The Taipei District Court yesterday sentenced Chang Tzu-yen (張子彥) to six years in prison for placing hidden cameras in school and public toilets to secretly film women and girls, as well as circulating the recordings.
Two years of the sentence can be commuted to a fine and the ruling can be appealed.
Prosecutors had asked for a harsh punishment as a deterrent after an investigation found that Chang, 26, secretly filmed more than 160 girls and women mainly in Taipei and New Taipei City.
The court said that it found Chang, a recent graduate of the National Taipei University of Technology, guilty of violating the personal privacy of the victims.
Investigators had found the videos stored in Chang’s computer and tried to identify the victims, including junior-high school students and university students, as well as a police officer.
Forty of the victims filed judicial complaints against Chang.
During the court hearing, one of victims testified that she suffered mental anguish and has been afraid of going to public toilets since the incident.
One victim was quoted as saying: “When the video was shown to me, it felt like I was being raped. This man is a pervert.”
Another at the court hearing said: “I feel quite sick seeing Chang here in court. He must receive a heavy punishment for what he has done... Now I need a friend to accompany me when I use a public toilet.”
Investigators found that Chang started secretly filming women and girls in 2015.
He was caught in April 2018 when a cleaner found a hidden camera, including memory cards, inside a women’s restroom at National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Medicine.
The camera was traced to Chang and police in a search of his apartment in New Taipei City found more explicit videos of unidentified women in his computer.
Investigators examining the footage determined that Chang had sneaked into women’s restrooms on the NTU campus and other Taipei universities, as well as Taipei First Girls’ High School and Taipei Zhongshan Girls’ High School.
He also placed cameras inside the public bathrooms of city government buildings in Taipei and New Taipei City, they said.
Chang rated the women in the videos according to their attractiveness, and tracked some of them through social media to learn their identities, investigators said.
He allegedly followed them and took their photographs for his categorized video files, they said.
Investigators found that Chang had passed on the videos to at least two of his friends for their viewing.
They also found Chang followed high-school dance clubs’ social media pages to find out where they were practicing and installed hidden cameras inside the bathrooms at those locations.
SHIPS, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES: The ministry has announced changes to varied transportation industries taking effect soon, with a number of effects for passengers Beginning next month, the post office is canceling signature upon delivery and written inquiry services for international registered small packets in accordance with the new policy of the Universal Postal Union, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The new policy does not apply to packets that are to be delivered to China, the ministry said. Senders of international registered small packets would receive a NT$10 rebate on postage if the packets are sent from Jan. 1 to March 31, it added. The ministry said that three other policies are also scheduled to take effect next month. International cruise ship operators
HORROR STORIES: One victim recounted not realizing they had been stabbed and seeing people bleeding, while another recalled breaking down in tears after fleeing A man on Friday died after he tried to fight the knife-wielding suspect who went on a stabbing spree near two of Taipei’s busiest metro stations, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. The 57-year-old man, identified by his family name, Yu (余), encountered the suspect at Exit M7 of Taipei Main Station and immediately tried to stop him, but was fatally wounded and later died, Chiang said, calling the incident “heartbreaking.” Yu’s family would receive at least NT$5 million (US$158,584) in compensation through the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp’s (TRTC) insurance coverage, he said after convening an emergency security response meeting yesterday morning. National
PLANNED: The suspect visited the crime scene before the killings, seeking information on how to access the roof, and had extensively researched a 2014 stabbing incident The suspect in a stabbing attack that killed three people and injured 11 in Taipei on Friday had planned the assault and set fires at other locations earlier in the day, law enforcement officials said yesterday. National Police Agency (NPA) Director-General Chang Jung-hsin (張榮興) said the suspect, a 27-year-old man named Chang Wen (張文), began the attacks at 3:40pm, first setting off smoke bombs on a road, damaging cars and motorbikes. Earlier, Chang Wen set fire to a rental room where he was staying on Gongyuan Road in Zhongzheng District (中正), Chang Jung-hsin said. The suspect later threw smoke grenades near two exits
The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency yesterday launched a gift box to market honey “certified by a Formosan black bear” in appreciation of a beekeeper’s amicable interaction with a honey-thieving bear. Beekeeper Chih Ming-chen (池明鎮) in January inspected his bee farm in Hualien County’s Jhuosi Township (卓溪) and found that more than 20 beehives had been destroyed and many hives were eaten, with bear droppings and paw prints near the destroyed hives, the agency said. Chih returned to the farm to move the remaining beehives away that evening when he encountered a Formosan black bear only 20m away, the agency said. The bear
RSS