Locations
Burngreave Road, Sheffield, S3 9DF
Description
A "repeat offender" has been jailed for taking pictures up a schoolgirl's skirt on a Surrey train a year after he was in court for a similar offence.
Leon Chan was travelling on a train from Ewell to Ashtead on October 1, 2020, at around 3pm - the same time as a 17-year-old girl in school uniform was on the train.
Chan, 26, sat near her and stared at her before following her when she left her seat and moved to stand at the train door.
He was holding his phone camera and pointing it towards her. CCTV showed the light on his camera appearing to flash.
Chan then stood next to her and placed his bag on the floor. He crouched down and began rummaging through the bag with one hand, and holding his phone camera towards the victim's legs with his other hand.
The girl then moved away and he followed her, crouching down again and holding his phone towards her. She turned around and caught him pointing his camera up her skirt.
Chan left the train at Ashtead before quickly reboarding and continuing his journey. He was later identified by local officers in Sheffield, where he lives, and was arrested.
Appearing at Sheffield Crown Court on March 9, Chan was jailed for 20 months. The court heard that he'd been issued with a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) and a suspended prison sentence in 2019 following another upskirting incident in London.
Chan, of Burngreave Road, Sheffield, was convicted of outraging public decency at Southwark Crown Court in November 2019 when he was found to be videoing females at the Topshop branch in Oxford Circus.
The SHPO prevented Mr Chan from possessing any device capable of capturing or storing photographs or moving images unless he satisfied certain conditions. He was also prohibited from filming any female without her express consent.
In relation to the Surrey offence he was found guilty of recording an image under clothing to observe another without consent, and breaching the SHPO. He was also ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register for ten years and a new SHPO was issued.
Detective Constable Amina Khoyratee, of British Transport Police, said: "Upskirting is a truly horrendous invasion of privacy and I would like to make it absolutely clear that we will always take these reports seriously.
"Chan is a repeat offender who has shown no remorse throughout our investigation, so it's lucky he'll now have plenty of time on his hands in prison where he can reflect on his predatory behaviour.
"This is relatively new legislation, having only been introduced in 2019, but the bespoke powers make it much easier for us to charge suspects for this invasive and disgusting form of sexual offending.