Teacher accused of taking more than 160 upskirt videos of women at school over 3 years

SINGAPORE — A teacher is accused of taking more than 160 upskirt videos of women at the school he taught at over the course of more than three years.

The 47-year-old man was charged on Tuesday (June 23) with six counts of insulting a woman's modesty and two counts of possessing obscene films.

His name and the name of the school he taught at cannot be revealed, due to gag orders imposed by the court to protect the identities of the victims.

The teacher was charged with intruding on the privacy of multiple women in the school between April 2015 and July 2018, by recording 168 upskirt videos of women with his mobile phone.

He allegedly filmed eight women at the school over 15 occasions between April and October in 2015, before recording nine upskirt videos of eight women in the first half of 2016.

In 2017, this went up to 105 upskirt clips of 32 women, allegedly taken over 100 occasions at the same school between January and November.

He is also accused of taking 39 upskirt videos of 21 women on 36 occasions between January 2018 and July 2018.

A total of 69 women are included in the above charges for offences at the school, but it is unclear if there are any overlaps or if he targeted the same women more than once.

Besides filming the women at his school, the man is also accused of filming another upskirt video of a female relative in February 2017. A month after this, he allegedly took one more upskirt clip of an unknown woman at a shopping mall.

He will return to court on July 14.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Education (MOE) told CNA on Friday (June 26) that the man has been suspended from service since July 2018 and is no longer teaching at any school.

He said 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".

This includes dismissal from service, said the spokesperson.

For each count of insulting a woman's modesty, he faces up to a year's jail, a fine, or both if convicted. CNA

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