SINGAPORE - A former lecturer pleaded guilty on Monday (June 15) to taking upskirt videos of a student at a post-secondary school where he worked last year.

The 39-year-old man and his victim cannot be named because of a gag order to protect her identity.

On March 6, 2019, the man and his student met at a vacant classroom at his request. The court heard that this was the first time he had asked her to meet him outside his class.

After chatting for a while, he asked her to help him prepare for a class activity by posing as a model. He also said he would be using his mobile phone to take photographs of her, which would be used in the instructions for the class activity.

When she agreed, he instructed her to pose blindfolded with a handkerchief and with her feet apart.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Derek Ee said the student felt uncomfortable with the instructions but did not question her lecturer. After she blindfolded herself and posed, the man took a photo from behind her back. He then approached her, put his phone between her legs and recorded a video.

The student subsequently felt uncomfortable, turned around and took off her blindfold.

"To her surprise, she saw the accused squatting right behind her, holding his mobile phone in between her legs, with the screen facing upwards," DPP Ee said.

The student closed her legs, returned the handkerchief to him and left.

Feeling uncomfortable about what her lecturer had done, she returned shortly after and demanded to see the photographs of her that he had taken.

He agreed but walked over slowly while deleting the videos.

He let her see a photograph showing her from the back, which he claimed was the only photograph he took.

Later that day, the student told her guardian about the incident. After the lecturer failed to pick up her guardian's calls, she texted him that her guardian wished to speak with him.

He texted back that the incident was a "misunderstanding" and that he had fumbled with his phone while adjusting it to take a photograph. He added that he had ended up catching it while it was facing up and with the flash on.

She lodged a police report in the evening of the same day.

The man eventually admitted to the police to taking two upskirt videos of the student and deleting them after, as well as to taking other upskirt videos of his students on several occasions.

In urging the court to impose a jail term of at least 12 weeks, DPP Ee argued that the man had planned to take the videos and never intended to enlist her help.

Defence lawyer Anthony Wong disagreed in mitigation, saying that his client's "genuine intention" was for the student to assist him with his lesson but he had "succumbed to the temptation".

District Judge Adam Nakhoda eventually adjourned the man's sentencing to a later date.

For his offence, the man can be jailed for up to a year and fined.