SINGAPORE, June 18 — A 43-year-old man was sentenced to two weeks’ jail yesterday after he pleaded guilty to secretly filming himself being intimate with two women at his girlfriend’s home where he lived.
Darius Chang Tze Chiang, a Singaporean, committed the offences on three occasions in 2016 and 2018. He was a marketing manager at the time.
He admitted to two charges of insulting a woman’s modesty, with another similar charge and two others under the Films Act taken into consideration for sentencing.
Court documents did not state the nature of the intimate acts, but the court heard that Chang used his mobile phone to film his first victim and an old in-car camera to film his second victim.
The first victim is now 26 years old and the second victim is 23.
Both women cannot be named because of gag orders to protect their identities. It was not stated how Chang knew them.
About 1,800 obscene videos in his possession
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Joseph Gwee told the court that on the first occasion in 2016, Chang and the older woman “engaged in intimacy” in a room at his girlfriend’s place.
Chang secretly took a video, transferred it to his computer and named the file after the victim.
Court documents showed that he filmed the same victim again around the end of 2016.
On July 19, 2018, he took the younger woman to his girlfriend’s home after telling her he needed to pass something to her. When they got there, he invited her to his room to watch some videos.
They became intimate and he filmed them without her knowledge. Similarly, he transferred the video to his computer and named it after her.
The older victim lodged a police report on September 2, 2018.
Afterwards, the authorities discovered that Chang possessed 1,762 obscene videos and 238 unclassified videos. No other details were given.
Seeking a two-week jail sentence, DPP Gwee acknowledged that there was no nudity in the videos, but argued that Chang “was conscious to engage in intimacy with the victims within the frame of his recording devices.”
The videos could have been disseminated, though they were not, the prosecutor added.
Chang’s lawyer, Cheong Aik Chye, described the case as “not run-of-the-mill.”
It had come to light when both victims found out that Chang was seeing them separately behind their backs, the lawyer said.
The older victim had alleged that he committed more serious offences, but the authorities could not find any evidence of this. Instead, they came across the videos during investigations, Cheong added.
The lawyer did not provide more details about the allegations.
“(The women) wanted him to confess and all that, which he refused to do, so they lodged a police report,” said Cheong, who asked for a community-based sentence or a fine.
He added that Chang did not know at the time that filming them being intimate was an offence.
In response, DPP Gwee said that Chang was not “two-timing” the victims, as the incidents happened on separate occasions.
Cheong said that his client’s long-term partner has returned to Singapore and lives with him now — it is unclear if she is the same girlfriend whose home he had lived in when he committed the offences.
The lawyer argued that this provides an “effective check against reoffending.”
But the prosecutor disagreed.
DPP Gwee said Chang was in a relationship at the time of his offences, but had no qualms about inviting the two women to his girlfriend’s home.
Chang could have been jailed up to a year, fined, or faced both penalties. — TODAY
