together.
Before a mahjong gathering at his place in February 2020, the man placed a spy camera in his toilet to capture the woman using it.
The offender was jailed for nine months on Tuesday (Mar 29) after pleading guilty to eight charges of insulting a woman’s modesty, voyeurism and possessing obscene films. Another 17 charges were considered for sentencing.
The identity and occupation of the offender, the identities of his victims as well as the locations where the offences were committed are protected by gag order.
The court heard that the man bought his first spy camera online in 2016 and decided to use it to record obscene videos as it was small and unlikely to be detected.
After buying another camera for that specific purpose, he hid it in the toilet in his apartment to film female friends who occasionally visited.
He noted that “the quality of the footage was good” and decided to buy a few more cameras to hide in various locations, stated court documents.
From 2017, the man would place the cameras in his apartment’s toilet and the toilets of his friend’s houses whenever there were gatherings. He captured obscene videos of at least five female friends, all in their 40s, using this method.
One of them was a woman he met through work and had known since 2006. She occasionally went to his place to use the swimming pool in his apartment complex.
Knowing that the victim would shower at his apartment after swimming, he hid some cameras there beforehand and filmed her without her knowledge on three occasions between December 2018 and July 2019.
He also targeted another friend he met in 2006 through work as well as two women he met through her. He had known the two other women since 2013 or 2014.
He placed the spy cameras in his home and his friend’s home and filmed all three women using the toilet on seven occasions between November 2018 and January 2020.
In 2019, the man also started hiding cameras in the seventh floor handicap toilet at his workplace. He secured one to the toilet roller with black Velcro tape and hid another under the sink, after learning online where it was “best” to place the cameras.
He would usually place the cameras there at noon and retrieve it a few hours later. Between January 2019 and March 2020, he captured videos of 10 unknown women using the toilet with this method.
DISCOVERY OF OFFENCES
The offences were discovered on Mar 19, 2020, when a person identified as Mr Johnson in court documents reported that he had found a hidden camera in the handicap toilet.
That day, the offender had gone to the toilet to retrieve his spy cameras when he found that they were missing.
He went back home, packed his electronic devices into three bags and threw them at a rubbish bin in the area. He also deleted some folders containing videos he had previously taken.
The man then returned to his workplace, where he saw police officers.
“Knowing that his identity would soon be found out, he admitted to his superior that he was the person who placed the camera in the handicap toilet,” stated court documents. The man was arrested that day.
The police managed to retrieve the disposed bags of electronic devices, on which they found 591 videos and 18 photographs containing obscene material.
The man was eventually convicted of possessing 355 obscene videos found on his USB thumb drive.
