A group of women targeted by one of Britain’s most notorious catfish scammers turned into online sleuths forming a group called 007 in a bid to snare her.

They had all been befriended by someone claiming to be ‘Dr David Graham’ on social media and reeled into his fantasy life with some admitting they fell in love with him.

The handsome medic bombarded the women with messages and eventually phone calls using a voice changing app, showering some with bouquets of flowers and gifts drawing them deeper into his world.

But after he came up with a variety of excuses to avoid meeting them in person, his victims became suspicious and turned into real-life sleuths to uncover his secrets – and unmasked him as a woman named Adele Rennie. 

Now six of the women Rennie preyed on over a 15-year period have opened up about the catfisher, who has been jailed multiple times for her cons.

Former Miss Scotland finalist Abbie Draper, now 35, told a BBC documentary airing from Sunday that she reckons Rennie had targeted as many as 100 women online. However, to this day none of her victims know why.

In an exclusive clip shared with the Daily Mail today, Ms Draper talks about how she tries to work out the true identity of Dr Graham – which turned out to be Rennie.

The mother-of-two, from Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, told how her investigation was ‘pretty much a race against time’ and she ‘just had to screenshot everything, write things down, the more evidence the better’.

Ms Draper adds: ‘When I started looking deeper into David Graham’s Facebook, then I started noticing it was all the same people commenting on his things. Then I started asking myself, well, are they real?

‘We would reverse image search so you can put an image into Google and find out where it’s come through. We found these profiles had actually been stolen from Instagram.

‘There was a web of people – so you’ve got David here, and then you’ve got all these profiles validating that David is a real person. We screenshotted the other profiles as well.

‘Time went so fast, and I didn’t sleep. I was sitting on my phone looking for things and my laptop. Before I knew it we were onto like 5, 6 in the morning – and then I’d have a quick sleep and then I’ll wake back up again. I was consumed by it all.’

Rennie was first jailed for 22 months in December 2017 for cyber stalking and again two years later for similar offending. 

She was given 28 months behind bars in 2024 and could be released later this year. 

Ms Draper was one of the women to take part in the three-part documentary which looked at Rennie’s offending.

She told the programme she was first contacted by ‘good looking’ Dr Graham in 2014 after her grandfather landed in Crosshouse hospital with a stroke.

The seemingly successful medic claimed to be her grandfather’s doctor, but she eventually smelled a rat and found other women who had also been befriended by the man.

They formed an online group called 007 and discovered he was actually Rennie – the nurse who had been looking after Ms Draper’s grandfather in hospital.

She called it ‘sickening’ and told the documentary: ‘It’s a very vulnerable ward. If you really wanted to take an advantage of people that would be the ward to be in.’

After a bit more online probing and telling the hospital about Rennie, it became a ‘race against time’ to collect evidence before the devious nurse blocked her victims or deleted her fake online profile.

By using a reverse image search, the women discovered his profile had ‘fake friends’ created to validate his existence.

Ms Draper said: ‘We realised this was a full-scale operation. I knew we just had to get the police involved.

‘It was obvious it was Adele Rennie. I was really optimistic, I’d just go to the police. I thought it was going to be straight forward and they’re just going to arrest her.

‘I was at the police station for about four or five hours.’

After furnishing officers with as much detail as she could, Ms Draper said they just ‘couldn’t get their heads around it’ adding: ‘Their words to me were that she’s not actually done anything.’

Other victims, including Samantha, Lilly, Chloe, Kirsty and ‘Charlotte’ who did not want to be identified, also recounted their stories for the TV crew explaining how devious Rennie managed to dupe them into believing he really was the social media hunk he pretended to be.

Cyber security expert Rory Innes told the documentary: ‘When I first heard of the Adele Rennie case, I think the most surprising element is how long it went on for.’

He pointed out catfishing wasn’t a criminal term and pointed out: ‘It’s almost impossible that the police take that on because what is the crime?

‘The moment you say they’ve stolen £1,000 there’s a real clear pathway, it’s fraud. We can investigate that, we can follow the money.’

Mr Innes added that as victims are forced to investigate their own cases the risks for them get ‘higher and higher’ and later asked: ‘If your perpetrator doesn’t go to prison then how safe do you feel?’

Ms Draper acknowledged she felt Rennie’s behaviour had escalated with each new scam and felt a little paranoid following her experience especially since her online stalker kept cropping up again under different disguises.

The documentary also heard from a psychologist about Rennie’s potential motives for the offending with a glimpse into her childhood with an alcoholic father who took his own life.

Her sister Nicole told of her disbelief of the charges levelled at her ‘happy big sister’ while her mother, Christine, said: ‘It’s just such a horrible feeling.

‘You can’t just believe that your daughter has gone to one of them vans and taken off to a prison. She’s in sex offenders register. It’s so complex it’s very hard to make any sense of it.’

She added: ‘I was mortified. Ashamed. I went through every emotion.’

However, she told the documentary she believes Rennie’s latest stint in prison – due to end in March – has changed her.

Rennie even released a statement from behind the bars to apologise to her victims, vowing she has received help.

All three episodes of The Beauty Queen and the Catfish will air on the BBC Scotland channel on Sunday from 9pm. The series will also be available on BBC iPlayer from Sunday, and air on BBC Three on Monday from 9pm and on BBC One from 11.40pm