text: Neil Trotter admitted taking pictures of women at Edinburgh's Waverley Station and Glasgow's Buchanan Galleries between June and September 2014.
  A sheriff told the 54-year-old, from Falkirk, that "women should be able to walk without fear" in public places.
  He was also placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
  A previous hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told that Trotter travelled into Edinburgh daily by train to go to work.
  On Monday 29 September, a fellow passenger noted him walking in "a curious, a sinister manner" at Waverley Station, "clearly making an effort to get very close to a female ahead of him" on the escalator.
  Fiscal depute Aidan Higgins, prosecuting, told the court that "it was clear he was using his phone to get under the lady's skirt, taking photographs".
  The commuter reported his concerns to British Transport Police and Trotter was identified from CCTV footage. He was detained as he left the station the following day.
  Examination of Trotter's phone and his home computer established that he had been using his mobile on various days between 11 June and 29 September, with 22 videos showing the camera had been directed under women's skirts.
  Defence solicitor Neil Hay told the court Trotter was "most ashamed of his actions", and "well aware his behaviour is unacceptable".
  He said his client had "lost his career, brought his family to the brink of financial ruin and brought shame and humiliation to himself and those very close to him".
  Sentencing him to 18 months in prison, Sheriff Peter Braid told Trotter: "You have pled guilty to taking images of women in a clandestine manner, prompted by voyeuristic impulses for your own sexual gratification.
  "This involved significant planning committed over a period of more than three months in public places where women should be able to walk without fear.
  "The repugnance society must feel towards these offences is such that, in my view, there is no alternative to a custodial sentence, in retribution and to deter others."
target: A former senior information officer for the Scottish government has been jailed for 18 months for using his mobile phone to take photos up women's skirts.