Peeping Tom took photos of policewomen showering
As a full-time police national serviceman, his duty was to uphold the law.
But Abdul Qayyum Mohd Hashim broke it repeatedly by entering a female washroom and taking pictures of three colleagues while they were showering.
Ironically, the crimes were committed at a police division headquarters.
Yesterday, Abdul Qayyum, 20, was jailed nine months for insulting and attempting to insult the modesty of women and for obstructing the course of justice by deleting the photographs.
According to court papers, Abdul Qayyum was a station security officer. The papers did not give details about how he was caught, but one attempt was described.
This incident took place at about 10.40pm on Jan 26 last year.The victim had finished her night shift and was heading for the shower.
Unknown to her, Abdul Qayyum, whose job was to watch out for suspicious activity within the premises, was watching the live closed-circuit television camera footage and saw her enter the female locker room.
COVER
He asked a colleague to cover his duties, claiming he wanted to relieve himself and talk to the victim whom he said he was romantically interested in.
When he saw her walk out of the locker room, he decided to take photographs of her showering.
He went to the cubicle that she was in, but changed his mind when he realised she was almost done showering.
Instead, he grabbed her bra that was hung on the door and went back to his duties.
The victim later reported that her bra was missing.
While he did not photograph his colleague that day, court papers revealed that he had struck before by photographing three naked female colleagues in the shower on several occasions since 2014.
He would store the photographs in his mobile phone.
On Jan 29, his superior told him to stay back after a briefing, prompting a suspicious Abdul Qayyum to quickly delete six photographs from his mobile phone.
He was eventually arrested and officers from the Technology Crime Forensic Branch recovered the deleted photographs.
Yesterday, Abdul Qayyum pleaded guilty to one count each of insulting and attempting to insult the modesty of women, as well as perverting the course of justice.
Eight other charges, including one count of theft of his colleague's bra, were taken into consideration for sentencing.
In sentencing, District Judge Lim Keng Yeow noted the accused's young age and that he was a first-time offender.
But the judge said Abdul Qayyum's offences were very serious, given that he was a police officer whose duty then was to prevent and detect crime, and he had the audacity to commit the crimes at a police station.
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