Public left wondering if they could be among 652 victims of Saanich, B.C., voyeur

The community of interests of Saanich, B.C., has been told a adult male spent 6 years on the qt cinematography hundreds of women and girls in public spaces and the private of their homes — but the vast majority of victims may still not know it happened to them.

Police have encouraged anyone who believes they were filmed to reach out, but they’ve released few details on where the voyeurism occurred or how someone would know they were a subject of the crime. 

That uncertainty has left some people in the Vancouver Island community with anxiety. 

Marie Paradis is among those calling for more details from police.

A Saanich resident for the past decade, Paradis fears that she or her 13-year-old daughter could have been filmed without their knowledge or consent, as they visited dressing rooms, beaches and swimming pools during the years the voyeurism occurred.

Without more information, she says any woman or child who visited Saanich during those six years could be worried about whether they are a victim. Other women in the community have shared similar fears in messages posted online to Saanich police calling for further details.

"There's no way really to narrow it down other than knowing where that happened, so it's stressful, just, you know, not knowing," Paradis said.

It's been nearly two weeks since Saanich police announced that Yin Yeung Derek Chan pleaded guilty to voyeurism-related charges. Police said investigators determined that 652 women and girls were captured in photos and videos.

He was sentenced the same day to 4.5 years in prison for voyeurism and making child pornography — now known as child sexual abuse and exploitation material. It's expected Chan will serve 2.5 years due to time in pre-trial custody.

Saanich police, who encouraged anyone who believes they may be a victim to reach out, have said Chan filmed at businesses, beaches and through the windows of a few private homes between April 2017 and November 2023.

B.C.'s attorney general and the executive director of the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre have called for further information to allow victims to identify themselves.

Saanich police spokesperson Jason Hallman said they have "no further information to share at this time" and declined multiple interview requests.

Videos described by the judge were taken while following women and girls through stores in Mayfair Shopping Centre and Uptown shopping mall. Other images were taken at gyms, on the street, at the beach, in stores, at swimming pools and through the windows of homes, said B.C. Provincial Court Judge Lisa Mrozinski.

Paradis said the names of specific stores, beaches or neighbourhoods, along with any accompanying information on more precise time periods that police may be able to collect from metadata, would help her and others potentially rule out if they may be a victim.

Though she's considered it, Paradis hasn't reached out to Saanich police yet. Given the lack of detail shared publicly, she figures they must be inundated with requests. Paradis said she doesn't want to further add to this when she isn't sure if she'll ever get the answers she's seeking.

She also feels police should have shared more information about the case with the public earlier, when Chan was arrested and released on bail in April 2024. Chan was re-arrested in January 2025, after police caught him taking photos of women at Uptown shopping centre.

"The fact that it was known and that basically he was just let out to do the same thing again, I think that indicates that there's some sort of failure in the system," said Paradis.

Police determined that 64 of Chan's victims appear to be under the age of 18, with only five of them identified at that point. Several were filmed in school uniforms, Mrozinski said, with some videos labelled with the name of a local private boarding school.

Most of the videos of children were "upskirt" photos, the judge said.

Jillian Roberts, a registered psychologist and a professor of educational psychology at the University of Victoria, said one of the deeper harms of a crime like this on a child is the erosion of their trust in public spaces.

Both children and their caregivers need support following situations like this, including honest, age-appropriate conversations that reinforce safety, she said.

However, she warns that parents should avoid hypothesizing about things that have not been confirmed, interrogating their children, or preventing them from going to spaces like the mall. Instead, Roberts suggests parents can ask their teens to go in groups.

"Cases like this can also have a broader community effect, even families not directly involved may experience increased anxiety or fear around community participation," she said.

"We need to be able to participate in our communities, and so that's a concern when families begin to feel that their community isn't safe."

Roberts is also the parent of three children. She feels for the families affected, and said she is enraged and disgusted by Chan's actions.

"I just wish we could keep our children safer," she said.

Even though Chan has been convicted, Paradis said she struggles to feel safe knowing the photos and videos he took may prove difficult — if not impossible — to remove from the internet. It troubles her how long these images might follow the women and children depicted in them, without their consent or knowledge.

"So the fact that we know [about Chan] is only the tip of the iceberg," she said. 

"But then not knowing [where] just adds to the, 'Am I one of them? Will I ever know?'"

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