SINGAPORE: A married man who filmed voyeuristic videos of his wife’s niece and superimposed her face into pornographic videos was sentenced to 21 weeks’ jail on Monday (Oct 28).
The 50-year-old Singaporean cannot be named due to gag orders protecting the identity of the victim, who was 23 at the time of the offences.
He pleaded guilty to one count each of voyeurism and possessing altered intimate videos that would humiliate the victim.
The court heard that the man married his wife in 2017 and had a daughter with her.
After tying the knot, the man moved in with his wife, who was already living with her niece since 2006, when the younger woman came to Singapore to study.
The offender, who worked as a designer, later bought an apartment in 2019 and began staying there with his wife and her niece, with the niece occupying her own room.
The man and his wife began arguing frequently and had marital issues.
The court heard that the man “became curious” about what his wife’s niece did in the toilet, “out of frustration”.
On three occasions between May and July in 2022, he set up a small video camera in the niece’s toilet and retrieved it after several hours to review the footage.
He recorded the young woman applying moisturiser in her underwear and in other states of undress, with her face visible.
The man then bought another video camera that had Wi-Fi connectivity and allowed recordings to be viewed and downloaded on a smartphone.
He set this camera up in the victim’s toilet on six occasions in early July 2022 and captured the woman in several private acts.
This included showering, using the toilet and changing.
The man also placed the camera under the victim’s bed on one occasion while he was vacuuming her room and captured her undressing.
VICTIM DISCOVERS CAMERA
On Jul 12, 2022, the victim noticed the first camera taped under her sink. She cried and told her aunt what happened and called the police, who arrested the offender.
That same day, she packed her things to move out and found the second camera under her bed, turning it over to the police.
The police seized the offender’s electronic devices for investigations and found 17 videos which appeared to show the victim in various sex acts.
The offender later admitted using his “design expertise” to create the recordings, by using a smartphone application to superimpose the victim’s face onto pornographic videos.
The prosecution sought 24 to 29 weeks’ jail for the man, noting that he had committed the offence against his wife’s niece, whom he had known since she was a teenager and who trusted him.
There was also a risk of the videos leaking, although the man did not attempt to disseminate them.
The faked recordings were also particularly explicit, indicating a grosser violation of privacy, said the prosecutor, while acknowledging that the victim did not see these videos and did not suffer emotional harm from them.
The offender’s lawyers, Mr Tang Shangwei and Mr Warren Tian from WongPartnership, asked for four weeks’ jail instead.
They said their client is “deeply ashamed and remorseful”, and that the offences have been “an unprecedented setback” in his life and “stellar career”.
The lawyers argued that he was suffering from adjustment disorder with depressed mood, which was precipitated by multiple stressors including his deteriorating marriage, financial stressors and feelings of guilt.
According to a psychiatric report tendered by the defence, the man started drinking more alcohol daily and surfed more pornography to try and assuage his depressive symptoms.
He reportedly set up the cameras after quarrelling with his wife and would feel a “sense of control” after watching the videos.
He was allowed to begin his jail term on Nov 15.
