Jail for ex-teacher who planted upskirt camera under colleague’s desk while others were out for civics education classes

SINGAPORE — A former mathematics teacher at a secondary school was jailed 18 weeks on Tuesday (May 24) for taking voyeuristic videos of another teacher by planting a camera under her workstation, while others were away for character and citizenship education lessons.

The 46-year-old Singaporean, who pleaded guilty to two voyeurism charges, cannot be named due to a court order to protect his victims’ identities. The school cannot be named as well.

In response to TODAY's queries, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said that the man has left the education service and has not been teaching in any school since January last year.

"MOE takes a serious view of staff misconduct and will not hesitate to take disciplinary action against those who fail to adhere to our standards of conduct and discipline, including dismissal from service," it added.

Court documents stated that the man was in charge of the school's robotics co-curricular activity, and had 15 years of teaching experience until he was caught last year.

The court heard that he came up with the idea of planting a camera at his colleague’s table in the staff members' room after watching some pornographic videos involving voyeurism.

He owned a mini camera at the time that could record high-definition video footage and wanted to take some clips for his own use.

On Jan 13 last year, he took the device to school, keeping it in his pocket while waiting for an opportunity to plant it.

When other teachers left the staff members' room for character and citizenship education lessons at around 2pm, he then went to the victim’s workstation, taped the camera under her desk out of her view, and positioned it to face her chair.

The camera recorded video footage of the victim’s pelvis area and her underwear for at least a few hours.

The man could not retrieve the device that day. When he returned the next day to do so, he realised that it was no longer there. The victim had discovered it and made a police report.

The police later found that the mini camera also captured footage of the man as he was installing it under the desk.

His mobile phone was seized and an upskirt video of another woman was found in it, court documents said.

Investigations revealed that on the day after filming his colleague, he met his second victim for dinner at Paragon mall on Orchard Road.

The court heard that he took a video of her underwear by positioning his mobile phone camera at the opening of her shorts while they were going up an escalator.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Heershan Kaur asked for 18 to 28 weeks’ jail, pointing to sentencing considerations such as premeditation and the use of a recording device.

The prosecutor also noted that it was “merely fortuitous” that the victim had discovered the camera, adding: “Should the tape have fallen into the hands of other parties, the trauma and embarrassment that the victim would have had to endure would have been unimaginable.”

Those convicted of voyeurism can be jailed for up to two years, fined, caned, or punished with any combination of the three.

The man was the second teacher to be jailed on Tuesday for sex-related crimes, with the first being one who targeted a 15-year-old student. In that case, the victim committed suicide some years after the offences.