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A discipline master at a secondary school in Singapore pleaded guilty on Aug. 2 to taking upskirt videos during the course of his job.
According to CNA, the 49-year-old man's charges include three for insulting a woman's modesty, with another five charges taken into consideration.
A court-ordered gag was placed on the man's name, the victims' names, and the school.
Over 156 videos of colleagues, 12 videos of students
Court documents seen by Mothership revealed that the man — who is married with three children — filmed the videos between April 2015 and July 2018.
A total of 156 of the videos involved at least 38 different female colleagues at the school.
He would film them by inviting his colleagues over to his workstation for data entry purposes.
While they were standing at his desk, the man would place his mobile phone beneath their skirts and record a video.
He would not invite female teachers who were wearing trousers, and seldom invited male teachers over to his workstation for data entry, court documents stated.
The man was also found to have filmed 12 upskirt videos of at least seven different female students.
One method of doing so involved a similar scheme as he used with his colleagues, this time inviting the student into the discipline room to use the computer there.
Another occasion saw the discipline master confiscate another student's phone under the pretext of investigating the student for taking upskirt videos.
When he found the videos on the student's phone, he made recordings of them with his own mobile phone to add to his collection.
The man also took an upskirt video at a family function — a party hosted by his mother-in-law. This involved making an upskirt video of a relative.
After recording the videos, the man would transfer them from his mobile phone onto an external hard disk.
Court documents noted that he did not share or publish the videos, but kept them for his own use.
The accused had even titled each video with the victim’s name or initials if he knew them, or if not, with a vague description like “Student1” or “Lift Girl”, court documents stated.
Most of the videos clearly captured the victims’ underwear.
He was eventually caught when a teacher at the secondary school filed a police report in July 2018.
She had suspected the man of taking upskirt videos of various teachers including herself.
During the course of investigations, police seized the man's hard disk and found a total of 173 upskirt videos.
"Committed with deliberation"
Asking for the man to be handed a sentence of between 12 to 18 months in jail, Deputy Public Prosecutor Yvonne Poon highlighted the long duration of the man's offending and the large number of his victims as aggravating factors.
"The accused abused the trust of his female colleagues and his position as discipline master in committing the offences," Poon argued, adding that the offences were "committed with deliberation, rather than on impulse".
She noted that the man was suffering from a major depressive disorder at the time of the offences, but pointed out that a doctor at the Institute of Mental Health had concluded that it did not mean, "even remotely, an exculpation from criminal responsibility".
The discipline master's depression had been brought on after losing his mother in 2015.
CNA reported that the man's defence lawyer Laurence Goh asked the court for a mandatory treatment order suitability report, also noting his client's "double depression".
The judge granted the defence's request for the report and noted that there was a contributory link between the offender's behaviour and his depression.
He will return to court for sentencing in November.
Top image by Mothership