A Nanyang Technological University (NTU) undergraduate who claimed to be in severe stress due to his studies began capturing videos of women in skirts and shorts while at MRT stations and at the university.
It appears that 24-year-old Chong Yen Bin took the videos by placing his smartphone below the shorts or skirts of women, adding that he has become “addicted” to seeing glimpses of women’s bare buttocks.
In the span of over eight months, he managed to possess over two dozen of such videos, TODAY reported.
However, his lewd act was short-lived after he was caught when a man noticed him going behind a woman in a suspicious manner at Toa Payoh Bus Interchange in September last year.
On Wednesday (18 December), the third-year student was sentenced to 18 weeks’ after pleading guilty to six counts of insulting a woman’s modesty. Additionally, another 20 similar charges were also taken into consideration for sentencing.
The student committed the offences from 23 January to 10 September last year, the court heard.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Shana Poon revealed that forensic report on Chong’s mobile phone found 26 upskirt videos of women. However, none of his victims could be identified.
How he was caught
The court heard that Chong’s act came to an end on the evening of 19 September 2018 when Yusman Yusoff spotted the student following closely behind a woman while holding his mobile phone at around 6.40pm.
The 42-year-old man tried following Chong but lost sight of him. He then went to inform some officers from the Public Transport Security Command (TansCom) about the incident.
At about 7.15pm, Mr Yusman and the officers saw Chong at Tao Payoh MRT station and detained him. Shortly after that, the police arrived and apprehended him after finding a number of videos of women’s underwear or glimpses of their bare buttocks on his phone, the Straits Times reported.
Investigations later revealed that Chong was on his was to take a taxi from Tao Payoh Central to head back to the university campus after he was done conducting a tuition class. This was when he spotted the victim near the taxi stand.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sunil Nair told the court that he saw a woman “wearing shorts which revealed glimpses of her buttocks” when he was nearing the taxi stand.
This then prompted the student to follow the woman closely and positioned his phone below her shorts.
“Very sorry” for my action
In mitigation on Wednesday, Chong told the court that he was “very sorry” for his actions. “But if it is possible, I just want to finish my education,” he said.
An NTU spokesman stated that the student is still studying in the university, but did not divulge more details on the case due to confidentiality.
The spokesman also noted that NTU views seriously of students engaging in criminal conduct.
“Students who are found guilty of such conduct by the courts will be subject to disciplinary proceedings which may lead to the student being expelled or suspended from the University,” he explained.
For each charge of insulting a woman’s modesty, the student could have been fined, jailed up to a year, or both.