'Catfishing' nurse in jail after pretending to be a man to deceive her victim

A woman who used a voice-changing app to sound like a man during a 'sophisticated' stalking campaign has been jailed for more than two years.

Adele Rennie pretended to be a male pharmacist when she matched with her victim on the dating platform Tinder in August 2023.

It is the third conviction for the same crime for the 33-year-old after she was jailed in 2017, and again two years later, for impersonating men to trick women.

The former nurse was yesterday locked up for 28 months at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court after she admitted similar charges at a hearing in July.

Rennie, of Kilmarnock, will also be under supervision for 12 months following her release, banned from contacting or approaching her victim for five years and placed on the sex offenders' register for 10 years after pleading to guilty to four charges.

The court heard her elaborate stalking campaign involved the use of a voice-changing device to sound like a man as he pretended to be a male pharmacist to pick up her victim on the dating app, Tinder, in August 2023.

The pair exchanged numbers and she later had flowers to delivered to her victim's address who arranged to go on a date with the "man".

But when Rennie cancelled the meeting at the last minute, the woman realised the Tinder account was a 'catfish profile' created to deceit victims.

However, days later she received a voice note from someone calling herself 'Cheryl' claiming to be the man's friend and urging her 'not to give up on him'.

She then received calls from him but felt the voice had been altered.

On September 5, the victim received an unwanted explicit image from Rennie, who stated she did not mean anything by it and was unable to delete it.

A week later the woman was sent a message by Rennie containing a photograph taken outside the complainer's workplace.

Prosecutors said that the following month, the accused sent her victim a screenshot of Google Maps which showed someone outside her home.

The woman then received a photograph of her street which had been taken through a car window.

Less than a week later the victim was sent a ticket for a gig in London by Rennie but decided she did not want to go. Rennie then asked her to send the ticket on via Ticketmaster to an email address.

The woman was shown pictures from the concert by a witness showing Rennie in attendance there. She then contacted police who searched Rennie's home on November 14, 2023.

A mobile phone was examined which revealed an email address with the name of the man and searches for the victim in its internet history.

The police also found a photograph matching the fake male profile and recovered several bank cards, which had not been declared in accordance with Rennie's sex offender notification requirement.

Sheriff Nicola Patrick told her: 'By your own admission you deliberately sought out your victim and embarked on a course of conduct designed to cause her distress.

'Your actions involved a significant degree of pre- meditation, deception and manipulation and it is clear from the victim impact statement they have had a profound effect on the victim so much so that she has had to seek support and assistance to deal with the trauma you caused her.'

She added there was no alternative to custodial sentence and 'in order to protect the public from serious harm' on her release, the sheriff imposed a Supervised Release Order.

Following the hearing, David Bernard, Procurator Fiscal for North Strathclyde, said: 'Adele Rennie carried out a sophisticated stalking campaign despite being subject to strict notification requirements as a registered sex offender.'

'We recognise that the trauma suffered by victims of stalking can be profound and distressing.

'We hope this conviction brings some comfort to those affected by Rennie's concerning and manipulative behaviour.'

In the past, Rennie targeted former Miss Scotland finalist Abbie Draper, whom she met while caring for the beauty contestant's dying grandfather at Crosshouse Hospital.

She began to target her with messages and fake calls using the voice-change app as they spoke, pretending to be a doctor.

But Ms Draper became suspicious that a medic she did not know should contact her out of the blue.

She managed to link the fake Facebook account involved to Rennie's phone number, bringing the deception to light. Ms Draper was not stalked and did not receive any images. But she said other victims approached her after she shared her story.

Speaking to the BBC after the hearing in July, she said: 'This isn't just catfishing, it's a lot more than that.

'It just goes to show you that the police and the court system are taking it seriously now, where you are getting a jail sentence, whether you're a woman or a man.'