Scottish Pedophile Ring Includes Gay Youth Activist
A group of accused pedophiles were found guilty in Scotland on a collective 54 counts.
In a shocking twist, one of the eight men whom jurors found guilty was an advocate for LGBT youth, while another was also active in GLBT equality causes.
James Rennie has served LGBT Youth Scotland as the group's chief executive, and had advised the Scottish government on gay issues; he had also met Tony Blair and the Queen.
News accounts did not say whether Rennie abused his position in order to gain access to youthful victims who turned to the organization for help, but Rennie did, according to reports, abuse the children of friends, as did Neil Strachen, identified along with Rennie as a "ringleader" in the pedophile "gang."
Such treacherous behavior is not unusual among child molesters. Observers have noted that most young victims are assaulted either by a relative or a family friend. Random attacks in which strangers target children do happen, but they are relatively uncommon.
The vast majority of pedophiles identify as heterosexual, but gay child molesters are not unheard of.
The case sent out shock waves because many of the convicted offenders were seen as respected members of the community, their ranks including a Church of Scotland elder, newspaper accounts said.
Strachan, according to a May 7 article in the UK newspaper The Telegraph, had also been associated with a youth group, and, like Rennie, had been an advocate for GLBT equality.
Strachen came in for a particularly harsh depiction from the state prosecutor, Dorothy Bain, who called him "polluted by deviant compulsion," the article said.
"In reality he is someone who allowed his profound interest in the sexual abuse of children to engulf his entire life," Bain added.
The article said that Strachen and Rennie had been photographed molesting the three-month-old child of friends, and that Rennie had distributed the image to others.
Rennie also invited others to assault the child, the article said.
The family of the infant stated, "For over 15 years James Rennie seemed the closest of family friends and it is hard to put into words the extent of the betrayal he has exacted upon us, as many of the details may identify our family and son."
The family's statement continued, "To subsequently learn that he abused our son, and invited others to do the same, has been devastating.
"As a family we have had to learn to live, and cope with, the effect these horrific events have had."
One of Strachan's victims was a child of only a year and a half, whose mother said, "Mr Strachan used and abused our trust in order to satisfy his and others' sick needs."
The case extended well beyond the eight Scottish men snared in a sting operation that began when a computer technician found a cache of photos on Strachan's computer. The article said that over 300 individuals in America, Germany, Australia, Poland, and The Netherlands were also implicated.
Strachen and Rennie, along with three others, were found guilty on conspiracy charges. The men reportedly had plotted to carry out assaults on children.
Three others were included in guilty verdicts returned on all eight on charges of child pornography.
The crimes spanned four years and involved a total of 125,000 images, the article said.
The quest to bring down the ring was also international in scope, a Times of London article from May 8 said, with American FBI agents and Microsoft employees lending their expertise to the ten-month investigation.
A separate Times article from May 8 quoted the judge in the case, Lord Bannatyne, as calling the assaults perpetrated by the men "utterly horrific."