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SINGAPORE – A man who took videos under the skirts of his classmate was captured while reviewing one of the videos on the train.
Royston Kesavan, 40, was jailed for six weeks on Wednesday (March 10). The married man pleaded guilty to one count of insulting a woman’s modesty.
He made a total of seven videos, of which the first six were considered unsuccessful because they did not capture the victim’s underwear.
Kesavan was pursuing a master’s degree in health administration at Parkway College of Nursing and Allied Health at the time of his crime.
On September 26, 2019, she met with some classmates for a group discussion in a room at Academia @ Singapore General Hospital.
At around 8.35pm, he decided to record an under-skirt video of a classmate who was sitting across from him at the table.
She pointed her out because she was the only one in the room wearing a skirt that day.
For the next 30 minutes, he discreetly placed his phone under the table, tilting the camera towards the victim’s lap.
Kesavan took seven videos, which ranged from two seconds to about a minute and a half.
The court was told that he had reviewed the videos while filming them at the same time.
He stopped after he got a clear view of the victim’s inner thighs on his seventh attempt.
At around 10.10pm, Kesavan was heading home on the train to the Pasir Ris MRT station when he decided to review one of the videos.
An officer from the Public Transportation Security Command who was on patrol saw him reviewing the video on the train and approached him.
They both got off at the city hall station and the officer motioned for Kesavan to hand over his phone.
But the defendant was reluctant to do so and instead handed over his spare phone to the officer.
Finally, he delivered the correct phone, with the seven upskirt videos in the deleted folder. So Kesavan was arrested.
On Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Phoebe Tan urged the court to jail him for eight weeks.
She said: “There is a clear element of persistence in the present case … He was becoming more emboldened with each attempt.”
He noted that with the exception of the third and final attempt, the length of the videos had increased each time.
But Kesavan’s attorney, Mr. Ramesh Varathappan, asked the court to request a parole suitability report for his client.
Probation is typically for young offenders up to the age of 21, but is sometimes used as a sentencing option for older offenders in exceptional circumstances.
Ramesh said the defendant would be more receptive to parole as he matured, and that he was not diagnosed with any medical conditions and therefore would have less chance of recidivism.
District Judge Adam Nakhoda later questioned the attorney’s line of reasoning, saying he had essentially changed the logic of probation as a sentencing option.
The judge noted that in cases where a medical condition was assessed as a contributing link, the court may consider a judgment that addresses the condition to prevent recidivism.
“In this case, there is no other factor that led (the accused) to commit these crimes,” he said.
Then, Mr. Ramesh asked the court to consider a high fine with a short custodial sentence.
The judge said he agreed with the prosecution and that a jail sentence was justified.
“The persistence in this case is quite extreme,” he said.
“(The defendant) took longer and longer videos, it was certainly target-oriented and intended to capture a video of the victim under the skirt.”
For insulting a woman’s modesty, Kesavan could have been jailed for up to a year, or a fine, or both.
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