6 months' jail for Navy regular who took upskirt videos of female JC students in uniform

• Daren Ng Chee Kai pleaded guilty to one count of insulting a woman’s modesty 
• The court heard that he filmed 117 upskirt videos and that he had a preference for female JC students in uniform
• He struck at MRT stations and on buses
• The judge rejected a claim by Ng’s lawyer that his crimes lacked planning

SINGAPORE — A 24-year-old man who took more than 100 voyeuristic videos of female junior college (JC) students was jailed six months on Friday (Jan 29).

Daren Ng Chee Kai, a regular in the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), had a preference for JC girls in their school uniforms. He went around the island targeting students close to their schools and also filmed other women on public transport.

He has since been suspended from the RSN due to the criminal proceedings, his lawyer Ashwin Ganapathy told the court.

Ng pleaded guilty last month to one count of insulting woman’s modesty, with two other similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

He filmed up his victims’ skirts and down their tops over about 18 months from May 2018 to October 2019, the court heard. Most of the victims have not been identified.

Of the 117 videos he took, 101 involved victims in school uniform.

He targeted female victims wearing skirts on public transport, with most of them being students attending various colleges.

The locations that he struck at included MRT stations at Serangoon, Botanic Gardens and Kovan, as well on public buses.

When he saw those whom he found attractive, he approached them, stood close and took upskirt videos of them with his mobile phone. He also filmed down a student’s uniform top on an MRT train.

On some occasions, he followed the victim for a period of time. He committed most of his offences on escalators or overhead bridges, capturing some of their faces on the videos.

Many of the victims’ school uniforms were clearly identifiable in other videos.

He clearly knew that some of them were likely under 18 years of age, admitting that he preferred JC girls in school uniform, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) R Arvindren told the court.

Ng was arrested on Oct 25, 2019 when one victim made a police report, saying that he had followed her nine days earlier at Buona Vista MRT Station.

He admitted to the authorities that he had filmed up her skirt before immediately deleting the video. Multiple videos were discovered on his mobile phone and desktop computer.

NG WAS ‘GOAL-ORIENTED’

DPP Arvindren argued for at least eight months’ jail, while Mr Ganapathy from IRB Law sought half of that.

In mitigation, Mr Ganapathy said that Ng’s friends introduced him to upskirt videos in secondary school. He was caught by a member of the public taking them and eventually punished with detention, which prompted him to stop.

But around 2018, he began revisiting pornography websites. This rekindled his curiosity in such videos, leading him to commit the offences, the lawyer said.

He has been diagnosed with voyeuristic disorder.

In sentencing, District Judge Adam Nakhoda rejected the prosecution’s argument that the JC students whom Ng filmed should be classified as vulnerable, saying that many of them were not aware that they were being targeted.

The judge also disagreed with Mr Ganapathy’s argument that Ng did not show premeditation or planning. He targeted students in uniforms and that showed that he was goal-oriented, the judge added.

Ng will begin serving his sentence on Feb 19, in order to spend time with his family over the Chinese New Year period.

For insulting the modesty of a woman, he could have been jailed for up to a year or fined, or both.