A National University of Singapore graduate who was unemployed, was short of money and went to the changing room of a gym where she filmed other girls changing with her handphone. She later went on Sammyboy forum and sold at between 10 or 20 cents per second of video footage, where she made a total of $1,540 over a period of 5 months.
The defendant 29 years old, Heng Li Ying, faces 6 charges. One for possessing obscene videos, the other five for insulting the modesty of women. The prosecution took three of them to court, the remaining three to be decided by the judge during the trial.
She pleaded guilty this morning and was sentenced to 30 weeks jail.
According to the reports, the defendant is currently a marketing executive. In 2012, she signed a two-year membership with True Fitness to use the facilities at any of the branches in Singapore, including the one at Suntec where the incident took place.
Sometime in early 2014, she created an account with the username “gargar787” on Sammy boy, which is an online forum with sections that allow users to post and exchange sexually explicit material including self-recorded sex videos and pornography.
As she had difficulties in holding down a permanent job then, Heng created a discussion thread labelled “Changing room peektures” to advertise videos depicting women in various states of undress, for sale at either 10 or 20 cents per second of footage.
To attract more buyers, the defendant even uploaded some free videos, and once someone expressed willingness to buy, she would provide a bank account for the buyer to transfer money to her, and then she will provide the link to them to download.
From the beginning of 2014 to May 2014, she was summoned to assist in the investigation, she had sold to at least 22 buyers, and earned $1540. Reports mentioned that at least 4 women were being filmed, a Caucasian woman and three unknown women.
The DPP said True Fitness was alerted to the fact that compromising videos of customers in their changing rooms had been posted for sale and circulated online, thus creating disquiet among their clientele. It made a police report on April 10 that year.
Heng’s lawyer Rajan Supramaniam said his client was truly remorseful and regretted very much committing the offences which had ruined her life and career.
Pleading for leniency, he said Heng apologises to the victims and the court for her wrongful actions.
Heng could have been jailed for up to one year and/or fined on each charge.
