A peeping Tom was arrested on Thursday over an incident in a Cotai hotel’s women’s toilet on the previous day, Public Security Police (PSP) spokeswoman Lai In Hong said in a press conference on Friday.
The local suspect surnamed Leong, who is in his twenties, told the police that he’s unemployed.
According to Lai, a woman in her twenties reported to the police on Wednesday with the assistance of the hotel security guards that she saw a man in the food court’s women’s toilet at about 11 a.m. on that day and suspected him of peeping at her while she was using the toilets. She told the police that as soon as she entered the toilets, she saw a man there who left the toilets immediately upon seeing her. The woman didn’t pay any attention to him and entered a cubicle. She then heard some noise from the cubicle next to hers so she immediately left the cubicle and saw the same man she had seen earlier leaving the toilets.
Lai said that the man suddenly approached the woman, and the victim reacted by stepping backwards, until she was backed up against a wall. She shouted at the man, pushed him away and then left the toilets. The victim asked a security guard for help who reported the case to the police on her behalf. After realising that the victim had informed police, the man ran away and vanished.
According to Lai, the Public Security Police identified Leong after scrutinising the CCTV footage. PSP officers arrested Leong the next day at his home in Avenida de Vecenslau de Morais in Areia Preta. Under questioning, Leong claimed that he had entered the women’s toilets by mistake because he’s addicted to using his smartphone.
However, after repeated questioning by the police, Leong finally confessed that he wandered around the hotel’s food court at about 10 a.m., and then sneaked into the women’s toilets with the purpose of peeping and taking photos of women when they were using the toilet. He had been waiting there for a long time but nobody entered the toilets until he met the victim.
Lai said Leong even confessed that he starting being a peeping tom at the end of last year, when he had developed a habit of surreptitiously taking pictures of women’s backs and repeatedly looking at the photos later. However, as he knew that Wednesday’s victim had reported the case to the police and he realized that the police would catch him sooner or later, he deleted all the photos of women’s backs.
Leong has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing an invasion of privacy charge, according to Lai.
This undated handout photo provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) on Friday shows the peeping Tom suspect being escorted by officers to a police station.
