Probation for former student care teacher who showed nude photos of women to then colleagues

SINGAPORE – A former student welfare teacher was sentenced to 18 months’ probation on Oct 18 after she shared a video containing nude photos of a woman with her then colleagues.

In addition, the perpetrator also shared the same video with a man who wanted to “degrade the victim’s reputation” after having an argument with the victim, then 21.

As part of her sentence, the 22-year-old offender must remain indoors from 11pm to 6am every day and perform 80 hours of community service.

Her parents were also given a $5,000 bond to guarantee her good behavior.

In August, she pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing an intimate image or recording of another person.

Details about her and the school where she worked cannot be made public due to a gag order to protect the victim’s identity.

According to an online state court portal, the perpetrator and victim no longer work at the school.

In previous proceedings, Deputy Public Prosecutor Huo Jiongrui told the court that the victim and her then-boyfriend, identified in court documents as “Wish,” had exchanged nude photos via messaging platform Telegram during their relationship.

When the relationship ended, they promised each other that they would delete the photos.

However, Wish, who was also the perpetrator’s friend, did not do this and kept the nude photos of the victim.

Some time before December 2023, he sent the perpetrator a video of his Telegram chat with the victim, which showed her nude photos.

Court documents do not show why he shared the fragment with the perpetrator.

The perpetrator and three of her other colleagues were later chatting at their school when she showed the trio the video.

DPP Huo said: “The suspect knew that her dissemination of the video by showing it to her colleagues would cause humiliation to the victim… (The trio) recognized the victim from the nude photos included in the video.”

Sometime in December 2023, the victim and one of her friends, a 23-year-old man, got into an argument.

The man was also a friend of the perpetrator, the court heard.

In a Telegram chat with the perpetrator and three other people, he asked the group if they had “anything to damage the victim’s reputation.”

This was because he wanted to take revenge on her by spreading such material on TikTok.

The perpetrator then uploaded the video to the group chat, but the man did not post it on TikTok.

Court documents did not reveal how the crimes came to light, but the woman’s husband alerted police in March 2024, stating that the perpetrator had distributed his wife’s intimate images to several third parties.

The perpetrator, who was not represented by a lawyer, told the court on October 18 that she regretted her actions.