Businessman sentenced to 6 months' jail for taking upskirt videos of 57 women

Benjamin Chow Tuck Keong pleaded guilty to 10 charges of insulting the modesty of a woman. PHOTO: ST GRAPHICS

SINGAPORE - A 52-year-old businessman who took upskirt videos of 57 women over a one-year period was on Thursday (Feb 25) sentenced to six months in prison.

Benjamin Chow Tuck Keong pleaded guilty to 10 charges of insulting the modesty of a woman, with the remaining 47 counts taken into consideration during sentencing.

On April 3, 2013, Chow was seen taking an upskirt video of an unknown female at Newton MRT station.

He placed his Sony Ericsson K700i mobile phone with the camera lens facing upwards on his left thigh, and stood behind the woman as they were going up the escalator from the basement to the exit of the station.

A 45-year-old man, who witnessed this, told the woman about it, and they followed Chow to Barker Road, where he was arrested with the help of security officers near Anglo-Chinese School.

A total of 57 upskirt videos were found on his phone.

Chow admitted to taking them between April 2012 and April 2013 at various locations.

The identities of the victims could not be established.

After he was arrested, Chow threw away the charging cable for the phone.

As the phone model was old, the police had to source for another charging cable to extract the videos from the phone.

Chow was charged in September last year.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Andre Chong asked for two to three months' jail for each of the 10 proceeded charges, with three of the sentences to run consecutively.

Chow however asked for two to four weeks' jail per charge, and a total of three to five months' jail.

His lawyer said he had "confessed to his sins" and was undergoing counselling and "seeking treatment for his demons".

District Judge Bala Reddy jailed Chow for two months on each charge, with three of the setnences to run consecutively.

Chow, who is married with two young sons, was allowed to defer his sentence to March 24. He is out on bail of $15,000.

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