Jailed, rapist who posed as a woman on dating site to lure male victims
A FORMER prison officer was jailed for ten years yesterday after posing as a woman online to lure vulnerable men for sex attacks.
Garry McDonald raped two men after using a fake persona and photo of teenage university student ‘Claire’ on a dating forum to attract potential victims.
Judge Lord Boyd of Duncansby told the 42-year-old: ‘You used this fiction to persuade two vulnerable young men to meet you.’ He said that McDonald had carried out ‘a carefully planned course of criminal conduct designed to lure young men into having sex without their consent’. The degree of deception and grooming meant McDonald posed a considerable risk.
Passing sentence at the High Court in Edinburgh, the judge also ordered he should be kept under supervision for two years after his release and McDonald was placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely. He had denied a series of sex charges but was found guilty of five offences – two of rape and three of sexual communications while pretending to be a woman.
The first rape took place in his home on February 23, 2019, and the second on May 16 that year at the victim’s home.
The first man, now 26, told police he has learning difficulties and memory problems. He said he had met a person on a dating website with a female name and saw a picture of a girl about his age. They began exchanging texts and he travelled to a meeting at an Asda store in Falkirk.
He said the plan was to go somewhere to eat but when he arrived he was approached by a man in his 40s who told him he was the person with the female name on the website.
The man said: ‘I didn’t know what to do. The panic started to set in.’ He said the man he met told him they were going back to his place, leaving him feeling uncomfortable. He said he did not want to have sex with the man but was told he would be doing it.
‘He wanted me to do it. I didn’t want to do it,’ he said.
At McDonald’s home he was told to undress, pushed on to a bed and raped.
The second man, 24, was also in contact with ‘Claire’. McDonald raped him after telling him that Claire would be unhappy if he did not comply with his instructions.
The man said: ‘He just kept saying Claire won’t be happy if you don’t do it.’
McDonald, formerly of Falkirk, was previously jailed for 54 months for taking illegal drugs into Addiewell jail, West Lothian, when he was a prison officer.