SINGAPORE: A former Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) major was convicted on Wednesday (May 3) of two counts of insulting the modesty of a woman, after taking multiple upskirt videos of a 26-year-old colleague.
Poh Siok Peng, 45, admitted to taking the videos over two years at SCDF’s headquarters at Ubi Avenue 4 before he was caught in a sting operation involving hidden cameras in March last year.
Poh, a 20-year veteran of the force, met the victim in 2013 when she joined the SCDF. Both worked in the strategic planning department.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Chee Ee Ling said the victim sensed something amiss when Poh started to frequent her office cubicle “to chat”.
He would sit in front of her “in an awkward position” and bend down often “as if to reach for something under (the victim’s) desk”, DPP Chee said.
When the woman saw a flashing light under her desk one day as Poh chatted to her, she realised what was going on. She reported Poh to the director of manpower.
A sting operation involving hidden cameras positioned around the victim’s cubicle caught Poh in the act on Mar 9.
Poh’s phone was seized, and two upskirt videos of the victim, taken on Mar 4 and 9, were retrieved.
Poh later told the police he had been taking upskirt videos of the victim for two years before he was caught.
However, other videos he had taken of the victim were not recovered because Poh had sold his old mobile phones, he said.
He also confessed to taking an upskirt video of an unidentified woman on an escalator.
Poh said he would view the videos “in the wee hours of the night as a form of stress-relief”.
POH “UNLIKELY TO RE-OFFEND”: LAWYER
DPP Chee argued that a jail term of at least six weeks was warranted.
However, Poh’s lawyer said the videos had not captured the victim’s “sensitive or private parts”, “only thighs”.
The lawyer urged the court to impose a fine or a jail term of less than four weeks, saying that Poh had been a young victim of a sexual crime but had since sought professional help. It was “unlikely he will re-offend in future”, the lawyer added.
Poh, who is married with two children, will be sentenced on May 17.
For insulting the modesty of a woman, Poh could be jailed for up to one year and fined.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
