Police ScotlandA man who used a dating app to prey on women before sexually assaulting and scamming them out of thousands is to be exposed in an Amazon documentary.
Christopher Harkins targeted women between 2013 and 2019 – using Facebook and Tinder – with victims across the country, including Glasgow, London, Lanarkshire, Inverclyde, Edinburgh, Stirling, Paisley and West Lothian.
The documentary titled ‘Catching The Tinder Predator’ was made available on Amazon’s Prime Video on Sunday.
The series is said to “explore the actions of Harkins, the attitudes of society and the legal system, and the dogged determination of a band of women who fought to get justice”.
InstagramShannon McKechnie from Glasgow, one of Harkins’ victims, told the documentary she matched with him in 2019.
He claimed to be a railway engineer and foreign exchange trader, and the pair agreed to meet up a few weeks later.
Harkins suggested they go on a holiday together to Greece after a few more dates, which he claimed he would organise.
The 40-year-old recruitment manager said she transferred Harkins £3,247 to cover her half of the getaway.
She told the documentary: “From the night it was booked, I started to think something wasn’t quite right. He tailed off in messages, a lack of pro-activeness in his messaging.
“I started to feel a bit nervous. I phoned him, but the line was dead; it wasn’t connecting. I felt sick.”
Prime VideoShe contacted the hotel they were meant to be staying at, and found out there was no booking. She contacted her bank, but they couldn’t do anything.
Harkins told her she was having problems with his business banking, but when he asked for more money, she decided to go to the police.
Shannon and four other women are sharing their stories in the documentary.
Harkins “preyed on women looking for love and companionship”, scamming them out of £214,000.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and was added to the sex offenders register indefinitely at the High Court in Kilmarnock in July 2024.
The court heard he targeted single women on dating sites and worked to gain their trust by portraying himself as a successful businessman.
He would then invent stories about why he needed short-term loan of cash. Some of his victims borrowed the money to help Harkins out – others lent him their personal savings.
“Once you had achieved your aim with each victim, you moved on to the next, and you repeated the process, leaving a trail of emotional devastation and financial distress in your wake,” the judge told Harkins during sentencing.
Harkins falsely used some of his nine victims’ names to receive payday loans and made one of the women create an online betting account in her name.
The gambling addict used cash from her bank to place bets.
He convinced his victims that his bank account was frozen and that he required funds to pay clients and those working for him.
Harkins also pretended to book holidays and received money from some of the women towards the fictional trips.
The amounts Harkins took from the women ranged between £350 and £72,525.
He also raped one of his fraud victims while she was asleep.
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