SINGAPORE - An unemployed man would "feel a very strong sexual urge" whenever he saw good-looking women in short skirts or dresses.

Malaysian national Tang Chun Hong, 31, would then trail his victims to the escalator or staircase, where he would use his mobile phone to film upskirt videos of them.

In about a year, he took 85 such videos - all of different women.

On Thursday (April 26), Tang was jailed for 24 weeks for 12 charges of insulting the modesty of women. Seventy-three other charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

His victims cannot be named because of a gag order.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Rimplejit Kaur told the court that Tang took upskirt videos between mid-2015 and October 2016.

On Oct 18, 2016, at about 10am, Tang spotted a woman clad in a red dress at Clarke Quay MRT station and followed her to the escalator.

Standing behind her on the escalator, he slipped his phone under her dress and filmed a video of her inner thighs.

The 31-year-old woman quickly turned around and saw him with his phone pressed against his stomach. Before she could say anything, Tang said: "I did not do anything."

She stopped him and alerted MRT staff at the passenger service counter, who called the police.

Two mobile phones, a laptop, and a laptop charger were seized.

Investigations found 85 videos on one of his mobile phones and its memory card. To avoid detection, he stored these videos as hidden files.

After taking the upskirt videos, Tang would then head home, lock himself in the toilet, and masturbate to the videos.

In mitigation, Tang's lawyer said his low self-esteem and intimacy issues led him to engage in such unhealthy sexual practices.

"This is his first brush with the law. He voluntarily gave up all images captured in his phone," he added.

But DPP Kaur replied that "little weight should be afforded to this because he was caught red-handed".