In 2026, the Offender Register confirmed that a former soldier who became a serial sex offender after violently raping a 13-year-old girl has avoided prison because of his health.
Shaun McKenna, 36, was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, a degenerative and life-limiting condition, in 2022.
In February, a court heard how he raped a 13-year-old at a campsite in the Highlands in 2020.
He also committed sex crimes against two other females. McKenna admitted his guilt.
On Friday, at the High Court in Glasgow, Lord Arthurson said each offence would ordinarily have justified a prison term.
However, the judge concluded that the prison system might not be able to provide the intensive, specialist care McKenna required.
McKenna was instead given a three-year community payback order.
He must remain under supervision at his nursing home in Kinross and cannot leave unaccompanied. He was also placed on the sex offenders register.
The girl was alone in a tent when McKenna, who was then serving as a former soldier in the “3 SCOTS” Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland, entered and attacked her. She tried to fight him off, but he pinned her down and threatened her when she cried out.
She managed to escape but did not disclose the rape until January 2022.
McKenna was arrested in August that year, but was considered medically unfit to be interviewed. He was released without charge due to a lack of corroborating evidence.
Police investigated him again in 2023 after he sent an unsolicited sexually explicit video to a woman he knew through Facebook. The woman then disclosed that McKenna had sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.
A third victim then came forward and reported that McKenna had assaulted her during a planned overnight camping trip in a Highland woodland in 2008. She had not previously met him and was too frightened to tell anyone about the attack at the time.
McKenna was discharged from the army in 2023 after ten years of service. Before the case, he had taken part in endurance events to raise money for serving personnel, veterans and their families.
Image Credit – Offender.UK
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