A former property agent caught taking an upskirt video of a woman with an improvised pen-camera device was jailed three months yesterday.
Clarence Chan Yew Keong was also fined a total of $14,600 for having 141 films without a valid certificate and for possessing an obscene film.
Chan, 50, now unemployed, has filed a notice of appeal against his sentence, and bail of $15,000 was offered. With his head bowed throughout the proceedings, Chan pleaded guilty to six charges of intruding into the privacy of women and two under the Films Act. Six other charges were considered.
He placed the pen-camera in an organiser and put both in a basket, with the pen-camera facing upwards while in a FairPrice supermarket at Tanjong Pagar Plaza on Oct 23, 2013. A supervisor saw him place his basket underneath a victim's skirt and confronted him. Chan was later detained before the police were called.
Twelve upskirt videos were found in the pen-camera and Chan admitted he had been taking upskirt videos since December 2012 at places such as the Tangs store in Orchard Road. He uploaded them into a hard disk drive to view on his laptop.
Assistant Public Prosecutor Daniel Marini said there was a high degree of planning and pre-meditation in this case. "Although there was no nudity, women in public should be protected. The intrusion into their privacy is grave, as embarrassment, shame and stress will be caused to the victims."
Chan's lawyer, Mr S. Balamurugan, said his client is being treated at the Institute of Mental Health for a major depressive disorder. District Judge Kamala Ponnampalam said there was nothing to indicate a causal link between Chan's psychiatric condition and the offences when she rejected counsel's plea that a mandatory treatment order report be called.
In a separate case yesterday, logistics manager Myo Min Aung, 36, from Myanmar, was jailed one week for recording a video of his 24-year-old female flatmate in the shower with his mobile phone at a Serangoon Road apartment on April 5.
