A convicted sex offender so dangerous he was sentenced to life was able to terrorise a woman from inside a top security Scottish jail.
David McKenzie, from Elgin, bombarded his victim with more than 900 phone calls and voice messages from Glenochil Prison.
The 36-year-old – who was handed an order for lifelong restriction 15 years ago for trying to take three eight-year-old Elgin girls to a secluded spot – also sent her filthy and abusive letters, Stirling Sheriff Court heard.
After being released on licence in 2019, he formed “some sort of relationship” with a 43-year-old woman, prosecutor Katie Cunningham said, but she only met McKenzie face-to-face four times.
Their “friendship” had been mostly conducted through text messages and phone calls when he was recalled to prison on the orders of the parole board in May 2020.
‘Abusive and aggressive’ calls
Ms Cunningham said: “He had arranged to visit her but never arrived and she was later made aware by police that he was in prison and on the sex offenders’ register.”
A few days later he began writing and calling her from Glenochil Prison – one of the main facilities in Scotland for sex offenders on Orders of Lifelong Restriction.
Ms Cunningham said: “Initially these calls were acceptable in nature, but he began to get possessive, demanding to know reasons why she hadn’t answered his calls.
“She tried to distance herself from him, but he began to leave voicemails and to phone her at different times of the day.”
The calls became abusive and aggressive, with McKenzie calling the woman “heartless” and “a bitch” for not engaging with him. He demanded she wrote to him and visited him, and said he’d call her every morning at 7.30 am.
Ms Cunningham said: “He started to become jealous of her friendships and told her he wanted to be in a relationship with her when he was released.
“He repeatedly called her from prison.”
The court heard that on just one day, March 7 2023, the woman received more than 200 calls from McKenzie and between March 22 and 31 he called her another 230 unanswered times.
He then left a voice message saying he was getting out in six months and she’d “better watch herself because she’d pissed him off”.
Ms Cunningham said: “She estimates he made over 900 calls and voicemails to her, many of which were unanswered. She said she wanted to get out of the situation but didn’t know how.”
She also received letters from McKenzie, including one with sexual content that “made her feel sick”, and another that called her “a dirty, horrible bitch”, demanding she explain why she hadn’t answered his letters and calls.
The woman eventually went to the police.
Appearing by videolink, McKenzie pleaded guilty to causing the woman fear and alarm by stalking her from HMP Glenochil. The offence was committed between September 1 2022 and April 3rd last year.
Sheriff: ‘How can a prisoner make 200 phone calls in one day?’
Solicitor Stephen Carty, defending, said: “He found it difficult to accept when she said she wanted contact to stop.”
Sheriff Derek Hamilton asked: “How is it that a prisoner can make 200 phone calls in one day from prison?”
He sentenced McKenzie to 18 months imprisonment.
The court was told that if and when McKenzie is freed again it would be up to the parole board, and it was likely to be “some considerable time” before the board would consider his case.
The Order for Lifelong Restriction that he is on was imposed at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2008.
At the time, judge Lord Menzies heard he had approached the three young girls when they were out on their bikes, asked them to follow him to nearby garages, and grabbed hold of their cycles.
The distressed and frightened children approached another man and explained what had happened. He took them to a woman’s house nearby and arrangements were made to get them home.
At the time, McKenzie was under a sexual offences prevention order after he indecently assaulted four girls – one of them aged 12, the others all 13 – at Moray Leisure Centre in Elgin.
The offences took place on various occasions between March and July 2005, during Friday evening ice-skating discos.
Lord Menzies told McKenzie: “There is a likelihood that if at liberty you would seriously endanger the psychological well-being of members of the public.”
