SINGAPORE — He first secretly took videos of his fellow tenant showering, then later used them to threaten her when he felt that she was avoiding him.
For his actions, the 43-year-old Filipino was jailed for 21 weeks on Tuesday (May 24). He pleaded guilty to one charge each of voyeurism and harassment, with another similar charge taken into consideration for sentencing.
His 29-year-old victim, also from the Philippines, cannot be named due to a court order to protect her identity. The offender's name was removed in court documents.
The court heard that in July 2020, the victim and her female friend moved into a residential unit where the man lived. The other occupants were the landlord and his wife, as well as another couple. The man first rented a room in the unit around 2011.
Soon after, he became attracted to the victim. He used to cook dinner for himself almost every day but after she moved in, he also cooked for her occasionally.
He would also ask her out for dinner on Fridays. She asked her friend to accompany them but the other woman was often busy, leaving the victim to have dinner with him alone on several occasions.
The victim’s friend returned to the Philippines in August 2020.
He then began buying fruits and food for her, rejecting her requests to pay him and saying that they were gifts. She felt uncomfortable about this and decided to just transfer money to him.
She regarded him as a friend but felt that they were not close, the court heard.
A NOTE SAYING ‘I LOVE YOU’
After some time, the man began experiencing “desires and fantasies” to look at her body. He then bought a spy camera, which was about the size of a USB drive, from e-commerce site Shopee.
He concealed it within a kitchen sponge and placed it on a pail just beside the bathroom door, so that it faced the shower area.
When the victim was done showering, he retrieved the sponge and viewed the recorded footage.
He ended up taking five video clips, lasting between five and 22 minutes each, of her removing her clothes and taking a shower. He uploaded the footage to his personal laptop but deleted them after a few days, and also transferred the files to his iPhone.
In November 2020, she stopped going out for dinner with him.
When she checked her bag on Nov 15 that year, she found a piece of paper with “I love you” written on it, which she found to be "very creepy", court documents stated.
She then decided to move out of the unit, suspecting that someone had entered her room without her permission when she was out to work.
She told her landlord about her plans under the pretext that she wanted to live somewhere closer to her workplace.
The next day, the man began sending her text messages on WhatsApp, saying that he did not want her to leave and trying to persuade her to stay. He also said that he would keep all the “remembrance” of their time together, which led her to block him on WhatsApp.
She then moved out of the unit the next day.
More at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/jail-man-filmed-cotenant-showering-1906286
