
A pensioner was jailed yesterday for using a hidden camera to record up schoolgirls’ skirts.
Robert Malaney then shared the illegal footage with other perverts across the globe.
The 76-year-old stalked supermarkets, train stations and garden centres for victims.
He managed to act undetected for seven years before he was busted by officers working on a tip-off.
Malaney, of Barrhead, East Renfrewshire, secretly filmed underage girls across Scotland and uploaded the images to a notorious paedophile website registered in Russia.
Detectives recovered a collections of more than 8000 images.
The pervert was yesterday jailed for 18 months at Paisley Sheriff Court after pleading guilty to three charges.
The offences were committed between April 2013 and September 2020 in three different councl areas.
He was also made the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order – which will limit his activities once released from prison.
Malaney, who also carried out covert filming at Glasgow Central train statiion, was placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.
And he was deemed such a danger to children that he will be monitored in the community for a year once he is freed.
Solicitor Gemma Elder asked for leniency for Malaney, saying he had already been punished by his actions.
She said: “He normally resides in Barrhead but has been staying elsewhere.
“It was quite clear Mr Malaney was not safe to return to his home address.
“Prior to the plea he was ostracised by most of his family, quite understandably.
“He has expressed that he is horrified at the conduct now before the court.”
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She said hearing the details of what he had done being narrated in court meant “the penny dropped” and he realised it was “a serious matter”.
The lawyer Malaney would “be vulnerable in a custodial setting” and said he was a wealthy man who had earned a good living fixing and selling electronics.
But Sheriff Mark Thorley sentenced Malaney to 18 months in jail, discounted from two years as he pleaded guilty to the charges.
The sheriff said: “There is no alternative but the imposition of a custodial sentence.”