Jail for hairdresser who insulted modesty of multiple women and offered to pay for upskirt videos

SINGAPORE - A hairdresser, who insulted the modesty of multiple women and offered to pay girls for their upskirt videos, was sentenced on Thursday (June 18) to 19 weeks' jail.

Ivan Seah Kim Ming, 38, had claimed that he heard voices in his head asking him to commit the offences, and District Judge Toh Han Li had called for a report to assess his suitability for a mandatory treatment order (MTO).

Offenders given an MTO have to undergo treatment for their mental condition in lieu of jail time.

On Thursday, the court heard that an MTO was not recommended for Seah, who was said to be "exaggerating" his symptoms of hearing voices.

The Singaporean had pleaded guilty in January to 11 counts of insulting a woman's modesty, committing the offences between 2007 and 2017.

Another 17 charges, mostly for similar offences, were considered during sentencing.

The court was told that Seah had a "specific fetish for females in uniform".

He set up an account on online marketplace platform Carousell in 2016 and offered to pay female students for their upskirt videos taken while they were wearing their pinafores.

Calling himself "upsktfan", he offered the girls $35 for a two-minute video and $45 for a three-minute one.

He told the girls to record their videos from a few angles and offered to pay them $10 to $20 more if the footage showed their underpants. Seah also provided the girls with a script and offered additional cash if they recited from it.

These included phrases such as "Hey, what are you looking at? Do you like to see me adjust my shirt?" and "Do you like to look at my panties underneath?"

The court heard that he also set up an account on online classifieds website Locanto with similar information. Three girls later approached Seah and sent him their videos, the court heard.

Besides these, he also recorded upskirt videos of at least 25 different victims at various places, including the home of one and at MRT stations.

In one instance, some time between January 2007 and November 2016, he targeted a girl from a local junior college and used his mobile phone to record upskirt videos of her on an overhead bridge.

In another instance, he visited a 28-year-old customer at her home in 2017 to treat her hair, but ended up taking upskirt videos of her without her knowledge.

His offences came to light when a 34-year-old woman alerted the police on Aug 16 that year about his activities on Carousell.

Calling Seah a "pervert", she told officers: "He is offering young girls who want to earn more money to contact him and to take upskirt videos of them. This is disturbing. Please do something about this."

Officers conducted an investigation and seized items from Seah, including his mobile phone and an external hard disk.

He was later found to be in possession of 253 obscene films and at least 26 upskirt video files.

For each count of insulting a woman's modesty, offenders can be jailed for up to a year and fined.

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