Gardaí looking for fraudster posing as Scottish priest

Gardaí are investigating claims that a man who has been posing as a priest in the west of Ireland is a Scottish con man and sex offender who had harassed a number of female TDs.

The man has been posing as a Scottish priest in Tuam, Co Galway, in recent weeks. He has been drinking with locals in pubs and was reportedly taken on a number of nights out and given free lodgings by one family.

While staying with them, he is believed to have stolen a cheque book. The matter has been reported to gardaí in Tuam, who are investigating.

He fled when some suspicious locals began questioning his credentials. He had claimed to be in charge of three parishes in Scotland.

However, a number of local people now believe the man was not a priest. Gardaí are investigating reports that he is the convicted fraudster and sex offender John Cronin (36), from East Lothian in Scotland. Cronin was jailed for life in 1992 for a sexual assault on a Tory party activist known as Judy X at her Edinburgh home. His sentence was reduced to six years on appeal and he was released in 1996. Since then, Cronin has been in and out of prison in Scotland and Ireland. He was jailed in 2002 and sentenced to two years for robbing a bank in Waterford. In May 1996 he conned his way into a priest's house in Co Leitrim, where he stole more than £1,000.

The same year he was arrested in Dublin after gaining entry to Dáil Éireann by posing as a priest. He was allegedly stalking women TDs at the time. He was admitted to the public gallery, asked for three TDs, one woman and two men, and telephoned others.

In 1997 Cronin admitted posing as a businessman, a doctor and a policeman to gain attention from three professional women. His solicitor said his client's motive was not "sexual" but to boost his low self-esteem. He was jailed for two years.

He was jailed in Ireland last year after he donated a bogus cheque to a Limerick charity for £100,000 (€147,000) because he wanted people "to think well of him", a court was told.