Singapore—A female finance manager and a male who works in construction are the latest recipients of the Public Spiritedness Awards from the Singapore Police Force.They were honoured for helping apprehend Singapore upskirt picture takers.

The police conferred 12 awards in all at a ceremony at the Public Transport Security Command (TransCom) on Thursday, October 24.

Among the awardees are Ms Chiang Su Sia, age 42, and Mr Jimmy Loy, age 38. They helped apprehend two Singapore upskirt photo takers.

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 cell phone 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 the Singapore upskirt photo shooter arrested. Together, they followed the man, and Ms Chiang told the MRT staff about what he had done.

She told The Straits Times (ST), “I felt that I needed to be responsible for making sure that the guy was caught,” saying she did not want him to get away with what he was doing, or victimize other women through taking even more upskirt photos.

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. Ms Chiang stayed with the woman to give witness.

The man challenged her testimony, having attempted to delete pictures he had taken. “He tried to delete the photos and claimed he was innocent, challenging me to find proof. But the police later found evidence,” said Ms Chiang.

She also talked about the courage of the woman whose upskirt photos had been taken.

“She was very small, but was very angry and wanted to catch the guy.

“It is good that victims dare to stand up for themselves. I am glad that I helped to prevent future crimes.”

On the same day at around 9:00 pm at 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 New Paper (TNP) reports Mr Loy as saying, “He begged me to let him ago, claiming he had young children to provide for.”

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

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