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SINGAPORE – A Singapore Polytechnic student was working part-time in a store on the campus of the National University of Singapore (NUS) when he took videos under the skirts of more than 30 women.
The 17-year-old offender cannot be identified due to recent amendments to the Children and Adolescents Act. The law now covers those under the age of 18.
He pleaded guilty in district court on Thursday (October 29) to two counts of insulting a woman’s modesty. Two other charges for similar offenses will be considered during sentencing.
Assistant District Attorney Darren Sim said one of the victims entered the store on Aug. 31 last year.
She was bending down to check a few things when the teen crawled up behind her and used her cell phone to record a video of her up her skirt.
Shortly after, the woman was at the counter to make her payment when the teenager told her he needed to run a price check. Instead, he squatted behind her and recorded a second upskirt video.
The DPP said: “While the defendant was recording the second video, his mobile phone came into contact with the victim’s right leg.
“The victim immediately turned around and saw the defendant behind her … The defendant stood up and the victim asked him if he had taken a picture of her under her skirt.”
The court heard that the woman asked to view the photo gallery on the device after the teenager denied committing the crime.
“The defendant agreed that the videos he had taken were hidden in a secure folder that was password protected,” DPP Sim said.
The woman looked through the mobile phone but could not find any incriminating images. Despite this, he filed a police report on September 2 of last year.
Officers conducting an investigation saw closed-circuit television footage of the store, showing the teenager committing the crimes. They arrested him and confiscated his mobile phone.
A forensic examination of the device revealed photo collages of 31 different female victims.
In total, the teenager took 40 videos of these women in the store between the end of May and September 1 of last year.
After recording these videos, he would take screenshots at various points and turn them into collages stored on his Google Drive. It would later delete the videos, the court heard.
On Thursday, the court requested a report to assess his suitability for parole. He will be sentenced on December 14.
For each count of insulting a woman’s modesty, an offender can be jailed for up to one year and fined.
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