SINGAPORE — A 30-year-old married man who pleaded guilty to filming up the skirt of a woman at Changi City Point sobbed in court on Friday (Dec 13) as his lawyer argued that he was unlikely to reoffend, given that he has "very strong family support”.

Ivan Cheong Jun Xiang, who turns 31 in three days, was sentenced to eight weeks' jail for taking upskirt videos on four separate days last year.

He admitted to three counts of insulting a woman’s modesty, with another four such charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

He decided to take upskirt videos for his own viewing after watching some taken by others on a pornography website, the court heard.

On Nov 7 last year, he was buying coffee at the basement of Changi City Point shopping mall when he noticed a 27-year-old woman walking towards the escalator. She cannot be named due to a court gag order to protect her identity.

He followed her up the escalator and began filming her with his mobile phone, but was caught red-handed when she felt someone touching her dress.

She suspected that he had taken an upskirt video of her after she turned around and saw him trying to put his phone inside his pocket.

She confronted him and asked to see the phone contents, but he secretly deleted the video he had taken of her before handing the phone over. She then sought help from members of the public.

After that incident, the authorities found more upskirt videos he had taken on his mobile phone, including one from earlier that morning on an escalator and one taken two days earlier.

These other victims and the locations he took the videos at could not be identified.

UPSKIRT OFFENCES ‘HAVE BECOME ALL TOO COMMONPLACE’

In mitigation, Cheong’s lawyer Lawrence Lee told the court that he was a first-time offender and had committed the offences at Changi City Point while on a coffee break during work hours.

Cheong began crying as Mr Lee said: “He is very unlikely to reoffend as he has very strong family support and he has learned a very hard lesson from these events. His wife and mother are present in court to support him.”

Mr Lee also argued for a lighter sentence, given that the victims in the other upskirt videos could not be identified.

In response, Deputy Public Prosecutor Wu Yu Jie said that Cheong had “formed the intention” to take upskirt videos and followed his victim, which showed premeditation.

Objecting to Mr Lee’s argument, he added that Cheong should not be given a shorter sentence “simply because the victims were unknown”.

“It is merely the fact that he was not caught… the privacy of his victims were violated regardless of whether they know it or not,” the prosecutor added.

When passing sentence, District Judge Adam Nakhoda warned that upskirt offences “have become all too commonplace”, with the ubiquity of camera phones and recording devices allowing offenders to “easily go about committing offences”.

He ruled that Cheong had exhibited premeditation, especially as he took the videos on a few different days.

“The fact that he deleted the video (at Changi City Point) was not mitigating — on the contrary, it can be seen as aggravating. Before showing the victim the contents of his phone, he secretly deleted the video. It would appear to me that he was attempting to destroy evidence to avoid detection,” the judge added.

For each charge of insulting the modesty of a woman, Cheong could have been jailed up to a year, fined or both.