Couple having affair jailed 10 weeks for trying to record the woman’s daughter showering

SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): A man and a woman having an extramarital affair worked together to try to record the woman’s daughter showering.

On Thursday (Feb 2), the pair were both sentenced to 10 weeks’ jail after pleading guilty to a voyeurism charge each.

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 after she left the job in 2016, and eventually started having an extramarital affair.

Some time in 2020, they started an online store selling ceiling fans and light fittings, and offering installation services.

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 and others including the daughter’s father and sister.

The man told the woman to install the device in the toilet in the kitchen which the daughter used. The woman 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 Low.

The victim spotted her mother while she was installing the camcorder and became suspicious.

Later, after her mother left the toilet, the victim went inside and took the camcorder out. She retrieved the footage, which showed her mother installing the device. Nothing else was found in the extracted footage.

DPP Low, who had asked for at least eight weeks’ jail for the woman, said there was an element of breach of trust by her as the mother of the victim.

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.