SINGAPORE: A recalcitrant offender known to harass female students is back behind bars after he was caught committing similar crimes after his release from prison.
Fong Poh Kuen, 49, was sentenced to 30 weeks’ jail on Friday (Feb 13) after he pleaded guilty to two counts of harassment over incidents that took place in 2024 and 2025.
Now jobless, the former insurance agent also admitted to one count each of performing an act that could obstruct the course of justice, and being a public nuisance.
In 2019, he was convicted of harassment and was fined S$8,000.
In 2023, he was sentenced to 18 months’ jail after pleading guilty to 13 charges, including nine counts of harassment.
He was arrested again in November 2024 over incidents earlier that year, and released on bail.
He continued his offences the following year.
Addressing Fong directly on Feb 13, District Judge Kenneth Chin told the offender to reflect about what he had done, stressing that his sentences will become tougher if he continues with his criminal behaviour.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Delicia Tan said that Fong is known to loiter outside schools to target young female students.
“He took photos and videos of them without their consent, and conducted surveys which served no legitimate purpose, (causing) discomfort and alarm,” the DPP added.
In August 2024, he loitered at an overhead bridge near a junior college, and discreetly took photographs of the school’s female students, DPP Tan said.
Some students later alerted the school’s operations manager, who went to the bridge as he wanted to confront Fong.
But the offender quickly walked away when he spotted the manager, who failed to catch up with him.
The operations manager then alerted the police.
Fong struck again nine days later when he went to a local university and snapped pictures of a 24-year-old woman.
DPP Tan told the court: “(The woman) had seen the man on two earlier occasions at (the university) taking photographs of females, and outside (a girls’ secondary school) a few years ago when she was still studying there.”
When the woman confronted Fong, he fled the scene and deleted more than 600 photographs of women and girls from his mobile phone in a bid to evade detection.
She then lodged a police report on Sept 5, 2024. Police managed to trace Fong and went to his home, where they seized his phone.
Following a forensic examination of the phone, the police recovered more than 600 photographs of girls and women, including the 24-year-old, taken at various locations on different dates.
He had not asked for their consent before snapping their pictures. However, there were no upskirt or nude photographs among them.
Fong was arrested on Nov 14, 2024, and released on bail 15 days later.
On July 19, 2025, he re-offended at another university.
A 25-year-old woman saw him taking photographs of women without their consent and reported the matter to the university. One of its officers then lodged a police report.
In another incident, Fong approached a 17-year-old girl at a certain location around 9.30am on Oct 27, 2025, and asked her do to an “education survey”. Details about the location have been redacted from court documents.
At his request, she filled up a form, stating information such as her name, school and date of birth.
However, the teenager did not write down other information such as her phone number and address.
Seeing this, Fong asked her for such details, and she finally wrote down her e-mail address out of fear.
DPP Tan said: “After leaving the location, the victim still felt uncomfortable. She searched online (about a) ‘weird guy asking about educational survey in Singapore’, and read an article about the accused.”
There was also a photo of Fong in the article and the victim recognised him.
The teenager told her teacher about the incident, before lodging a police report.
Fong was re-arrested in November 2025, and has been in remand since then.
On Feb 13, defence lawyer Riko Isaac pleaded for Fong to be given not more than two months and eight weeks’ jail, adding that his client had been diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder.
However, he added that this condition had no contributory link to his client’s offences.
“He neither harboured perverted intentions nor sought sexual gratification in committing the offences.
“His objective was to gather information which he perceived would help in his work as he hoped to become an insurance agent again,” said Isaac. - The Straits Times/ANN
