NTU undergrad jailed 18 weeks for taking upskirt videos on and off campus

SINGAPORE — Feeling stressed out over his studies and having become “addicted” to seeing women’s buttocks, a 24-year-old Nanyang Technological University (NTU) undergraduate took more than two dozen videos while filming up women’s skirts and shorts over eight months.

He was finally caught when another man noticed him following a woman in a suspicious fashion at Toa Payoh Bus Interchange.

On Wednesday (Dec 18), Chong Yen Bin was sentenced to 18 weeks’ jail after pleading guilty to six counts of insulting a woman’s modesty. Another 20 such charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

The court heard that when he committed the offences from Jan 23 to Sept 10 last year, he was in his third year at the university. 

Chong took at least 26 videos of women that “featured glimpses of their bare buttocks”, striking at various locations such as MRT stations and on campus. None of his victims could be identified.

On the evening of Sept 19 last year, he began trailing a woman while holding his mobile phone. This caught the attention of a fellow commuter, who tried to follow Chong but lost sight of them.

The commuter then went to inform some officers from the Public Transport Security Command (TransCom) about it.

About half an hour later, the man and the officers spotted Chong at Toa Payoh MRT Station and detained him. Police officers arrived shortly after and arrested him after finding several videos on his phone.

Investigations revealed that earlier in the day, Chong had finished conducting a tuition class and was about to take a taxi from Toa Payoh Central back to NTU.

When he was close to the taxi stand, he spotted a woman “wearing shorts which revealed glimpses of her buttocks”, Deputy Public Prosecutor Sunil Nair told the court.

Chong then followed her closely and positioned his phone below her shorts.

In mitigation on Wednesday, Chong told the court that he was “very sorry” for what he had done. 

“But if it is possible, I just want to finish my education,” he added.

NTU told TODAY that Chong is still studying there and students who are found guilty of criminal conduct by the courts will be subject to disciplinary proceedings, which may lead to them being expelled or suspended from the university.

It added that it is unable to give more details on his case because of confidentiality.

For each charge of insulting a woman’s modesty, Chong could have been fined, jailed up to a year, or both.