- Landlord Poon Lee Daniel installed pinhole cameras to spy on his female tenant.
- The cameras were hidden in various locations, including the toilet, the living room and the tenant's bedroom.
- The victim discovered the cameras after noticing a suspicious hole under the airconditioning duct in her room.
- A total of 49 voyeuristic images were retrieved from the landlord's desktop, showing the victim changing and showering.
- Poon was sentenced to 10 months' jail after pleading guilty to two voyeurism-related charges.
SINGAPORE — A landlord installed eight pinhole cameras around his flat so that he could watch his female tenant in acts such as changing her clothes and using the bathroom.
Poon Lee Daniel, 68, a Singaporean, was sentenced to 10 months’ jail after pleading guilty to one charge of voyeurism and another charge of possessing a voyeuristic image.
Another charge of voyeurism was taken into consideration for sentencing.
The tenant, a 29-year-old Malaysian, moved into the flat on Jan 17, 2019. Poon and his wife used the master bedroom, while the victim stayed in another room.
She would usually return to Malaysia on the weekends, but from April 2020, she spent more time at the unit due to travel restrictions at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The court heard that the man would enter the victim’s room using his key to her room when she was not around about once a month.
Poon would tell the victim that he had helped her perform household chores such as changing the lightbulb, cleaning the fan or mopping the floor.
He would also occasionally cook food for her. Initially, the victim was uncomfortable about these things but dismissed her uneasiness by telling herself that Poon might be bored spending his whole day at home.
She eventually came to accept what he did as acts of kindness.
What happened
Between April 2020 and January 2021, the man installed eight pinhole cameras that he had bought online.
The locations of the pinhole cameras were:
- In a display lamp in the living room
- Under the computer table in the living room
- In a wall clock in the living room
- In a digital alarm clock in the kitchen
- In the water heater within the toilet with a shower
- Below the airconditioning duct in the victim’s room
- In a USB socket in the victim’s room
- In a speaker in the master bedroom
Sometime between January and April 21, 2021, Poon used the pinhole cameras to observe the victim performing private acts, such as using the toilet.
The court heard that he did this for sexual gratification. He had seen the victim naked through the pinhole cameras and would see her undressing sometimes.
Before the tenant discovered the pinhole cameras, there were a few occasions when she felt that Poon was behaving suspiciously but dismissed it as her “overthinking”.
On one occasion, when the woman left her room to go to the toilet, she saw Poon sitting on the sofa in the living room, looking at his phone.
She glanced at the screen of his handphone and saw that he was watching a video of a woman in a room wearing a bright green T-shirt.
She felt suspicious because the woman looked like her and she was wearing a bright green T-shirt at the time.
Poon quickly closed the application.
On another occasion, Poon told the victim not to turn off the power to the USB socket in her room. As she trusted Poon, she felt that she might be overthinking and ignored her suspicions.
On April 21 2021, at about noon, the woman noticed a small hole in the wall under the airconditioning duct.
She used her pen to prod the hole as she thought it was an “insect hole”.
However, the sound made from the contact indicated to the victim that the “insect hole” was made of glass.
As she suspected it might be a camera, she took a video of the “insect hole” and sent it to her boyfriend at the time and cousin. They informed her that it looked like a camera.
She then sent the video to her supervisor and colleagues.
In the meantime, the victim searched online for tips on detecting hidden cameras. One tip was to shine a flashlight at the object and observe unusual reflection — if there was, it might be a camera.
The victim followed the tip and observed that, to her horror, the object reflected a red light. The court heard that she was very shocked and afraid and immediately informed her boyfriend and her cousin, who rushed down to the unit.
The victim’s boyfriend arrived at the unit at about 1.15 pm and called the police who told him to verify the situation first.
He then went to the unit and entered the victim’s room, pulling on the object and dislodging it from the wall. They observed that it was a small black camera with a USB tip at the end.
After the police arrived and were questioning Poon, he said that he had installed the spy camera about a year earlier to monitor what the victim was doing inside the room.
When the victim’s cousin heard this, she shouted at Poon and told him that this was not the way he should be monitoring his tenant.
The police officers advised the victim to find an alternative place to stay, and she said that she would be leaving the unit immediately.
She then packed her belongings and left the unit with her boyfriend and cousin.
Just before she left the unit, Poon told the victim that he was “sorry” and that only she and him knew about the videos. The victim felt very upset and disturbed as she had trusted Poon a lot.
A total of four videos and 224 images recorded by the pinhole cameras were retrieved from Poon’s desktop computer, which had been previously deleted.
The majority of the images were of the victim in shorts while cleaning her room or the living room. Of the images, 49 were voyeuristic in nature and derived from videos he recorded of the victim.
Forty-three of the images showed the victim changing in her room, and six showed her showering in the toilet.
The victim could be identified in at least one of the voyeuristic images showing her showering in the toilet as her face could be seen.
There was no evidence that Poon disseminated any of the victim’s videos and images recorded by the pinhole cameras.
Poon was arrested on the same day at about 5.25pm.
For voyeurism, Poon could have been sentenced to up to two years in jail or fined, caned or received any combination of such punishments.
Anyone possessing voyeuristic material can be jailed for up to two years, fined or both. — TODAY
