A NIGHT out with a male friend was marred when Jane (not her real name) sensed that a middle-aged man behind her on the escalator was too close for comfort.

Dressed in a blouse and miniskirt, she was at Tiong Bahru Plaza to catch a movie.

Turning around, she caught hawker Kwan Tuck Fatt with his mobile phone held underneath her skirt.

Jane's immediate reaction was to elbow him in the stomach, but the pot-bellied, balding man got bolder, and accused her of punching him.

She then tried to grab his mobile phone, but he put up a struggle until her friend joined in to wrest the device from the man.

'He kept insisting he did not do anything wrong and tried deleting the photos,' Jane told The Straits Times.

But scrolling through his mobile phone, Jane found not only 'upskirt' snapshots of herself but of 40 other women; and images of a man and woman having sexual intercourse.

'He begged me to let him go, saying he would delete the photos, but I was very angry,' Jane added.

Security staff and later, the police, were called in. The man was arrested.

Last month, the 47-year-old pleaded guilty to insulting Jane's modesty and was jailed for a month.

Even though it has been two years since the incident, Jane, now 22, is still traumatised.

'What made me angry was that he tried to deny it at first,' she said.

'I also don't want to wear skirts that often anymore because the hard truth is that the only way to stop such acts is to stop wearing short skirts,' she said.