Ex-government worker who filmed up women’s skirts jailed

A former government employee has been jailed and placed on the sex offenders register after taking surreptitious videos and photographs up women’s skirts.

Thomas Neil Trotter, 54, a former senior press officer in the Scottish Government, pled guilty at Edinburgh Sheriff Court to filming the genitals, buttocks and underwear of women in Waverley Station and Glasgow’s Buchanan Galleries.

Mr Trotter, was, until his prosecution, a communications manager who worked on “youth and women’s employment”.

His actions in Waverley Station caught the attention of concerned commuters, who noticed him angling his mobile phone up a woman’s skirt while riding the escalator.

Police reviewing CCTV footage of the incident reasoned that he was a commuter and caught him as he headed to work the next day. A later search of his computer turned up 22 “upskirt” videos that he had filmed in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The clandestine photography took place between 11 June and 29 September 2014.

Mr Trotter has been jailed for 18 months and will be on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

His solicitor, Neil Hay, told the court that Mr Trotter was “sorry for what he has done”.

Delivering his judgment, Sheriff Peter Braid told Mr 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.”

He added: “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.”