Abel Tan Yew Hong, a 28-year-old semiconductor engineer, was jailed for eleven weeks after he plead guilty to taking upskirt photos of ten women in 2019. His long-time girlfriend has forgiven him, despite her disappointment, and will still marry Tan despite his jail time and the conviction.
Who is Abel Tan Yew Hong?
Abel Tan Yew Hong, 28, took upskirt videos of ten women from July 24 to Sept 10 in 2019 at various locations, including Bedok and Serangoon MRT stations, and Suntec City, according to a report from STOMP.
He worked as a product development engineer for an IT company when he was sentenced to eleven weeks of jail on April 16. He plead guilty to three counts of insulting the modesty of a woman, and had several other charges considered for sentencing.
Defense lawyers for Tan arguied with the judge that his status as someone who holds a master’s degree and his work experience should have warranted a lower sentence.
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Abel Tan Yew Hong’s upskirt videos
Reports said that he would follow women around and casually slip his phone under their skirts to take photos and videos.
He used escalators in several instances to take the illicit photos and videos, using his Sony Xperia phone on unsuspecting women. One of the worst-hit victims was a woman he followed up three escalators at Serangoon MRT station on Sept 5, 2019.
He was caught five days later when he was trying to do the same in Bedor MRT. A man had seen what he was doing and caught him, taking him to the police that evening.
Upon searching his phone, they found illicitly-taken photos and videos.
Why did Abel Tan Yew Hong take upskirt photos?
His defense lawyers had given several different statements in court on why Tan had resorted to taking upskirt photos and videos assiduously. One of these was that he saw media online of similar nature, and that he wanted to see the quality of such photos and videos using his own equipment, which was the Sony Xperia.
His lawyers said that he was simply trying to satisfy his curiosity on the different video and photo quality of upskirt photos. This was what he did when he followed a woman up three escalators with his phone snooping under her skirt.
“His intention was merely to experiment and to find out if his cellphone camera could take the high-quality videos he saw on the Internet.” said his lawyer.
The judge, however, said that he was very persistent in going up escalators to record women, and thus gave him eleven weeks in jail. Tan was allowed to defer his sentence, however. He was known to be out on $5,000 bail and should surrender by April 26.
What did his girlfriend say?
Tan’s girlfriend, whom he is set to marry, has forgiven him for what he did and stood by him, but said that she was disappointed in him. Their wedding plans have not changed.
If you were Tan’s girlfriend, would you forgive him for what he did? Let us know in the comments!
