[ad_1]
SINGAPORE – After hearing voices in a women’s bathroom, a man who worked at the Giant Hypermarket building in Tampines North entered the bathroom to film women relieving themselves.
The man, Gabriel Lim Wei Hng, 28, was sentenced to seven weeks in jail on Thursday (November 12) after he pleaded guilty to one count of burglary and insult to the modesty of a woman on 18 November. July of last year. Four other charges, involving Lim filming women in the same bathroom on other occasions, were taken into consideration for sentencing.
Lim, whose girlfriend was present in court, currently works as an account executive at a travel company.
The court heard that Lim, a former managing executive for Cold Storage, had just finished using a male bathroom in the building when he heard voices coming from an adjacent female bathroom. At the time, two female employees, ages 24 and 25, who at the time were apprentices working for another company, were relieving themselves.
Lim was captured by CCTV entering the female bathroom. He then turned on the recording function on his phone and held it over the door to the bathroom stall in which the 25-year-old was naked. The victim noticed the phone and screamed, causing Lim to panic and flee the bathroom. He went into the men’s room and erased the evidence of his misconduct from his phone before heading back to his office.
The two women reported the incident to the security office and recognized Lim as an employee working in the same building after viewing the CCTV footage.
The prosecution urged District Judge Marvin Bay to impose an eight-week jail term for Lim, citing the recording device used by him, the degree of intrusion and that he had offended multiple times.
While he noted that Lim had sought psychiatric help at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), his first session occurred months after he was caught. Lim was arrested on July 18 last year, but had his first appointment with IMH on March 31 of this year.
“This is not the case where the defendant had immediately sought treatment at the IMH or the psychiatric services immediately after (being) arrested, it was quite a significant number of months later. We urge the court not to give this too much weight, ”said the prosecution.
The prosecution noted that there was no indication of Lim’s mental condition. Lim’s attorney, Favian Kang, had previously told the court that IMH was unable to issue a medical report for Lim at this time, as it focused on essential services during Phase 2 of Singapore’s reopening.
Kang said that his client had committed the offense unexpectedly. “He realized that he had made a mistake and went to seek help, that is a sign of remorse,” he added.
The defense had tried to argue that there was a lower degree of intrusion because the video was shot from top to bottom, compared to the bottom of the cubicle door.
However, DJ Bay said he was not convinced of the differentiation in how the video was shot. The judge noted that the charges demonstrated a more established modus operandi, but accepted that Lim had sought psychiatric help after having offended.
Stay Informed On The Go – Join Yahoo Singapore’s Telegram Channel On http://t.me/YahooSingapore
Other stories from Singapore
Man charged with stabbing NEA agent
Mother and stepfather charged with murder of 11-year-old girl
Man made daughter eat sleeping pills to annoy his wife
