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A Singaporean by the name of Colin Chua Yi Jin has been sentenced to one year in jail and fined S$2,500, after pleading guilty to seven counts of insulting a woman’s modesty and one count of possessing obscene videos.
Today reported that the 24-year-old undergrad at a top British university pleaded guilty on July 29, 2021, and was sentenced on June 22, 2022.
What happened
Chua filmed illicit footage of 12 women, which included upskirt videos and photos, and videos of his victims showering, from 2015 to 2018.
He started targeting his female friends when he was 18 and about to graduate from junior college, and continued with his voyeuristic ways while serving National Service (NS) and during his undergraduate days.
On Dec. 2 2015, he placed a recording device in the toilet of the hotel room in which he and his friends were intending to use after their junior college's prom night.
He took a 14-minute video of his friend showering. According to Today, the video could still be found on pornographic websites last August and had over 177,000 views.
The Straits Times (ST) reported that she was his first victim.
In 2016, he filmed another victim, who had gone to his house for a Christmas gathering, while she was relieving herself in his toilet. The video was viewed on a pornographic website over 38,000 times.
According to CNA, Chua estimated the number of illicit videos that he had filmed over the years to be "maybe three digit".
He called recording the victims "an addiction" and committed the offences when he felt stressed due to school or work.
Chua's home was raided on July 3, 2019 and forensic analysis uncovered 16 offending videos and 124 upskirt photos in seven devices.
Mothership pic taken in 2020.
Victims asked for gag order to be lifted
11 of his victims asked for the gag order on Chua's identity to be lifted last year.
The victims’ identities, their relationship to the culprit, the name of the university that Chua is currently enrolled at, and the names of the schools the victims attend are still protected by a gag order.
DPP: Chua showed no remorse
Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPPs) Tan Zhi Hao and Ng Shao Yan sought a jail term of 13 months for Chua, whom they described as a "serial offender", Today reported.
They asked for three charges of insulting a woman’s modesty — one for each year Chua committed the offences — and one of possessing obscene films to run consecutively.
Today also reported that Tan argued Chua “shows a lack of insight into his own condition and root causes of offending”, and that he showed no remorse.
Tan added:
“He was uncooperative during investigations, tried to abscond from Singapore, portrayed himself as the victim of a government conspiracy, blamed his girlfriend, and mounted an unmeritorious criminal motion (with regards to the gag order) that was criticised in the High Court.”
The DPPs also spoke of the “severe pain and trauma” inflicted on the victims.
Defence: Chua has good future ahead
Kalidass Murugaiyan and Chua Hock Lu, Chua's defence lawyers, asked for nine months of jail, arguing that Chua "has a good future ahead of him".
They added that he "has got the propensity and interest to further his studies. He may still yet be able to contribute to the community at large when he grows older."
ST reported that Chua's lawyers said that he suffers from "voyeuristic disorder" and has taken steps to get treatment.
They also argued that he was “not aware” of how the clips made their way onto pornographic websites, and that he has been seeing a psychologist since last September.
Chua is also said to have “[taken] steps to get a Wifi router sorted out so these problems in terms of access are limited" and installed a parental control software.
Sentencing
During sentencing, District Judge Tan Jen Tse noted that the sentence should strike a good balance between his relative youth and the severity of his offences.
Today reported that while the judge "generally agreed" with the prosecution’s submissions, "he gave more credit" for Chua’s "apparent remorse and steps taken towards rehabilitation".
For each offence of insulting a woman’s modesty, he could have been jailed for up to a year, fined, or both.
For possessing obscene films, he could have been fined at least $500 for each film up to an aggregate of S$20,000, jailed for up to six months or both.