Property agent jailed for taking upskirt video

A property agent was jailed for four weeks yesterday for taking an upskirt video of a 31-year-old woman with his mobile phone.

Dave Teo, 32, pleaded guilty to insulting her modesty on Sept 23 last year, when he took the video in a lift at an HDB block in Jalan Membina in Tiong Bahru.

The court heard that three people got into the lift that evening: Teo, the victim, who is a customer service executive, and another woman, who got out on the second floor.

Teo then took out his mobile phone, pointed it under the victim's skirt and recorded a video of her undergarment. The victim saw what he was doing in the reflection of the lift door and confronted Teo, who pretended nothing had happened and put his phone away.

She returned home and told her husband.

Both went in search of Teo and found him at the coffee shop at the bottom of the block they live in.

Teo tried to flee but was detained with the help of passers-by. The victim called the police.

Teo's lawyer, Mr Ravinderpal Singh, said his client, who is married with two young children, was feeling suicidal and depressed at the time. A psychiatric report said Teo, his family's sole breadwinner, was feeling highly stressed as he was not making much from his job for around three months. He also slept poorly.

He is still undergoing treatment at the Institute of Mental Health and receiving counselling regularly from counsellors and a church pastor, said his lawyer.

The maximum penalty for insulting the modesty of a woman is one year's jail and a fine.

This article was published on April 17 in The Straits Times.

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