Man gets jail for filming student’s private sex act in toilet cubicle, says he was gathering ‘evidence’

“I also detected a food odour inside the toilet, which aroused my suspicion. I felt that this behaviour was unusual and inappropriate for a toilet setting.” 

He decided to “investigate” what this person was doing and peered over the partition board to check.

He said that he saw a slim person holding his phone and engaging in a sex act, and that was when he took his own phone, intending to gather evidence of what he saw.

Tan added that he recorded for a few seconds over the partition, before reaching beneath to signal to the boy to ask if he was engaging in a sex act.

He then heard the boy putting on his pants before leaving. When Tan looked over, he saw rubbish and a food packet that the boy had discarded on the floor.

“He again left towards the toilet exit, so I decided to follow him to determine if he would try to (engage in a sex act) in another toilet,” Tan said.

He claimed that he followed the boy to another toilet because he “wanted to determine if he would continue to litter”. He also claimed that he saw the boy combing his hair in another toilet, and that the boy quickly fled when he spotted Tan.

Seven videos were recorded of the victim in the toilet.

FELT STRONGLY ABOUT CLEANLINESS

Tan, who was not represented by a lawyer, admitted that he was in the toilet that day, but said that there was no “good eyewitness” to prove that he was in the cubicle next to the victim.

He argued that there was not enough evidence, and alleged that the investigators did not understand the procedure on how to collect legal data from the crime scene, since there was no footage from security cameras or evidence from eyewitnesses.

In his police statement, Tan said that he worked as a cleaner and felt “strongly” about cleanliness matters.

“When I see someone acting irresponsibly by throwing food onto the ground, I feel angry about their behaviour, because they seem not to care about the cleaners who must clean up their mess.” 

He acknowledged in his statement that it was wrong of him to record the victim, but that his intention was to gather evidence of the victim littering.

District Judge Koo Zhi Xuan found that the victim was a credible witness with a cogent and believable account of his interactions with Tan.

He answered the questions posed to him to the best of his recollection, even though he was “visibly embarrassed” to have to admit publicly to his private act.

“NOT INTERESTED IN TELLING THE TRUTH”

As for Tan, the judge noted that he had admitted to the offence in his police statement.

However, when confronted with the “uncanny consistency between his account in the statement, and the content of the videos shown in court, the accused incredibly and unreasonably denied that the evidence shown in court matched his admission in the statement, further damaging his credibility in the process”, Judge Koo said.

He found Tan to be a “disingenuous witness who was not interested in telling the truth”, but was motivated simply to discredit the prosecution’s evidence by any means possible.

“Throughout the entire trial, the accused did not provide the court with a proper account of what exactly happened in the main toilet at the material time,” Judge Koo said.

Referring to Tan’s claim that he wanted to film the victim’s acts of littering, the judge said that there was no sign at all in the videos of any litter being thrown within the cubicle.

Instead, Tan had deliberately focused his camera only at the victim and his private act.

Even if Tan really suspected the victim of littering, there was no reasonable cause for him to take the video of the victim surreptitiously while the victim was in the cubicle engaging in a private act.

The prosecution sought five to seven months’ jail, asking for a slight raise because Tan’s conduct at trial showed a lack of remorse in his repeated victim-blaming and in making baseless allegations.

Tan did not tender any written mitigation plea, although he submitted a document containing an “incoherent diatribe against several political leaders in Singapore, with no relevance at all to the present case”, Judge Koo said.

Throughout the entire trial, Tan also filed many documents generated by artificial intelligence, which “did not assist the court at all”, the judge added. 

He found Tan guilty, calling him a “shameless voyeur who had unlawfully infringed upon the dignity and privacy of a 16-year-old student in a public toilet in an egregious and persistent manner”.

Even when confronted with overwhelming evidence, Tan “unreasonably and cowardly denied his wrongdoing, displaying an utter lack of remorse and introspection throughout,” Judge Koo added.

Tan has filed a notice of appeal against his conviction and his sentence. He is out on bail pending appeal.