Couple having affair tried to record woman’s daughter showering
A man and a woman having an extramarital affair worked together to try and record the woman’s daughter showering.
On Thursday, the pair were sentenced to 10 weeks’ jail after each pleaded guilty to a voyeurism charge.
The man, 50, and woman, 48, cannot be named as there is a gag order to protect the victim’s identity.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Benjamin Low said the offenders became acquainted in 2014 when the woman was employed as a sales assistant in the man’s retail shop.
They remained in contact with one another after she left the job in 2016 and eventually started having an affair, though they were both married.
They also started an online store selling and offering installation services for ceiling fans and light fittings some time in 2020.
On May 9, 2021, the man bought a mini camcorder from e-commerce platform Shopee with the intention of using it to covertly record the woman’s daughter showering. The woman was living with her daughter at that time, as well as others, including her daughter’s father and sister.
The man told the woman to install the device in the toilet in the kitchen which the daughter used, and she complied some time that month, placing the camera on top of a cabinet inside the toilet facing the shower area.
“By placing the mini camcorder in such a position, (the woman) would enable (the man) to record the victim showering without her consent,” said DPP Wong.
The victim spotted her mother while she was installing the camcorder and became suspicious. After her mother left the kitchen toilet, the victim went inside the toilet and saw the device.
She brought the camcorder out and retrieved the footage which showed her mother installing the device in the toilet. Nothing else was found in the extracted footage.
DPP Wong, who had asked for at least eight weeks’ jail for the woman, said that as the mother of the victim, there was an element of breach of trust by her.
He asked for the man to be jailed for at least 10 weeks, saying that his conduct was wholly egregious and deplorable, and that he had exploited the mother-daughter relationship as a conduit for his own sexual gratification.
Shedding light on the pair’s relationship, the man’s lawyer said teasing, seduction and banter had led to the unfortunate state of affairs.
“It may have started as a joke, an overly sexual joke... but it was taken too far,” he added.
The woman, who did not have a lawyer, said she hoped that her daughter was not affected by the case.
In meting out the same punishment for both offenders, District Judge Carol Ling said their criminality and culpability were similar.
For voyeurism, they each could have been jailed for up to two years, fined or both.
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