A "dishonourable and deplorable" Bangladeshi man who filmed himself having sex with a married housewife and then threatened to send the explicit video clip to her friends and family had his original jail term more than doubled yesterday from five months to 11 months.
In allowing the prosecution's appeal for a heavier sentence of between 10 and 12 months, Judge of Appeal Tay Yong Kwang reproached the 42-year-old man for his actions, describing him as "manipulative and vengeful".
Noting that the defence had portrayed the accused as a lovesick man who could not move on from his failed relationship with the woman, Justice Tay said that describing him as a pitiful lovelorn man "is to make a mockery out of what love is meant to be".
The judge noted that the man, who sent the video to the woman's husband and 18-year-old daughter, wanted to cause her "maximum embarrassment" and to "distress and destroy" her family.
Neither he nor the woman can be named due to a gag order.
In May, the man pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal intimidation for threatening the 38-year-old woman between March 27 and April 4 this year.
The pair had been in an intermittent relationship from around 2007 to 2013. The man, a machine operator, had approached the housewife at an MRT station and introduced himself.
They broke up in 2014 and he went back to Bangladesh.
He returned to Singapore early last year and tried to resume their relationship but she refused.
He then told her he had multiple video clips of them having sex and the contact details of her family and neighbours. He sent her screenshots to substantiate his claims, demanding that she meet him before he would allow her to delete the video clips from his mobile phone.
The woman had sex with the man multiple times in a bid to have the video clips deleted. But he did not keep his end of the bargain.
On Jan 28, while they were having sex, he surreptitiously filmed the act using his mobile phone.
From March 28 to April 6, as the complainant began ignoring him, he sent several messages to her over WhatsApp, threatening to send the video clip to her friends, family and "all of Singapore".
The prosecution appealed against the man's original sentence, arguing that his persistent threats were aimed at "extracting the largest pound of flesh" from the woman.
