SINGAPORE: A 19-year-old repeatedly filmed compromising videos of his girlfriend without her consent while she was asleep or showering.
The man, now 23, was jailed for 20 months on Thursday (Dec 26) after pleading guilty to five charges of voyeurism and an amalgamated charge of distributing intimate images.
Five more charges of voyeurism were taken into consideration for sentencing.
The identities of the victim and offender are protected by gag order. All the acts of voyeurism took place during their relationship from 2020 to 2022.
The man, who was a Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) student at the time, first filmed his girlfriend without her knowledge on Feb 10, 2021.
While she was sleeping, he lifted her shirt and used his phone to record two videos of himself touching her bare chest.
In another incident two months later, he told the victim to put on an eye mask during sex, and filmed her without her knowledge.
When she wanted to take off the eye mask at one point, he stopped her from doing so and continued filming.
On multiple occasions, the man also filmed his girlfriend in various states of undress while she was showering or changing in her hostel.
He filmed her showering by using his phone through a gap between the top of the toilet door and the ceiling.
The last time he filmed her was on Jul 16, 2021, when she was sleeping on the sofa and the offender filmed himself touching her chest.
But the victim woke up and spotted his phone’s camera pointing towards her.
When she asked why he was filming her, the man denied it and put his phone away. She took his word for it and let the matter rest.
AFTER BREAKING UP
The couple broke up in 2022 for reasons unrelated to the offences. But from July to August 2023, the man repeatedly sent her messages on Instagram, asking to see her chest.
The victim had already blocked him on all her social media accounts and email, but he kept finding a way to contact her by creating new accounts on the various platforms.
When the woman ignored him, the man threatened to send his photos of her to others.
The victim continued ignoring her ex-boyfriend, as she was not aware of the intimate images he had taken. The man admitted to threatening the victim as he wanted her attention.
The offences came to light this January, when the man reached out to the victim’s brother on Instagram.
The man asked to see “sexy photos” of the victim’s brother’s girlfriend. When the brother said he did not have any, the man did not believe him.
He sent two photos of the victim, showing her bare chest and her face, to her brother. When the brother ignored him, he sent another photo of the victim in a bra.
The man told the brother to add him on Telegram if he wanted to see nude images of his own sister, as they could send and receive disappearing images on the app.
Unknown to the man, the victim’s brother had already informed her of the conversation, and she had told him to fish out more about the nude images her ex-boyfriend claimed to have.
On Telegram, the man sent the brother two disappearing images of the victim, which were screenshots from videos of her having sex with the man and showering.
The victim made a police report that day. The man was arrested the next day, while serving National Service, and more intimate videos of the victim were discovered in his cloud storage account.
In a victim impact statement, the woman described feeling extremely traumatised after learning she had been filmed without her consent during their relationship.
“Her trauma stemmed from her fear that her life and career would be ruined if people found out about her nude photographs and videos,” Deputy Public Prosecutor Ariel Tan said.
The prosecutor added that the victim now uses a hidden camera detector light to check any new room that she is in, out of paranoia that she would be recorded again if she began to undress.
She also cries whenever she recalls what her ex-boyfriend did to her, Ms Tan said in sentencing arguments.
NOT FIT FOR PROBATION
The man was assessed at the Institute of Mental Health and diagnosed with voyeuristic disorder, but this was not a contributing factor to the offences.
Ms Tan pointed out that the IMH report said the disorder did not impair the man’s ability to exercise self-control and understand the nature and wrongfulness of his actions.
She asked for 22 to 25 months’ imprisonment, arguing that the man’s actions showed a high degree of premeditation and depravity, and describing him as “a habitual voyeur”.
The man repeatedly took videos of his girlfriend in situations that allowed him to evade detection. His offences therefore “cannot simply be chalked up to a moment of youthful folly” but were “carefully calculated acts”, she said.
While the man was 19 during the voyeurism offences, he was already 22 when he distributed the intimate images. This showed an escalation of his criminal conduct, the prosecutor argued.
Defence counsel Thomas Tham asked the court to consider probation for his client, highlighting his young age during the voyeurism offences.
“He wanted to have a look at the lady, and they were having a good relationship together in the beginning,” the lawyer said. Their relationship “went bad” two years later, which “caused all these problems”, he added.
But Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan noted that the voyeurism happened during the relationship, which enabled the man to get close to the victim and commit the offences.
The man abused the trust his girlfriend had placed in him by recording intimate videos of her for his own sexual gratification, said the judge.
When the man distributed the compromising images later, this was an act of humiliation, especially as he knew he was sending them to the victim’s own brother, Judge Tan added.
“Whatever may be said about his age at the time of commission of the offences, she was even younger,” he said of the victim.
The judge noted the victim’s vulnerability on account of her younger age and trust in her boyfriend, the significant harm to her as described in her impact statement, and the serious and repeated nature of the offences.
All this meant deterrence, and not rehabilitation, was the main sentencing consideration, and probation was not suitable for the offender, Judge Tan said.
Voyeurism is punishable with up to two years in jail, and may come with a fine, caning or any combination of these punishments.
The maximum penalty for distributing intimate images without consent is five years in jail, which may come with a fine, caning or any combination of these punishments.
As the man’s charge of distributing intimate images was amalgamated, he could have faced up to double the penalties.
