Subway worker sentenced to prison for hidden camera in women's break room

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Subway worker sentenced to prison for hidden camera in women's break room

Published: 19 Nov. 2024, 16:01 Updated: 19 Nov. 2024, 16:01

A man looks for hidden cameras in a bathroom stall with a detection device in 2021. The photo is not related to the article. [YONHAP]

A male Seoul subway station worker in his 30s was sentenced to prison for illegally filming his female colleagues as they changed clothes by installing a hidden camera in their break room.

On Tuesday, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced the former Seoul Metro employee, aged 32, to one year and six months in prison for violating the Act On Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.

The former employee was also ordered to complete 80 hours of a sex offender rehabilitation program and banned from working in institutions related to children, adolescents and disabled persons for three years.

The man was accused of secretly installing a camera in the women’s break room at a station on Seoul Subway Line No. 3. The former employee did this 16 times between last year and this year, capturing footage of female colleagues changing clothes.

The former employee’s molka, the Korean term for illegal hidden cameras, was uncovered when a janitor discovered the camera in the break room. The man surrendered to the police the next day after an investigation began and was subsequently suspended from his position at Seoul Metro.

“The method of the crime was premeditated and lasted over an extended period,” said the court. “The fact that he committed this crime against colleagues in a position of trust and invaded their privacy makes it highly reprehensible.”

“Even after the crime was discovered, he falsely claimed that another colleague had directed him to do it, placing evidence in that colleague’s locker to deflect suspicion, which also adds to his culpability.”

The court concluded that a prison sentence was nonetheless unavoidable, despite the defendant’s eventual admission of guilt, settlement with the victims and lack of prior criminal record.

BY KIM MIN-YOUNG [[email protected]]