A man, accused of filming a woman secretly as she was showering, is on trial.

The Court of First Instance heard the 21-year-old Indian man, an office assistant, peeped through a small air hole in the bathroom wall and secretly filmed the woman with his mobile phone at her staff accommodation.

He has been charged with breaching a woman’s modesty and privacy, which he denied in court.

The incident was reported to Al Rafaa police station on October10.

‘At around midnight, I was in the shower in my accommodation when I suddenly spotted the reflection of a man filming me with his mobile phone in the mirror. I turned around and saw him standing at the window of his room, which was adjacent,’ the 28-year-old Filipina complainant, a receptionist, said.

She shouted at him, asking him who he was and what was he doing. She then sought help from friends to corner him.

The receptionist learned later that he also worked in their group company. She stated that she did not know if the accused had filmed her before, that she is scared he might have circulated the video clips and was worried it might happen again.

An Indian administration employee at the accused’s workplace said he and another Arab colleague went to the staff accommodation after he got a call at 1 am. ‘The woman employee was crying and looked scared and angry at a time. We seized the staff’s mobile phones, including the defendant’s. They all denied doing such a thing at first. But when we told them we would report the incident to the police, the accused eventually admitted to filming the complainant ‘unintentionally’ three times and then deleting all the clips without watching them,’ the admin employee testified.

The accused admitted during interrogation that he climbed up to the small window in his bathroom and used his mobile phone to secretly film the complainant. He claimed he deleted the video clips shortly after she spotted him.