Man jailed for taking upskirt video, swallowing memory card

Man jailed for taking upskirt video, swallowing memory card lawsm@sph.com.sg He had tried to take an upskirt video of a fellow bus commuter.

When confronted by a witness, not only did he deny it, he also tried to destroy the evidence.

He smashed his Sony mobile phone against the floor, plucked the memory card from the wreckage - and swallowed it.

Malaysian Koo Kiat Boon, 25, was yesterday jailed three months after pleading guilty to one count each of intending to insult the modesty of a woman and destroying evidence.

On Sept 3, Koo, who worked here as an electrician, boarded SBS bus service 170 heading to the Woodlands Checkpoint at about 7pm.

He spotted the victim, a 28-year-old Malaysian who was wearing a skirt, and became attracted.

We cannot identify the woman because of a gag order protecting her identity.

Koo took out his Sony Xperia mobile phone and started to make a video recording from underneath her skirt.

A man standing next to him, Mr Shahrulhafizan Mohammad, grabbed Koo's hand and asked what he was doing.

Koo then meddled with his phone and tried to delete the video.

When Mr Shahrulhafizan tried to grab Koo's mobile phone, Koo swung his arms out of his reach and his phone dropped onto the floor.

Koo then squatted and repeatedly smashed his phone on the floor. He also took out the phone's memory card and put it in his mouth.

Claiming that it was a sweet, he swallowed the memory card.

By then, other bus passengers had surrounded him and the bus driver alerted police at the Woodlands Checkpoint where Koo was arrested.

In mitigation, defence lawyer Richard Lim said Koo had committed the offence "in a moment of folly".

PANIC

He added that Koo had stored intimate pictures of him with his wife on the phone and he did not want them seen by others. So in his panic, he destroyed the memory card.

During sentencing, District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim said repeatedly that the crime of damaging evidence is "the more serious one".

She added that if Koo had really damaged the evidence to escape prosecution, it should be "taken seriously because commuters don't expect this (an upskirt video being taken) to happen".

The New Paper understands that an X-ray was done but the memory card has not been retrieved.

Koo wept when he was led away from the dock in handcuffs following Judge Hamidah's three-month jail sentence.

His wife, who had been in the public gallery, declined to speak to the media. She left with their two-year-old child and Koo's mother.

This article was first published on December 11, 2014.
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