A FORMER computer systems engineer, who took video footage of a 15-year-old girl’s undergarments as she rode on an escalator, was jailed for two weeks yesterday.
Loh Kok Sum, 37, had pleaded through his counsel for an “appropriate sentence” that would not include a jail term.
But District Judge Jasbendar Kaur found no exceptional circumstances in this case to waver from handing down the sentencing benchmark of a prison term.
On Feb 6 last year, Loh stood behind the teenager while they were going up an escalator in Outram Park MRT station.
He set his mobile phone on video recording mode and aimed it at the buttocks of the girl, who was wearing shorts that were loose fitting around her upper thigh.
But the girl’s friend, 16, who saw what he was doing, detained him and took him to the Police Cantonment Complex nearby.
Loh’s lawyer G. Dinagaran said his client was remorseful about what he had done. He has since voluntarily sought psychiatric treatment for depression and was making good progress.
A report submitted by his psychiatrist backdated Loh’s reactive depression to 2002, when he lost his job.
Mr Dinagaran said his client, despite his first class honours degree, has had problems landing steady employment, and has managed to snag only contract work with paltry salaries.
Loh, who left his job after the incident, has neither a girlfriend nor a social life.
He could have been jailed for up to a year and fined.
A Straits Times report last month said upskirt offences were going up in number now that cameras in mobile phones are commonplace, and such phones have become smaller and more discreet.
Lawyers and psychiatrists estimate the number is likely to have more than doubled from the 50 cases in 2006. Lawyer Rajan Supramaniam, who used to handle about four cases a month in the courts back then, told The Straits Times that he now counts eight to nine over the same period.
Other lawyers say more upskirt offences are coming to light now also because women are becoming more aware and are on the alert when strangers stand too near them.