Man caught for recording women in changing rooms pleads guilty
SINGAPORE — He mounted hidden cameras disguised as coat hooks in fitting rooms at various Cotton On retail outlets to record women changing.
When the cameras were discovered and removed by staff, Zheng Zhongshi, an IT consultant who had worked with the police, accessed a police database in an unauthorised manner in an attempt to track down the missing cameras.
Zheng, 34, pleaded guilty today (Nov 19) to four counts of insulting the modesty of women and six counts of unauthorised access of a computer. Forty-seven similar charges will be taken into consideration for his sentencing, which is expected to take place on Dec 1.
The court heard that on Sept 11 last year, Zheng, who was an application consultant for IT firm NCS, bought two black hidden cameras disguised as coat hooks for S$98 each. At around noon two days later, he mounted the cameras in two separate fitting rooms in the Cotton On outlet at White Sands shopping mall. The cameras captured seven episodes of women changing. Zheng removed the cameras about an hour later.
On Sept 15, at about 1pm, Zheng again mounted the cameras in two fitting rooms in the Cotton On outlet at Plaza Singapura, which captured one woman changing. The identities of the victims are not known. Shortly after, staff at the outlet found the cameras and lodged a police report.
Upon returning to the outlet in the evening, Zheng discovered that his cameras were gone.
Zheng, who, as part of his job, was then in charge of supporting and guiding police officers using a database owned by the Singapore Police Force, then searched the database to retrieve details of the missing cameras.
He conducted 46 unauthorised searches on the database between 2.59am and 4.41am on Sept 16 last year at Police Cantonment Complex, the court heard.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Ryan David Lim sought a sentence of three months for each count of outrage of modesty, stressing that Zheng’s offences were planned and premeditated, and multiple victims were involved. Zheng could be jailed up to a year and fined for each charge of insulting the modesty of a woman.
He could be jailed up to two years and fined up to S$5,000 for each count of unauthorised access to computer material.
