A lifelong restricted sex offender turned stalker from inside a top security Scottish prison, Stirling Sheriff Court heard.
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, the court was told.
After being released on licence in 2019, he formed “some sort of relationship” with a 43-year-old woman, prosecutor Katie Cunningham said, meeting 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.
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 write to him and visit and said he would call her every morning at 7.30am.
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 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 had “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”.
Another called her “a dirty, horrible bitch”, demanding she explain why she had not answered his letters and calls.
The woman eventually went to the police.
Appearing by videolink, McKenzie pled guilty to causing the woman fear and alarm by stalking her from HMP Glenochil between September 1 2022 and April 3 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 it is likely to be “some considerable time” before the parole board would consider his case for release after the order for lifelong restriction imposed at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2008.
At the time, judge Lord Menzies heard McKenzie had approached three youngsters 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.
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 in 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.”
For more local court content visit our page or join us on Facebook.