Queer rights campaigner James Rennie jailed for life over paedophile ring

Two men at the centre of a paedophile conspiracy in central Scotland have been jailed for life at the High Court in Edinburgh for offences described by the trial judge Lord Bannantyne as horrific, appalling and gross.

James Rennie, 38, the former chief executive of a gay youth organisation, was responsible for “a colossal breach of trust”, said Lord Bannatyne, abusing the child of his best friends, almost from its birth to the age of four years.

By distributing images and films of his attacks to his gang of seven other men, Rennie would become the “like a spider at the centre of this conspiracy, weaving an electronic web bringing to fruition this appalling crime”.

Neil Strachan, 41, the only one of the gang with previous convictions for offences against children, was shown in background reports to display evidence of a psychopathic personality. One image that showed him abusing a baby left in his care displayed all his basest instincts, said the judge. “By its very nature what is shown in that photograph is utterly appalling and would shock to the core any right-minded person who has had to see it,” said Lord Bannantyne.

Nearly 125,000 indecent images were seized during an 18-month police investigation, codenamed Operation Algebra. Six men were jailed in June for their involvement in the gang. Like Rennie all were respected members of the community, and they included a civil servant, a bank clerk and a church bell-ringer among its members.

The nine-week trial in spring invoked conspiracy laws for the first time in a sexual offences case in Scotland, a precedent that prosecutors hope will have a profound effect on curtailing the making and distribution of images of child abuse by paedophiles.

“These offences involve real children and many of the photographs involve children being sexually abused, often in the most appalling ways. There are real victims of these offences, namely the children who were photographed and abused,” said Lord Bannatyne. .

The judge reserved special praise for Detective Inspector Stuart Hood and the squad of 13 detectives who uncovered the paedophile gang.

Their investigations required an extraordinary international operation, which stretched from Lothian and Borders police headquarters at Fettes in Edinburgh, and drew on the skills of Scottish and American academics, FBI agents, and Microsoft personnel in San Jose, California, revealing on its way paedophile networks all over world.

As a direct result of Algebra, more than 100 individuals are believed to have been arrested around the world, with significant operations continuing in central Scotland, Sussex, the Netherlands and the United States.

Strachan, convicted of eight charges in total, was also found guilty of repeatedly touching a six-year-old boy indecently on the same night while he was asleep. The jury found Rennie guilty of 14 charges, including one of procuring his best friend’s child for other men, an offer that Strachan took up.

The pair — along with Ross Webber, 27, from North Berwick, Craig Boath, 24 from Dundee and John Milligan, 40, from Glasgow, were also found guilty of conspiring to gain access to a child or children to commit abuse.

After sentencing. the mother of the 18-month-old boy abused by Strachan said that she would never be able to forgive him for the “sick” attacks on her son.

She said: “The anguish I feel towards Mr Strachan is indescribable.

“I feel that no matter what punishment is given to Mr Strachan, it will never be able to compensate for the hurt, devastation and great deal of stress brought to me and my family.”

<>Webber, Boath, Milligan, along with Neil Campbell, 46, and John Murphy, 44, both from Glasgow, were sentenced to a total of 43 years in jail in June for their involvement in the paedophile ring.