20-year-old gets 15 months’ probation for taking upskirt video, possession of obscene films

SINGAPORE — A 20-year-old youth was sentenced to 15 months’ supervised probation today (June 12) for taking an upskirt video of a woman at a shopping mall and having more than 1,000 obscene films on his mobile phone and laptop.

Gan Wey Ian, 20, committed the offence when he was still serving National Service.

The court heard that on Oct 10 last year, Gan went to Tampines One Shopping Centre after booking out of camp. As he was riding the escalator up from the fourth floor, he noticed the 24-year-old victim and her friends ahead and used his mobile phone to take an upskirt video of her.

Friends of the woman, who cannot be named to protect her identity, caught him in the act and confronted him. When he refused to hand over his phone, one of her friends called the police, who seized the phone and took his laptop from his house at Mount Sinai Rise.

Forensic investigations revealed a total of 1,127 obscene films stored on both devices.

Gan is diagnosed with impulse control disorder, which is characterised by a failure to resist urges to do something harmful to themselves or others. In his submissions on the appropriate sentence for Gan, probation officer Gilbert Goh noted the diagnosis and said 15 months of probation was sufficiently long for Gan to undergo therapy and be monitored afterwards to determine if therapy was successful.

On the prosecution’s call for a 24-month probation sentence, District Judge Luke Tan dismissed it, saying the duration was “(plucked) from thin air” as there was no legal or medical basis for it.

The district judge also ordered Gan to be indoors from 10pm to 6am, serve 80 hours of community service, and attend an offence-specific treatment programme. He is also prohibited to hold any image-capturing device.

“It is to everyone’s benefit, especially your own, that you go through the treatment programme. What you make of the rest of your life depends on you,” DJ Tan said to Gan.

The maximum punishment for insulting a woman’s modesty is one year jail and/or a fine. Possession of obscene films is punishable by up to 12 months’ jail and/or a fine of S$1,000 for each film, capped at S$40,000.