Two jailed in separate cases for insulting the modesty of women

Two men were jailed in separate cases on Tuesday for secretly filming their female victims who were naked.

Chinese national Wang Kai, 27, who works as an electrician, was jailed for 20 weeks after admitting to three counts of using his smartphone to film a neighbour who was getting dressed in her bedroom. In another case, Malaysian hairstylist Thong Yik Foong, 30, was sentenced to eight weeks' jail after he admitted placing a camera in a Housing Board unit's bathroom to film his 22-year-old flatmate.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Parvathi Menon told the court that Wang was walking along the common corridor of a Housing Board flat on Jan 29 last year when he noticed that the lights of a unit's room was switched on and that its sliding windows were closed.

Through a small gap at the corner of the window, he saw the victim, who is a 29-year-old doctor, getting dressed. It was then that he held his smartphone up at the top window panel of the victim's room and filmed her changing. He repeated his acts two other times on Feb 11 and May 15 that year.

He deleted the video recording each time out of fear of being caught but the video clips were retrieved by the Technology Crime Forensic Branch of the Criminal Investigation Department. Ms Menon said Wang's actions severely affected the victim who moved out after living there for 17 years.

In Thong's case, investigation showed that on Sept 13 last year, the victim, who works as a clerk, removed her clothes in the bathroom to wash them and was about to take a shower when she heard a "beep'' sound coming from the wash basin.

She found a silver camera hidden behind a few bottles of shampoo. The camera was switched on, and was on record mode. She immediately switched it off and had her shower.

When her friend came home, they checked the contents of the camera together and discovered a video of the victim naked in the bathroom. The victim called the police.

Wang and Thong could have been jailed for up to one year and/or fined for intruding into the privacy of a woman.

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