Singapore — A woman says she was filmed by a man on the MRT and then harassed on the phone by the officer looking into her case.
On Monday (May 17), she and a friend were on the train going to Newton MRT station when she looked up and saw a man pointing his phone at them in a suspicious manner.
She saw through the reflection of the window panels that he had been zooming his camera into her chest area and taking footage.
She later confronted the man while still on the train, and asked to look at his gallery.
“Why? Cannot,” the man rudely replied in Mandarin.
“If you didn’t do anything, you can show me your gallery.” she argued back.
He went into his gallery, and then into a separate album, and she saw pictures/videos of her in his phone before he tilted his phone away and changed to another album. He then showed her an album full of racy pictures of women.
She attempted to take his phone to change back to the album with her in it, but he showed signs of aggression. She then backed away and pressed the emergency button.
He then proceeded to delete the picture/videos on his phone before the SMRT staff entered the scene. “thus i didn’t have hard evidence against him despite my statement and the video that i’ve taken. the authorities also classified this under intentional harassment and not sexual harassment because of the lack of evidence,” she shared on Twitter.
She also complained of inappropriate behaviour by the officer looking into her case.
The officer approached her through Telegram private messaging, asking if she was the victim of the incident at Newton MRT station.
He apologised for calling her late at night but wanted to get a clear picture and added: “I’m police from Transcom.”
He said, “‘if u saw someone taking pictures of u, u shouldnt have give him a chance of ask him nicely for his phone. u should just snatch it away from him so that u can have a strong evidence that the guy has taken a photo of u and we can arrest him for the offence… i mean i also understand that u’re still young and just be careful of ur surroundings”
She messaged back that she could not have snatched the phone from the man who took her photos because he was nearly twice her size.
She posted a screenshot of their conversation.
Photo: Twitter/ catto
To her horror, the officer then messaged her under another account. He called her “babe”, pleaded with her to remove the screenshots of the initial conversation, and asked her to “apologise to him for exposing his DMs”.
She argued back, noting that it was not the standard operating procedure (SOP), to text the victims. She also noted how both accounts had called her “quite young”, which had nothing to do with the incident on the train. She deduced this account also belonged to the officer, or to a person related to the officer.
Many netizens are expressing sympathy to the victim and urging her to complain against the officer.
The woman said she has already reported the officer to the authorities.
Denise Teh is an intern at The Independent SG. /TISG