Secret recordings helped convict Inverness rapist
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An athletics champion who was raped by her Inverness "on-off" boyfriend gained crucial evidence by secretly recording him.
Ellie Wilson – who waived her right to anonymity – revealed how she gained the evidence leading to the conviction and five-year jail term of Daniel McFarlane.
McFarlane, a former medical student, preyed on Ms Wilson at her flat in Glasgow's Finnieston between December 2017 and February 2018.
He denied the crimes claiming any admission of guilt were "false".
But, he was convicted of two rape charges and attempting to defeat the ends of justice following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow last June.
In an interview with The Sun newspaper, Ms Wilson revealed how she caught out McFarlane in 2019 after recording a conversation, asking why he had lied about the crimes, prompting him to reply: "We've already established that I have."
He went on to say he would tell the truth one day but not that day.
She reported McFarlane to the police in 2020 and he was suspended from the University of Glasgow.
She later discovered he had been able to enrol at The University of Edinburgh while he was awaiting trial.
The trial heard that first-time offender McFarlane, also a talented amateur athlete, was confronted by a mutual friend in a series of messages.
In one, he claimed: "I did not rape her again."
McFarlane then further said he knew he had "done things that are despicable".
He told jurors that he regretted sending such messages as he was "admitting to things that he did not do".
