A paedophile ex-Tory staffer was removed from a property in Renfrewshire after an angry mob gathered outside, chanting 'beast out' as he was led away by police.
Kyle Thornton, 32, the former chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament and Glasgow Conservatives, admitted having child sex abuse images and extreme porn involving animals at Dumfries Sheriff Court in March 2025. He was added to the sex offenders register. Footage shows four uniformed officers leading him out of a tenement flat in Renfrew on Sunday as protesters shouted.
EncroChat Bust Cages Gangsters
French authorities cracked the highly encrypted EncroChat messaging service in 2020, leading to multiple convictions in Scotland. Among them, two men identified by the handles 'Excited Emu' and 'Butch Penguin' were linked to cocaine trafficking. Alan Stewart, Leslie Montgomery, and Matthew Cullimore were jailed for a combined total of 14 years after admitting roles in a serious organised crime operation.
Conmen's £500k Legal Aid Bill
Four tech conmen who scammed the NHS out of £6 million cost the public purse more than £500,000 in legal aid. The cash helped wealthy scammers fight their court case, branded a 'shocking' waste by Labour's Jackie Baillie. Telecoms firm directors Adam Sharoudi, 43, and Gavin Brown, 48, and NHS chiefs Alan Hush, 69, and Gavin Cox, 61, were found guilty after a decade-long probe into health board contracts. They were jailed for a total of 29 years in June 2025, but each had their sentences cut by 12 months in May 2026 following an appeal.
Paedophile Plotted Abuse of Young Girl
Thomas Maher, 64, from Burnage, Manchester, was jailed for eight years after plotting the sexual abuse of a young girl with a man he believed was her father. In September 2025, the court heard how Maher messaged what he thought was an adult male on social media, discussing plans to commit serious sexual offences against the man's daughter. However, he was actually speaking with undercover officers. Maher was on bail for separate indecent images of children offences.
Healthcare Firm Hit by Cyber Attack
Edinburgh-based healthcare technology firm Craneware said it was hit by a cyber attack, with hackers stealing some customer and employee data. The company, which provides software to the US healthcare industry, said it was investigating a cyber incident through which a significant volume of file names were viewed and exfiltrated. 'The current assessment is that a large element of the data involved is non-sensitive or already public regulatory data,' according to the company.
