SINGAPORE, Jan 31 — A man who took intimate photographs of two women at his home on separate occasions while they were asleep claimed that he had done so out of a compulsion to hoard digital photographs.

Eugene Soh Zhuo Sheng, 37, who was a director of two companies, social enterprise Mind Palace and augmented reality studio Dude, was sentenced to 10 months’ jail today after pleading guilty to two counts of voyeurism.

Another charge for the possession of obscene films was taken into consideration for sentencing.

The two women could not be named due to a court order to protect the victims’ identities.

Soh’s lawyer argued that he had committed the offences during a "turbulent period” in his life and that his offences could be linked to his "digital hoarding”, a type of hoarding disorder where individuals obsessively collect digital materials.

However, the judge dismissed this claim and said that it was unclear how Soh’s purported mental condition would have led him to take intimate pictures of the two women without their consent.

What happened

Soh met his first victim, a Singaporean woman aged 36 then, at a mutual friend’s wedding in 2019.

They later met up at his residence at least six times between 2019 and 2020 to consume alcohol together. She would fall asleep there after "drinking heavily”.

On Dec 12, 2020, she fell asleep on his bed after meeting him at his home to have dinner and alcoholic drinks together.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Michelle Tay told the court that sometime early in the morning of the next day, Soh removed pieces of the victim’s clothing "in sequence” and took photographs of her at each stage of undress while she was asleep.

He then used his phone to record 16 images of the victim’s body "from different positions” to capture "different angles” of her exposed chest and private parts without her consent, the court heard.

The victim’s face was visible in all of the photographs taken and she did not know that Soh had taken the photographs of her.

He then transferred the photographs from his phone to his laptop and saved them there to ensure that they would not be discovered by another woman he was dating at the time.

On a separate occasion in October 2020, Soh met his second victim through a mobile dating application. After having dinner together, the then 35-year-old woman stayed over at his residence.

He then took the opportunity when she lay naked on his bed to take five photographs of her body without her consent while she was asleep, all of which also featured her face.

He was later arrested at 6.45pm on December 14, 2020 after a raid at his residence, where his two mobile devices and laptop were seized.

Court documents did not state if one of the victims made a police report or how his offences came to light.

Digital hoarding

The prosecution sought a jail term of 10 to 12 months, arguing that Soh’s offences can cause "significant emotional harm” to the victims.

DPP Tay said that the images Soh recorded were "highly intrusive”, especially since both the victims’ faces were visible and he had breached the trust both of the women had in him.

Soh had taken pains to "methodologically undress” the first victim and deliberately capture multiple angles of her "for his own gratification”, DPP Tay added.

Peter Keith Fernando of law firm Leo Fernando LLC, who represented the man, said that Soh had been an "avid photographer” since secondary school and that taking photographs was an "integral part of his identity”.

The lawyer argued that this desire to document significant memories in his life later grew into a compulsion, which caused him to "(blur) the boundaries between what is legitimate and what constitutes a crime”.

Referring to a psychiatric report that was called by the defence, Fernando argued that Soh suffered from "digital hoarding” and that a mandatory treatment order suitability report should be called instead.

A mandatory treatment order is offered to offenders who commit a criminal offence as a result of suffering from psychiatric conditions, in lieu of serving a jail term.

However, District Judge Lim Tse Haw said that it would need a "quantum leap” to conclude that the purported diagnosis of hoarding had any "contributory link” to Soh’s offences.

"I can hoard images of sceneries, of objects, I can hoard that all in my hard disk, but that’s quite separate from taking pictures of victims without their consent,” the judge said.

In sentencing, the judge said he was not satisfied that the psychiatric report provided was "reliable” and "fit for court use” and noted that it did not provide an explanation for how Soh’s diagnosis was related to or caused his criminal conduct.

The judge instead agreed with the prosecution that Soh’s actions were "highly intrusive” and sentenced him to 10 months’ imprisonment.

For each count of voyeurism, Soh could have been jailed for up to two years, fined or caned, or faced any combination of those punishments. — TODAY