While respecting our partner’s privacy probably seems like common sense to most of us, some people clearly fail to get the message.
On Thursday (12 May), Singaporean Yap Wee Chian was charged in court over the obsessive behaviour that he enforced upon his ex-girlfriend.
He pleaded guilty to one charge of unlawful stalking and one charge of unauthorised access to computer material. Additrionally, another two similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing.
He was sentenced to eight weeks’ jail and will begin serving his sentence later this year on 13 June. In the meantime, he is on a $10,000 bail.
Used Position as Telco Employee to Retrieve Private Text Messages
Yap, now 35, misused his position as a Singtel employee to obtain the message history between one of Singtel’s clients and his then-girlfriend, now 32, after knowing that both parties were exchanging text messages over the phone.
According to what was said in court, Yap was employed as a customer service officer at local telecommunications firm Singtel from 2011 to 2019. He mainly handled troubleshooting needs and mobile signal issues during his time there.
Back in 2018, he was granted access to Singtel’s Niometrics system to better handle customer complaints, as well as to certify the validity customers’ claims for mobile services. He was thus able to obtain various records, such as that of a customer’s data usage.
When he was first given access to the records, Yap’s supervisor had allegedly warned him not to use the system for personal purposes.
A while after that in April 2019, Yap began dating the victim.
According to Public Prosecutor (DPP) Thiagesh Sukumaran, Yap was “possessive of her”, and often thought that she was contacting other men through her phone behind his back.
A few months later in October 2019, Yap started to notice that the victim had received multiple WhatsApp messages from another man.
Instead of brushing it off or asking his ex-girlfriend about it like any other person would, Yap took a different route.
He memorised the man’s mobile phone number and keyed it into the Niometrics system to retrieve his account information.
Yap did so on 22 occasions between October and December 2019, and he did so in order to confirm if the man and his ex-girlfriend were using certain mobile applications, such as social media applications, at the same time.
Logged Into Her Social Media Accounts and Changed Password After Breaking Up
After that, the victim, who was still unaware of what Yap was doing, moved in to live together with him.
She disclosed her personal identification code for her iPhone, and the duo also revealed both their email addresses and email account passwords to each other.
Thereafter in January 2020, Yap purchased a new iPhone 11 for the victim. After her data was transferred over to the new phone, he started using her old phone.
A few months after that, Yap logged into her Facebook account with her old phone and was able to reset the password from there. He was also able to log in to her email when Facebook emailed a notification to her account.
Finally in 2 October that year, she broke up with him because she found him too insecure and controlling. She then started to rent a room in Telok Blangah.
Even though Yap attempted to meet her multiple times in an attempt to salvage his relationship, he was unable to.
And even after his ex ended her relationship with him due to his insecurities, Yap did not cease his operation on retrieving her private information.
Instead, he started logging into her Facebook and Instagram accounts in order to find out who she was communicating with on the social media platforms.
He did so at least 139 times.
In addition to that, he also switched the email linked to those accounts to his own so that he could continue accessing the accounts.
The victim finally found out about Yap’s actions and decided to lodge a police report on 7 November 2020 out of fear for her safety.
Yap Ended Up Going to Her New House to Terrorise Her
However, Yap still did not stop there.
By March 2021, the victim made it clear that she did not want to get back together with him as his girlfriend anymore.
In a rage, Yap went up to her new house and threw away three pairs of her shoes.
DPP Thiagesh told the court as well that Yap now “hated the victim and felt that she had hurt him”.
Apart from that, he also threw away another two pairs of shoes which belonged to her landllord. He has not compensated his victims yet.
For unlawful stalking under the Protection from Harassment Act, he could have been issued a maximum fine of $5,000, been jailed for up to 12 months, or punished with both.
For unauthorised access to computer material under the Computer Misuse Act, he could have issued a maximum fine of $5,000, been jailed for up to two years, or both.
Featured Image: Tang Yan Song / Shutterstock.com