Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

‘High level of intrusion’: Ex Yale-NUS student jailed 27 weeks for filming female housemates in shower

SINGAPORE — A 26-year-old former Yale-NUS College student who filmed four of his female housemates showering in the common bathroom of their student dormitory was sentenced to 27 weeks’ jail on Friday (Feb 7).

District Judge Adam Nakhoda said that while the 26-year-old offender had excelled academically and in sports, this was overwhelmed by aggravating factors of his criminal conduct.

District Judge Adam Nakhoda said that while the 26-year-old offender had excelled academically and in sports, this was overwhelmed by aggravating factors of his criminal conduct.

Follow TODAY on WhatsApp

SINGAPORE — A 26-year-old former Yale-NUS College student who filmed four of his female housemates showering in the common bathroom of their student dormitory was sentenced to 27 weeks’ jail on Friday (Feb 7).

The man also took upskirt videos of female students in Yale-NUS classrooms, but the victims could not be identified by the police. He cannot be named due to a court order to protect his housemates’ identities.

In handing down the sentence, District Judge Adam Nakhoda said that the man had exhibited a “high level of intrusion” because he managed to film his housemates nude and had captured some, if not all, of their faces in the videos he took.

“(The victims) had the right to go about their daily activities in what is essentially their home during their term time… The accused has excelled in sports and done well academically, but this is overwhelmed by aggravating factors in this case,” the judge told the court.

The man had stored some of the videos on his hard drive connected to his laptop, and many were automatically uploaded to his cloud storage account. He also rewatched them on his mobile phone “whenever he felt overwhelmed with schoolwork”, the court heard earlier.

He told investigators that he had taken the shower videos because “it helped him to destress from his academic pressure”.

The student pleaded guilty last month to eight charges of insulting a woman’s modesty and has been in remand since then.

He was expelled from the school after he was charged.

His lawyers earlier said that he has already secured a full-time job at a labour supply company to take up after his release and that he will marry his fiancee later this year.

ABOUT THE CASE

The peeping tom stayed with five other female residents, four of whom were later identified by investigators as his victims. They had individual bedrooms but shared a common toilet.

Yale-NUS College announced a pilot in 2015 that allowed young men and women to live together in co-ed suites in order to give students more choices in housemates.

He was caught after trying unsuccessfully to deflect suspicion from himself when one of his housemates confronted him several times.

On the evening of March 3 last year, the housemate had returned to the suite with her boyfriend while the accused was revising his schoolwork in his room. The housemate then went to the shared toilet to shower.

After about five minutes, he entered the toilet and used his mobile phone to record her showering by placing his phone above the bathroom door.

However, the housemate spotted him and shouted for her boyfriend.

The accused went to a sofa and started to delete the video as well as all previous incriminating videos that he had taken. He also removed the back cover of his phone in a bid to avoid recognition.

When confronted by the housemate and her boyfriend, they found nothing incriminating in his phone. Feigning innocence, the accused suggested that another female housemate had just entered the suite and urged the victim to make a report with the school.

He also suggested that the culprit could have been someone from a party on another floor. He went in search of the culprit with the housemate and her boyfriend, but it was unsuccessful.

After that, the housemate reported the incident to the school, but was told that there were no closed-circuit television cameras installed in the suite or in the vicinity of their floor and staircases.

When the housemate confronted the accused once more, he again denied it. As she was preparing to leave for the police station to make a report, the man arranged a gathering of some residents and confessed that he had been the one standing behind the bathroom door.

He lied by saying that it was the first time he had done such a thing, adding that he ultimately did not record any video of the housemate. Believing him, the housemate decided against going to the police.

Later, the housemate changed her mind and made a police report after the parents of both the accused and the housemate met in a session organised by the church which they both attended.

Police were able to retrieve the video and found other incriminating evidence on his phone and laptop.

The prosecution had sought 30 weeks’ jail, while the defence had suggested 20 weeks.

Related topics

Yale-NUS College upskirt outrage of modesty court crime voyeur

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.