A sex offender has become the first person in the UK to be convicted of using an Amazon device to “spy” on an unsuspecting victim. Aaron Herschell, 25, had previously identified as a woman while standing trial on sexual assault charges.
Herschell began referring to himself as a ‘female’ in 2016 after being charged for the rape of two teen girls he met on a dating app. During his remand at the Polmont Young Offenders’ Institution, Herschell made headlines for being the first male inmate in Scotland to request “gender affirming” surgery while awaiting trial for sex offenses.
According to the Daily Record report at the time, Herschell was also the first male rapist in Scotland to be remanded as a man, but face the charges as a woman after changing his name to “Alexis.”
While incarcerated at Polmont, Herschell demanded female correctional officers do his rub-downs and strip searches, an order the staff were told to comply with despite their concerns for their safety.
Herschell was ultimately convicted in 2017 for raping one of the young women, but was cleared on the second count despite having confessed to raping both girls during a recorded confrontation with the victims’ friends before the trial. He was sentenced to two years in prison, but was released in October of 2018. He violated his release conditions shortly after his release, and was briefly taken into custody.
In May of 2020, a Risk of Sexual Harm Order (RSHO) was imposed on Herschell, but he violated his conditions again just months later by deleting the dating app Kik in an attempt to scrub his internet history — something strictly prohibited under the terms of his RSHO.
The app, notorious for its use with child predators, allows users to ‘Match and Chat’ and ‘Flirt’ with girls and boys from chosen age groups. Police discovered Herschell had also attempted to erase chat records from his phone and computer.
The next year, in 2021, Herschell was found to have been living in a house with children present. This constituted the third breach of his RHSO, and he was subsequently sentenced to a prison term of 14 months with a 10-year sex offender registration.
Herschel’s prison term was backdated several months due to having been remanded in custody in July of 2021, and he was already out of prison by spring of this year.
Last week, at Livingston Sheriff Court, Herschell admitted to using an Amazon Echo device to spy on a female former acquaintance. According to the Daily Mail, the court heard that in May of this year, Herschell had connected his device to hers without her knowledge or consent in order to allow him to hear what she was doing in her home. Herschell was convicted of Acting in a Threatening or Abusive Manner, and is set to be sentenced later on this month.
Despite having identified as a woman following his 2016 rape charge, Herschell has reportedly stopped his transition plans and has returned to calling himself Aaron. During his hearing last week for the spying incident, the Judge noted that Herschell had also adopted a fake identity in breach of his previous RHSO.
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