Man pleads guilty to taking upskirt, up-shirt videos almost daily in 5-month filming spree

Shaun Ho Yan Liang was convicted of two charges of insulting the women’s modesty and one charge of being in possession of obscene videos. ST PHOTO: TIMOTHY DAVID

SINGAPORE - A 26-year-old man pleaded guilty on Wednesday (Sept 16) to taking explicit upskirt and up-shirt videos almost daily for a period of over five months in 2018, when he was a psychology undergraduate student at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

In total, 334 unknown women fell victim to the man, Shaun Ho Yan Liang, between February and July 2018 at various locations around Singapore, including his university campus.

His crimes came to light when he was caught in the act by the boyfriend of one of his victims in a FairPrice outlet at Eastpoint Mall, in Simei.

He was convicted of two charges of insulting the women's modesty, as well as one charge of being in possession of obscene videos.

One other charge under the Films Act will be taken into consideration for his sentencing, scheduled for Sept 23.

The court heard that on July 22, 2018, Ho followed the woman around the supermarket, recording videos of her buttocks and undershirt area between 8.40pm and 8.55pm.

He took 10 videos of her by standing or squatting directly behind her and positioning his blue Samsung S9 mobile phone below the waist level or close to ground level, with the rear camera of the phone pointed upwards, to film up-shirt or upskirt videos.

She was wearing denim shorts and a loose white T-shirt at the time.

Using a phone app called BVR, he was able to record the videos on his phone with a blank screen.

The woman's boyfriend at the time caught Ho with his phone pointed under her shirt, detained him and reported the incident to the store's security officer.

The authorities later found 459 videos of female victims on Ho's phone.

On each occasion, Ho targeted women wearing shorts or skirts whom he found attractive. He would use his phone camera to record a video of the woman's breasts, under-shirt or crotch by standing or squatting close to her.

Aside from Eastpoint Mall, he admitted to taking videos of the women at various other locations including a laboratory of the National Institute of Education's School of Science, an overhead bridge at NTU, and the student activity centre located at the North Spine of NTU.

Ho would even record the videos of his victims during lessons at NTU.

The authorities also found 106 obscene and pornographic video on Ho's laptop.

NTU told The Straits Times that Ho is no longer attending classes at the university, and will face disciplinary action after he is sentenced by the court.

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