SINGAPORE — A 24-year-old man was sentenced to 14 weeks’ jail on Monday (Sept 2) for taking upskirt and explicit videos and photographs of women, some of them in the women’s toilet of a government building.

Joyner Lai Liang Yun worked at the building at the time as an administrative support assistant, while he was serving his National Service (NS). Its location was redacted from court documents.

Lai pleaded guilty to seven charges of criminal trespass and insulting a woman’s modesty, with another 12 similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

TOOK UPSKIRT VIDEO AT SUPERMARKET

The court heard that Lai began committing such offences on July 23, 2015 when he was a polytechnic student.

He was sitting on a bench outside his classroom, waiting for his next lesson to begin, when he noticed an unknown female entering the women’s toilet. The school’s location was redacted from court documents.

He secretly used his mobile phone to film the woman inside a cubicle by standing in the next cubicle, Deputy Public Prosecutor Regina Lim told the court. He then left undetected and went to class.

The following year in July, he enlisted in NS.

In December that year, he took a 19-second upskirt video of a woman at Shine Korea Supermarket along Rochor Road.

DELETED PHOTOS AFTER VIEWING THEM

About a year later, Lai — then a full-time national serviceman — was finally apprehended after his victim caught him in the act in the government building.

This happened on Aug 8, 2017, when he took photos of her while she was using the toilet.

The victim spotted his mobile phone as he raised it above the cubicle’s side partition and took a few photos.

She shouted and he fled from the toilet, returned to his office and deleted the photos after viewing them.

A Singapore Armed Forces staff member lodged a report with the police about three months later, on Nov 14, 2017.

She said that Lai was being investigated for offences of insulting a woman’s modesty, and that they had discovered video footage taken by Lai prior to his enlistment on his laptop.

The court heard that this was not the first time he had taken a video in the women’s toilet of the same building. He had done so earlier on Nov 11, 2016 to another unknown woman, but was not working there yet then and had escaped undetected at the time.

On Monday, District Judge Adam Nakhoda rejected Lai’s lawyer’s request to call for a report to assess if he was suitable for probation.

“The majority of the offences in the proceeded charges were committed after he turned 21 years old. The number of charges and length of offending cannot be attributed to youthful folly,” the judge noted.

Probation is usually offered to first-time offenders aged between 16 and 21. This does not result in a recorded criminal conviction, and allows young offenders to continue with their education or employment while serving their sentences.

The judge allowed Lai to begin serving his sentence on Oct 31, as he has to complete his job contract.

For insulting the modesty of a woman, Lai could have been jailed for up to a year, or fined, or both.

For criminal trespass, he could have been jailed for up to three months, or fined up to S$1,500, or both.