Jail for National Dental Centre ex-photographer who took voyeuristic shots of patients

SINGAPORE — A former photographer for the National Dental Centre of Singapore (NDCS) was sentenced to two years and three months' jail on Dec 9 after he took voyeuristic pictures of female patients he found attractive.

Elgin Ng, 29, who had taken more than 600 of such photographs of 25 victims and even sent some of them to a friend, pleaded guilty in November to nine charges, including multiple counts of voyeurism.

Twenty-one other charges were considered during his sentencing.

In earlier proceedings, Deputy Public Prosecutor Jeremy Bin told the court that as an NDCS photographer, Ng was tasked to take pictures of the teeth and jaws of patients who were scheduled for surgery.

He would then take pictures of patients' faces, primarily of their teeth and jaw.

For added modesty, he had to provide patients with a blue board to cover their chest, regardless of his or her gender.

When dealing with girls and women, Ng had to either have a female colleague present to assist in the photo-taking process, or keep the curtains in the room open.

Investigations, however, revealed that from June 2021 to May 2024, he took unauthorised voyeuristic pictures of girls and women when his photography colleague was not present in NDCS.

After taking the pictures, the Singaporean offender would extract the images from the camera's SD card and transfer them to a secured hard drive owned by NDCS.

Ng would then upload the pictures onto portals, including an NDCS internal system called MiPACS, so that the dentists could view them.

To commit the offences, Ng would note down the names of patients he found attractive and/or those who were wearing tops that revealed their cleavage.

In November, DPP Bin told the court: "If the patient was scheduled to have photographs taken, the accused would take the requisite photographs, as well as additional voyeuristic photographs of the victim's cleavage.

"If the patient had not been scheduled for a photography session, the accused would approach them, fraudulently claiming that their dentist had requested for photographs to be taken... to take voyeuristic photographs of them."

During these sessions, Ng would not give the blue board to the patients and kept the curtains closed, so that he could take such pictures undetected.

To take the pictures, he would arrange the cameras in positions that were prohibited by NDCS — at a top-down angle.

After that, Ng would transfer the pictures to devices including his personal thumb drive.

He would then delete the photographs from the camera's SD card to avoid getting caught.

Separately, he accessed the MiPACS system unauthorised, to download photographs of the victim's faces.

Court documents stated that he did this to match their faces to the voyeuristic photographs.

He then created folders with the victims' names in his thumb drive, each containing photographs of the victim's faces as well as voyeuristic pictures of them.

On at least two occasions in 2024, he distributed some of the pictures to a friend via messaging platform Telegram.

Ng's offences came to light after one of the victims lodged a complaint on April 16 that year, and he resigned the following month.

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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.