A former photographer for the National Dental Centre of Singapore has been sentenced to two years and three months in jail after taking voyeuristic pictures of female patients he found attractive.
Elgin Ng, 29, had taken more than 600 such photographs of 25 victims and even sent some of them to a friend. He pleaded guilty in November to nine charges, including multiple counts of voyeurism, with 21 other charges considered during his sentencing on Dec 9.
As an NDCS photographer, Ng was tasked with taking pictures of patients’ teeth and jaws for those scheduled for surgery. He had to provide patients with a blue board to cover their chest for modesty. When dealing with girls and women, he was required to either have a female colleague present or keep the curtains in the room open.
However, from June 2021 to May 2024, investigations revealed that Ng took unauthorized voyeuristic pictures of girls and women when his photography colleague was not present. He would note down the names of patients he found attractive or those wearing tops that revealed their cleavage.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jeremy Bin told the court: “If the patient was scheduled to have photographs taken, the accused would take the requisite photographs, as well as additional voyeuristic photographs of the victim’s cleavage. If the patient had not been scheduled for a photography session, the accused would approach them, fraudulently claiming that their dentist had requested for photographs to be taken… to take voyeuristic photographs of them.”
During these sessions, Ng would not give the blue board to patients and kept curtains closed so he could take pictures undetected. He would arrange cameras at prohibited top-down angles, then transfer the pictures to his personal thumb drive and delete them from the camera’s SD card to avoid getting caught.
Separately, he accessed the NDCS internal system MiPACS without authorization to download photographs of victims’ faces, matching them to the voyeuristic photographs. He created folders with victims’ names containing both face photos and voyeuristic pictures. On at least two occasions in 2024, he distributed some pictures to a friend via Telegram.
Ng’s offences came to light after one victim lodged a complaint on April 16, 2024, and he resigned the following month. This is really a serious breach of trust lah – patients go to the dental centre for treatment, not to be exploited like this. Very disturbing behavior.
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