Tinder catfish nurse jailed for messaging victim

A former nurse who previously posed as a man to target women online has been sent back to prison for messaging a victim just days after being released.

Adele Rennie was banned from contacting the woman for five years after being jailed for stalking and sexual offences linked to a catfishing scam last year.

However, she messaged her again 11 days after being released on licence in January, claiming she thought she was texting a man named Gordon.

Rennie, 34, was sentenced to 100 days after breaching the non-harassment order at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court.

It is the fourth time Rennie, who was a nurse at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, has been convicted for crimes linked to catfishing offences.

Prior to her conviction last year she was previously jailed for similar crimes in 2017 and 2019.

Last September Rennie was sentenced to two years and four months after pleading guilty to four charges including stalking, coercing a person to look at a sexual image and two charges of breaching her sex offender notification requirements.

She was given a year-long supervised release order, placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years, given a sexual harm prevention order for five years and banned from contacting her victim for the same period.

Rennie was released under licence on 13 January but on 24 January she told a social worker that she had contacted some friends using information on an Apple Watch, which had been retrieved by her niece.

The court heard Rennie had contacted a man she knew as Gordon, and appeared to try and make amends for previous "wrongs".

But she was told in reply it was not him and she "knew full well" who she had messaged.

Rennie was said to have feigned surprise at the response and claimed she had been given the number from a list.

The court heard it made the victim felt "uneasy and worried she was in danger".

Rennie's lawyer, Paul Gallagher, said she Rennie had "self-reported her behaviour," adding she understood the "alarm" it would have caused the victim.

Rennie had originally obtained the number after exchanging details with the victim during the stalking campaign.

She had also had flowers sent to the victim's home and later sent an explicit image and photograph taken outside her work.

Rennie contacted the victim through text messages, emails and calls using a voice-changing application that made her sound like a man after matching with her on the Tinder app.

She first pled guilty to pretending to be a man to lure women into romantic relationships in 2017.

Rennie lured some women into sending intimate pictures which she used to threaten them if they cut contact.

She was put on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

Months after she left prison for her first conviction, Rennie was jailed for a similar offence in 2019.

During this case, the court heard how she had used a voice-changing app to maintain the ruse.

David Bernard, procurator fiscal for North Strathclyde, said: "The law will not tolerate Adele Rennie's refusal to abide by the strict restrictions placed upon her.

"We recognise the trauma suffered by some victims of this insidious crime and court orders will be enforced at the earliest opportunity should a perpetrator such as Rennie attempt to reoffend."