• A man was upset that his girlfriend broke up with him during a trip to Hong Kong
• He harassed her on several social media channels and posted captions with photos that maligned her
• He once posted a photo showing a contact list of her associates and colleagues as well

SINGAPORE — Unhappy that his girlfriend had broken up with him, a property agent relentlessly stalked her for eight months, impersonating her on Instagram and posting compromising photographs of her.

After she told him to stop, he tried to add her on messaging application WeChat with the username “I am still alive”.

By then, the damage was done — her colleagues and friends had approached her to say that they saw the photos.

On Monday (Nov 30), the 44-year-old man was jailed five months. He pleaded guilty last week to a charge of unlawful stalking.

The Singaporean cannot be named due to a court order to protect the identity of his victim, who is now aged 31. 

During a trip to Hong Kong in March 2018, she told him that she wanted to end their relationship and they broke up. 

From then until October that year, he harassed her through various means including WeChat, Instagram and email, the court heard.

He set up an account on WeChat pretending he was her. Among the photos he posted was one that showed both of them topless in bed, but it was cropped so that it did not show her breasts.

He wrote accompanying captions such as “She loves to sleep with married men” and others that claimed she was promiscuous.

After this, he posted a list of her friends on WeChat and threatened her to add them on the account so that they could see the photos and captions. He also made the account username searchable so that anyone could find it.

He eventually took the photos down when she pleaded with him to do so.

He also sent her many messages with vulgarities on the various platforms. When he thought that she was dating someone else in mid-June 2018, he told her: “I’ll make sure u disappear... Treat me like a pest... U will regret.”

He also warned her to “smash up” a pair of speakers and earrings he had bought her or he would do something to get her fired from her job.

He did not carry out the threats in the end.

In July 2018, he emailed her to say he had waited for her for many hours at the airport, as well as during lunch at a location that was not disclosed in court documents. 

He expressed regret then and said that he wanted to resolve any misunderstandings between them.

FOLLOWED MORE THAN 600 ACCOUNTS

However, between July 28 and Aug 2 in 2018, he set up three Instagram accounts impersonating her.

For the first account, he posted the same topless photo as before with the caption: “Want to see more? PM (private message) me at WeChat”. 

He also identified her occupation and posted another photo that showed a contact list of her associates and colleagues. 

The profile was made public for a period. Even when it was later set to private views, he sent requests to various accounts.

At one point, he was using the account to follow more than 600 other accounts. These other accounts would receive a notification that the account under her name — which carried a link to the WeChat account — had followed them.

He opened a second Instagram account when the first became inaccessible, then a third account when he also could not access the second one. Court documents did not state the reasons why they became inaccessible.

On the third Instagram account, he posted more compromising photos.

She then called him to say that she had made a police report and told him to stop what he was going.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Rashvinpal Kaur Dhaliwal told the court: “The accused maintained the account and continued garnering followers out of anger, (because she) hung up the call after he replied, ‘You could have prevented all these’ and refused to engage him.”

He took the photos down the next day.

Then in early October 2018, while she was on vacation in Canada with her long-time friend, he tried to add her again on WeChat with the username “I am still alive”. 

His profile picture stated, “You left like I was never a reason to stay”, and he said again that he wanted to resolve their misunderstandings.

She did not reply and blocked him.

Last year, he tried to contact her ex-boyfriend, who was in Shanghai, China, through the social networking platform Douban. 

He asked the other man to consider telling her about what he perceived was the bad influence of her long-time friend, whom he thought was gay.

DPP Rashvinpal sought six months’ jail, saying that the victim lost her appetite due to the harassment, grew reluctant to leave home and avoided making new friends. She also felt compelled to change her address and contact number.

For unlawful stalking, the man could have been jailed up to a year or fined up to S$5,000, or both.