Nanyang Polytechnic student took upskirt photos of six women, hid them in secret app

Shaffiq Alkhatib
The Straits Times
Dec 19, 2019

A teenager snapped multiple upskirt photos of six different women at places including MRT stations, a district court heard on Thursday (Dec 19).

Nanyang Polytechnic student Chiang Wei Sheng, 19, pleaded guilty in court to three counts of insulting a woman's modesty.

Three other similar charges will be taken into consideration during sentencing.

Chiang was at Jurong East MRT station at around 5pm on March 21 this year when he spotted a woman going up a flight of stairs.

He stood behind the woman, took out his mobile phone and snapped several upskirt photos of her.

The teenager struck again six days later at the Singapore Expo when he took similar pictures of another woman as she was going up an escalator.

The court heard that he did not know both victims.

He was finally caught on April 9 after taking multiple upskirt pictures of a 28-year-old woman as she was going up an escalator at Sembawang MRT station.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Kenneth Chin said: "When the victim felt something brush against her right inner thigh, she turned around and saw the accused behind her with his mobile phone underneath her dress.

"The victim confronted the accused who eventually admitted that he had taken photos under her skirt."

An MRT station master alerted the police and officers arrived soon after to arrest Chiang.

They seized his mobile phone and a forensic analysis of the device revealed that by then, he had already taken upskirt photos of five other unknown women.

The DPP added that Chiang had stored the images in an encrypted application on his mobile phone.

District Judge Seah Chi-Ling has called for a report to assess the teenager's suitability for probation, and he will be sentenced on Jan 17 next year.

For each count of insulting a woman's modesty, offenders face up to a year in jail and a fine.