Doctor filmed hundreds with hi-tech cameras

.

.

Published Nov 27, 2014

Share

London - The huge array of hidden cameras used by a top doctor to spy on colleagues and patients in hospital toilets emerged on Wednesday.

Voyeur Dr Lam Hoe Yeoh was jailed for using 23 secret cameras to film his victims, including James Bond-style devices disguised as memory sticks, pens, watches and hearing aid boxes. He also fixed tiny cameras to toilets, bins and sinks and even filmed visitors to his £750 000 home.

Over more than three years world-renowned hearing specialist Yeoh – who worked in NHS and private hospitals – amassed thousands of hours of footage of more than 1 000 men, women and children.

The consultant surgeon’s downfall came after he inadvertently filmed himself putting a camera in a communal toilet at the private St Anthony’s Hospital in North Cheam, South London. The incriminating footage was found when the device fixed by Blu-Tack fell off and was spotted by a colleague.

On Wednesday, married Yeoh, 62, of Banstead, Surrey, who pleaded guilty to voyeurism on Tuesday, was given an eight-year sentence at Croydon Crown Court. It comprises a five-year jail term and three years on extended licence after his release during which he will be supervised in the community. He can be returned to prison if he breaks the terms of his licence.

Afterwards victims said they had been left feeling dirty and violated by his abuse. One former colleague, who asked to be called Sarah, said the experience had changed forever the way she behaves in public. “I can’t go to the toilet in a public place now without looking for hidden cameras,” she said.

Sarah, 33, worked with Yeoh for 10 years and was filmed by him between 15 and 20 times without her knowledge or consent.

Once she found a pager belonging to him in a communal toilet at work and, assuming that he had innocently left it behind, returned it to his office. She now believes the device was left deliberately to spy on her. Sarah added: “It’s strange watching him in the dock, people say he looks broken but how remorseful can you be after it’s been going on for so long?

“It felt good to stand there with some of the other victims – it was a real strength in numbers.”

Another woman, who worked with Yeoh for 12 years, said he made 47 videos of her. She said: “He spliced videos of me talking and laughing with videos of me using the toilet where we worked.”

Recalling the moment police asked her to watch the videos back to identify herself she added: “I felt frozen. I felt dirty as though I had been raped by him. I felt disgusting.

“I knew the only way I could be free of him was to face him in the dock and see him vulnerable and small, just like he made me feel.”

The doctor, who is originally from Malaysia and boasted that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon actress Michelle Yeoh was his half-sister, bowed his head throughout the hearing, shielding his face and refusing to look at his victims. Sentencing Yeoh Judge Warwick McKinnon condemned his “nefarious and despicable actions” and said he had disgraced the hospitals where he worked.

He said: “The breach of trust is vast and far reaching as well as the distress, sense of betrayal, anger, and disgust at the appalling breach of trust, at the personal and intrusive nature of your actions.

“Your actions brought the establishments you worked in into disrepute.”

In what police described as calculated and clearly orchestrated actions, Dr Yeoh had invited people to his home to secretly film them in the bathroom. He carefully labelled and edited his footage, some of which was of children as young as three, and stored it on his NHS computer for his sexual gratification.

Yeoh, an expert in tinnitus, vertigo and dizziness who is also known by the first name Robin, was arrested at St Anthony’s Hospital after an investigation by police in April.

On Tuesday, he admitted seven counts of voyeurism, six of making indecent images of a child and one of possessing extreme pornography relating to 32 identified victims and a further 1 084 who have not been identified.

His wife Ivy, 57, had a voyeurism charge against her dropped.

Yeoh has been based at the NHS St Helier Hospital in Carshalton where he ran a regular clinic.

In addition to St Anthony’s, he has worked at the private Cromwell Hospital in Chelsea and the Portland in Central London. He is an honorary senior lecturer at St George’s medical school in Tooting, South London, and has given expert evidence in cases at the High Court.

Daily Mail

Related Topics: