An Uber driver was sentenced to two months in prison yesterday for taking hundreds of upskirt videos of female passengers via pinhole cameras trained on the back seat of his car.
Wong Yiu-long, 44, had pleaded guilty to one count of outraging public decency.
He was also handed a HK$2,000 fine (US$255) for driving a vehicle to carry passengers for hire or reward without the necessary permits and licenses earlier this month, a charge he also pleaded guilty to.
HK01 reports that in mitigation, the defense said that their client felt ashamed at what he had done, and apologized to his family and the victims.
She also presented nine letters to the court written by the defendant, his family, and his former boss saying he was a good man and that they have forgiven him.
The defense added that the chances of Wong re-offending were slim, and urged the magistrate to consider a social service order instead of jail time considering his early guilty plea.
The court also heard that Wong had been suffering from anxiety and depression since his mother’s death, and that his wife also had a number of health problems that included anemia, migraines, anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder, Apple Daily reports.
In a bit of lawyering that rivaled the “Twinkie defense” in audacity, Wong’s defender also told the court that his wife had neglected his needs since their son was born, and that the couple hadn’t had sex for 10 years.
Wong had started driving for Uber part time to pay down debts totaling HK$10,000 (about US$1,270.)
But magistrate Winnie Lau Yee-wan disagreed that Wong was deserving of clemency, saying he had obviously planned the offense, as evidenced by the careful positioning of the hidden cameras and the way in which he had set up his phone to allow him to watch his victims in real-time.
Lau said that in order to protect women and send a message to the public, she needed to hand down a deterrent sentence and that immediate imprisonment was appropriate for this case.
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