SINGAPORE - An engineer who was detained for attempting to take an upskirt video of a woman on an escalator at an MRT station was found to have committed multiple offences over less than three weeks.

On Monday (April 10), Filipino Jan Benedict Mendoza Fuellas, 36, was jailed for 16 weeks after he admitted to one count of trying to intrude into the privacy of a 26-year-old woman at Bukit Panjang MRT station, and seven charges of intruding into the privacy of unknown women at various MRT stations last August.

The court heard that a 24-year-old Singaporean was riding the escalator at Bukit Panjang MRT station at about 7.20pm on Aug 19 when he saw Fuellas standing very close to the victim with his mobile phone on his lap.

Realising what was happening, he approached Fuellas and managed to interrupt his act. The witness alerted the victim, and the two detained Fuellas, who was referred to the control station.

The witness informed the station master of his suspicions and urged him to check Fuellas' mobile phone.

On checking the phone, the station master initially did not find any upskirt videos but after delving deeper into the file system, he found multiple videos that were encrypted with a password.

Fuellas provided the password to decrypt the video files. A total of 38 upskirt videos of women taken at various MRT stations was extracted from the phone.

Thirty-one similar charges were taken into consideration in sentencing.

In another court, IT analyst Lin Weijie, 35, was sentenced to seven weeks' jail for intruding into the privacy of a woman by videoing women changing in fitting rooms.

He pleaded guilty to two of four charges.

On Jan 16 last year, he entered a fitting room at Cotton On outlet at Velocity Novena Square and used his mobile phone to video record a woman removing her T-shirt and brassiere and changing into another brassiere.

On March 20, he went into the fitting room of Factorie outlet at Ion Orchard and recorded three videos of a 34-year-old woman changing her singlet into a T-shirt in the next room. He deleted one as the recorded footage was unclear.

A part-time sales assistant became suspicious when he saw a mobile phone on the floor of Lin's fitting room. He asked Lin to come out and detained him.

In the course of investigation, Lin, who has sought psychiatric help, admitted that he had recorded women changing in fitting rooms seven times at various stores.

The maximum penalty for insulting modesty is one year's jail and a fine per charge.