Nurse jailed for taking photos, videos of colleagues in hospital's staff toilet
A male nurse working at a local hospital took pictures and recorded videos of his female colleagues while they were changing in the emergency department's staff toilet.
Yesterday, the 27-year-old was jailed 12 weeks on four charges of insult of modesty.
Another four similar charges were taken into consideration.
The man, who is no longer working at the hospital, cannot be named, to protect the identity of the victims.
He took videos and photos of eight female colleagues in a state of undress over a period of about five months last year.
The court was told he would wait in a cubicle of the unisex toilet, and when he heard someone enter the adjoining cubicle, he would put his mobile phone underneath the divider to take photos for his own pleasure.
He would stop when he realised they were male colleagues.
His offences came to light on May 11 last year when a colleague, who was also a nurse, made a police report.
At about 3.45pm that day, the 24-year-old victim bumped into him at the entrance of the toilet.
They entered together and went to adjoining cubicles.
The man slid his mobile phone underneath the cubicle divider and started to take a video of her as she was changing out of her scrubs uniform.
As she bent down to wear her shoes, she noticed his phone.
ARRESTED
He quickly retracted his hand, left the toilet and got back to work.
He later watched and deleted the video as he was afraid of getting caught.
Following the police report, the man was arrested and his phone was seized.
Investigations revealed he used the phone to take photos of at least seven other women in the same toilet.
Many of these photos captured the victims dressed only in their undergarments.
The man admitted to taking the photos out of curiosity as he wanted to know what they looked like without clothes.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Shenna Tjoa asked for a sentence of seven weeks' jail per charge, telling the court that this was not a usual upskirt case. "The accused was preying on his own colleagues," she said.
In mitigation, the man's lawyer Charlene Nah asked for a global sentence of not more than six weeks' jail.
She said he was influenced after watching upskirt videos on the Internet.
"He is still of very young age... he has recognised his mistakes," she said.
"He intends to continue working as a nurse after this."
For each charge of insulting the modesty of a woman, the man could have been jailed up to a year, or fined, or both.
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