Serial upskirter who filmed through hole in shoe jailed again soon after prison release

SINGAPORE — Soon after his release from prison for taking upskirt videos, a 29-year-old man committed the same crime of filming voyeuristic videos through a hole cut out from his shoe.

Tham Heng Yew was on Monday (Nov 15) jailed 10 months after pleading guilty to a combined charge of voyeurism for filming upskirt videos of five women.

In March last year, the Singaporean was jailed more than 10 months for committing similar crimes six times over five years. These included filming upskirt videos at the Singapore Institute of Management, where he studied.

Tham committed his latest crime in the same way — by cutting a hole in one of his shoes and placing his phone with its camera lens pointed upwards to film up victims’ skirts.

His latest crime happened at Plaza Singapura mall along the Orchard Road shopping district on Jan 21 this year.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Charis Low told the court on Monday that he kept a lookout for women in their late 20s to 30s wearing skirts or dresses at the Daiso store on the fifth floor of the mall.

He did this for almost two hours, before one of the victims became suspicious of Tham following her closely.

The victim, who cannot be named because of a court order protecting her identity, told her boyfriend about it. They notified staff members of the Daiso store who later called the mall’s security team.

When Tham left the store, the victim’s boyfriend followed and found him trying to escape via a stairwell.

Security officers detained him until the police arrived.

By then, Tham had deleted the videos.

Tham, who did not have a lawyer, told the court that he committed the crime while he was feeling lost in life after failing to find a job.

He added that he has since been attending regular counselling sessions and started doing food delivery jobs part-time to keep his mind off “negative thoughts”.

District Judge Lorraine Ho urged Tham, a university graduate, to use the time behind bars to upgrade himself for employment and prepare himself to re-enter society.

“Unfortunately, I think you have been quite experienced in committing this offence and that’s the worrying part that I see. It was because of the victim’s alertness that you were caught,” she said.

For voyeurism, Tham could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned, or given any combination of the three penalties.