Full-time police national serviceman Muhammad Shazwan Sapuwan, 21, had a special knack for stalking couples behaving intimately at HDB staircases.
He would chance upon the couples regularly as part of his voyeuristic hobby, record their intimacy on video and then use his status as a police officer to extort money from his victims.
He succeeded in extorting money from 2 couples, and decided to take things even further when he chanced upon a third couple.
On 24th October 2014, Shazwan took pictures of a 16 year-old girl whom he had caught red handed performing oral sex on her 18 year-old boyfriend. Dressed in a Jurong Police Division polo T-shirt, his blue police trousers and a lanyard that displayed his police warrant card, Shazwan threatened to report the couple for public nudity and told the couple that he would "submit" their names as he did not want to lose his job.
After hours of talks, he suggested that they repeat their intimate acts so he could record them. He told them that if he did lose his job, he would use the video recorded to threaten them for money.
Worried that her parents would find out about the acts, the girl convinced her boyfriend to comply. While the couple performed sexual acts, Shazwan touched her breast and forced her to perform oral sex on him. Shazwan then demanded the boyfriend to have sex with the girl but the teenager refused. Shazwan proceeded to rape the girl himself.
After leaving the scene, Shazwan communicated with the boyfriend on WhatsApp and demanded $40 the next morning, which the boyfriend transferred to Shazwan's account.
The whole matter came to light when the girl started crying in front of her friends in school and told them what happened. Her friends eventually found Shazwan's identity on Facebook and got her to file a police report.
Pleading guilty to charges of rape, forced oral sex, outrage of modesty and extortion, Shazwan, now 23, was jailed 18 years and ordered to be caned 15 strokes.
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