Singapore—A 22-year-old man was charged in court on Wednesday, October 30, for allegedly taking multiple upskirt videos in numerous schools and MRT stations.
Marcus Phua Xie is facing 43 counts of intruding on a woman’s privacy to insult her modesty by taking upskirt videos.
Mr Phua is said to have taken these videos at train stations such as Clementi, Dover and Raffles Place, and in different tertiary-level schools around the country, such as Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) and Ngee Ann Polytechnic and other schools, the charge sheets say.
Five videos were allegedly taken by Mr Phua at an overhead bridge opposite the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS). He is said to have taken one video at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and seven others at SIM.
Five offences purportedly took place at the bridge opposite SUSS, while seven occurred in SIM and one at Ngee Ann Polytechnic.
The charge sheets also say that the alleged offences occurred in the six-month period between May and October 2018.
Cory Wong of Invictus Law, who is Mr Phua’s lawyer, requested for an adjournment at his client’s court appearance, explaining that he had gotten word just the previous day from a private psychiatrist.
Adam Nakhoda, the District Judge, granted an adjournment of three weeks in order to allow for the defence to have a timeline for the report from the private psychiatrist, as well as for an update on appointments.
Mr Phua is now scheduled to appear in court again on November 20.
Each charge of insulting a woman’s modesty can mete a maximum penalty of one year in jail, a fine, or both.
More individuals have gotten caught taking upskirt videos and been made to face the consequences of their offence, partly due to the rise of the number of people who are helping catch such perpetrators.
Last week, a female finance manager and a male who works in construction became the latest recipients of the Public Spiritedness Awards from the Singapore Police Force. The police conferred 12 awards in all at a ceremony at the Public Transport Security Command (TransCom) on October 24.
Among the awardees were Ms Chiang Su Sia, age 42, and Mr Jimmy Loy, age 38, both of whom aided in the apprehending of two individuals who were taking upskirt pictures in public.
At the Paya Lebar MRT station on September 30, Ms Chiang was on her way home from work when she saw a man place his cellphone on the bag in front of him, which was directly under a woman’s skirt while she was on an escalator.
The man was one step behind the woman whose upskirt photos he was taking. Ms Chiang told the woman about the man and aided in eventually getting him arrested. Together, they followed the man, and Ms Chiang told the MRT staff about what he had done.
The staff prevented the man from leaving the station, and later the police arrived to arrest the man for being a public nuisance and insulting the modesty of a woman.
On the same day at around 9:00 pm at Bishan MRT station, 38-year-old Jimmy Loy took matters into his own hands and grabbed hold of a foreign worker who was taking an upskirt video of a female while on riding on an escalator.
The police were called in and found even more similar upskirt videos, as well as women’s underwear, in the man’s possession. The foreign worker was later arrested for public nuisance, insulting the modesty of a woman and possession of fraudulent property.
Ten other individuals were given Public Spiritedness Awards, as well as appointed by the police as Riders-On-Watch volunteers.
This programme was introduced in July, wherein people volunteer to watch out for suspicious behavior in public, which they then report to police. Members of the programme also receive the updates on crime information for the public transport system.
Evon Ng, the Assistant Commissioner of Police and deputy commander of TransCom said, “The strong partnership between the public and the police goes a long way to help prevent, deter and detect crimes on the public transport network.
We encourage commuters to join TransCom’s Riders-On-Watch volunteer scheme… Together with the police, commuters can make perpetrators think twice before committing any crimes on the public transport network.”/ TISG
http://theindependent.sg/public-spiritedness-awards-given-to-commuters-who-helped-catch-men-taking-upskirt-photos/