Engineer jailed for filming up women's skirts

Angelo Salvador Afable Beltran was caught filming by a commuter at an MRT station platform.
Angelo Salvador Afable Beltran was caught filming by a commuter at an MRT station platform.

An engineer who took videos up the skirts of 26 women, including his colleague, was jailed for 10 weeks yesterday for insulting modesty and having obscene films.

Angelo Salvador Afable Beltran, 45, pleaded guilty to eight counts of intruding into the privacy of a woman, and one of having obscene films at Hume Avenue. The offences were committed in 2014.

Nineteen other charges were taken into consideration.

Beltran, a Filipino, was employed by consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble International Operations Sa Singapore Branch at the Singapore Innovation Centre in Biopolis Street.

The court heard that a train commuter saw him standing behind an unknown woman at the Jurong East MRT station platform and taking a video recording of her on May 22, 2014.

When the 35-year-old witness confronted him, Beltran panicked and tried to walk away but was stopped.

He took Beltran to the MRT station control, where the police were called.

The police found other similar videos stored in his phone. Beltran was arrested and taken to his home in Upper Bukit Timah where other items were seized.

Investigations showed he had used his mobile phone to record videos up the skirts of various women wearing short skirts or dresses.

In mitigation, Beltran's lawyer Patrick Fernandez said that during the course of investigation, his client had been induced to offer $35,000 to a police officer.

Because of this, the matter had been prolonged.

He was referring to convicted former staff sergeant Woo Poh Liang, 29, who was sentenced to 31 months and four weeks' jail, fined $20,000, and ordered to pay a penalty of $35,000 for corruption and other offences.

Counsel said his client, a father of three, lost his job and home as well. His family has returned to the Philippines.

District Judge Samuel Chua backdated Beltran's sentence to April 28.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 10, 2017, with the headline Engineer jailed for filming up women's skirts. Subscribe