Extended jail sentence for Edinburgh rapist who joined 'mad' religious cult

Stephen Inglis, 32, admitted to police officers he had intentionally deleted the internet history from his mobile phone during a routine check at his home earlier this year.

He also breached the strict court order (SOPO) by entering into an intimate relationship with a woman without informing the management team who monitor his behaviour.

Inglis, from Edinburgh, was jailed for seven years and placed on the sex offenders register for life after he admitted a horrific serious sexual assault on a vulnerable woman in her home in 2007.

He was also jailed three years ago after breaching the SOPO when he secretly got engaged to a nun and ran off to join a religious cult based in the south of England.

Now Inglis is back behind bars after previously pleading guilty to breaching the SOPO rules during a hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month.

SOPO conditions state Inglis is barred from deleting internet history, texts and emails from any device and also from having relationships with women without informing the Edinburgh offenders management unit.

He returned to the dock from custody on Wednesday where Sheriff Chris Dickson sentenced him to an extended 18 month sentence with 12 months in prison and an added six month supervised release order.

Inglis admitted to breaching a SOPO by deleting mobile phone history and forming a relationship with a woman without consent at an address at Poplar Lane, Edinburgh, between April 1 and August 21 this year.

Inglis was just 19 when he carried out a serious sex assault on a vulnerable woman which lasted for eight hours at her home in Edinburgh in 2007.

He pled guilty to assault and rape at the High Court in Glasgow and was jailed for seven years and placed on the sex offenders register for life.

And he was also jailed for eight months in 2017 after he breached the SOPO conditions by running off to join “a mad religious cult” in England.

Inglis was baptised into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ religious movement which was based at the time at Carroty Wood in Kent.

Pictures show him going through the ceremony while dressed in purple robes at a local swimming pool and meeting with female church members who were unaware of his criminal past.

Inglis also admitted he was engaged to a nun within the church and said he viewed their relationship as “like husband and wife”.

A court previously heard how Inglis had been sent back to jail after revealing to his support worker he had joined the Philippines-based church and was in love with a nun there.

The bizarre tale came to light after Inglis told the project worker about his involvement with the church when said he had joined “a mad religious cult”.

Inglis is reported to have maintained a relationship with the nun via text from inside Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison, with their conversations monitored by officers.

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