Bumble conman Kieran Donnelly's victims share their stories

However, Donnelly, despite his respectable appearance, was really a scam artist luring women in with his charm before his mask would slip and he would become abusive and aggressive.

Sometimes using the names Kier Thomas, Kier Donnelly or Keir Breslin, Donnelly was finally arrested and pleaded guilty to multiple charges of domestic abuse and harassment.

It is believed he was in contact with as many as 50 women he'd met on dating apps at one time.

The Herald has spoken to all four women involved in a UK court case and among the similarities of the women's stories is one unanimous message: steer clear of this man.

He was sentenced on Wednesday at Paisley Sheriff Court to a two-year community payback order and banned from any contact with the four women.

All names have been changed to protect the women's identities.

Grace first saw Donnelly on the app Plenty of Fish in 2019 and was initially unimpressed. "I saw his picture and thought, 'No, I'm not really keen on him, he thinks he's God's gift,'" she said.

Donnelly, however, messaged her and they began chatting before arranging a date a couple of weeks later.

READ MORE: Bumble con man is sentenced for domestic abuse against four women

The conversations made Grace feel like they had already built an intimacy but when he suggested they book a hotel for their first meeting, she said no.

Donnelly kept up the pressure and, she added, "Before I knew it I'd booked the hotel and paid for it."

The red flags were immediate. Very early into the date Donnelly began accusing her of "eyeing up" another man.

Grace said: "I had been with my husband for 20 years and he's the nicest man, he's not jealous, he was never abusive and we're still friends so I thought, 'Maybe this is what men are like these days'."

She and Donnelly dated for four weeks but when they saw one another he would always come and stay at her home - she never knew where he lived.

The short relationship was marked by his jealousy - he was constantly accusing her of looking at or flirting with other men, his temper flaring out of control.

One night Donnelly took Grace's phone and blocked her male friend on WhatsApp. "He was shouting at me and screaming and he was very aggressive," she said.

"So I was shouting at him to get out of the house but he wouldn't leave so I ended up going up to bed and he stayed on the couch."

Grace details a number of odd incidents that chime with the experiences of the other women - money and personal items going missing.

By now, Grace was wrung out by the situation and decided to ask for a few day's respite from the relationship.

She said: "I was exhausted from work, and I needed some time to myself. He came straight back with, 'Who are you shagging?'

"I told him there were red flags, he was jealous, I didn't like that he would undermine me when I was talking and tell me not to be stupid.

"That's when it became abusive. I'm in my 40s and we're all strong, independent women. I've never had a man tell me what to do.

"He got really abusive and was saying things like, 'You're nothing but an educated tart'. All these derogatory things."

Grace was then bombarded by text messages and messages on Facebook from numbers and names she didn't know with threatening messages, which went on from the end of the relationship in the October until the December.

Worried for her family, Grace went to the police. She had also looked him up online and found a Facebook support group for people claiming to have been victim to him while he lived in Hong Kong.

In January 2020, police officers contacted Grace to ask her to make a formal statement.

"I thought, 'I can't let this go on because he's going to really hurt people - he's got a habit of this and he just won't stop'."

For Emma, the red flags showed up early also. She met Donnelly on an app in July 2019 and arranged to meet on Fair Monday.

He spun some story about having problems sorting out his finances in Hong Kong and said he had lost his bank card so Emma offered to host him at her home for lunch.

"He started to talk about babies," she said. "He told me he wanted to buy a baby off the internet, which I thought was really weird."

As with Grace, Donnelly overstayed his welcome by refusing to go home and falling asleep on the couch.

On their second date he asked to borrow money, saying he was still struggling to organise his overseas bank accounts, and turned up at her house with a suitcase.

"He said he had a high flying job in Hong Kong," Grace said. "He had Louis Vuitton trainers on. He looked like he had money. There was no reason not to believe him."

Donnelly told her he had a £1 million flat in London and property in Hong Kong.

Grace, in her 40s, was at a low ebb and Donnelly was initially very charming and attentive. "I had just split up from somebody and I was in a dark place. I felt a wee bit worthless," she said.

"If I met him now I don't know if I would have let him into my life the way I did back then."

Very quickly Donnelly became possessive, texting constantly to find out Grace's whereabouts and accusing her of being with other men.

Donnelly, she said, convinced her she was being overly sensitive and Grace went out with him again, this time to a concert at Kelvingrove Bandstand in Glasgow.

Grace describes the night as "a disaster from start to finish".

After the concert they went to the restaurant Stravaigan where the situation took a turn for the worse.

He was being aggressive and loud and behaved inappropriately towards a couple who were drinking at the venue's bar.

Grace said: "The woman said 'You're far too intelligent for him, you're too nice'. Something in me snapped so I decided I wasn't going to leave with him that night, I was going to stay with these people."

She told Donnelly she would not leave with him and things became physical between the group of four as the couple tried to protect Grace from Donnelly.

READ MORE: Bumble con man is sentenced for domestic abuse against four women

Like the other women, after Grace ended things she began receiving sinister messages and phone calls and messages on Facebook at all times of the day and night.

She said: "Until I met the other women I felt so stupid. He seems to pick his victims and I can't believe I was one of them."

Two of the victims shared more intimate details of their relationship with Donnelly, details they said were shared with Police Scotland and which they believed had formed part of the charges against him.

They were dismayed to learn that these allegations had not been taken forward and three of the four women said communication about the case had been poor.

Sandy Brindley, Chief Executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, said this was a common theme in such cases.

Ms Brindley said: "No survivor should be left to find out information about their case from the media.

"We hear far too often that they have been let down by poor communication from the justice system.

"Survivors who tell us that they have had a positive experience of the justice system often say that good communication made a huge difference to them.

"It’s clear that survivors’ experiences of this communication can vary hugely, and this simply isn’t acceptable.

"At the very least, every survivor should be guaranteed a consistent level of communication from all levels of the justice system."

A spokesperson for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said: "Prosecutors are committed to the rigorous pursuit of justice for victims of domestic abuse and ensuring such crimes are prosecuted fairly and effectively.

"Prosecutorial action will be taken if reports submitted to us by the police contain sufficient evidence of a crime and if it is appropriate and in the public interest to do so."

Cathy also met Donnelly online and had very little contact with him when they first met in 2019 before the situation turned nasty. "It's like he has something missing in his brain," she said. "The guy is a total predator. He's just not a nice person. There's just no shame whatsoever. No conscience."

She and Donnelly went on a few dates before she went on a long-planned holiday with a female friend.

While she was overseas, Donnelly started bombarding her with messages asking what she was doing and if she was seeing other men - so she blocked him with the expectation of not hearing from him again.

One night, however, he turned up unexpectedly at her home, pushing past her into the house.

Cathy immediately told him to leave but he said he would be unable to get a train and fell asleep on her sofa.

While he was sleeping, she said, his phone kept beeping with message alerts - so she looked. "And there was just loads of women," she said.

"I read the messages and it was all the same messages he'd sent to myself but sent to all these different women as well, which I just found absolutely vile."

Cathy decided to photograph Donnelly and send the picture in a group message. "To let them know that he was actually in my house and actively lying to every single one of us," she added.

The phone rang and it was a women telling her to get Donnelly out of her house because he was dangerous. She asked for Cathy's email address and sent her information about Donnelly's time in Hong Kong.

At this point he woke up. "And that's when things just got out of hand," she said. Donnelly locked Cathy in her home and stayed overnight.

She describes spending a night terrified of what he might do.

She said: "There was just a darkness in his eyes and I just knew this was not going to end well."

The next morning, she said, he woke up and, whistling, went for a shower before leaving and telling her he would see her soon.

But then the abusive messages started, telling Cathy she had "played a very dangerous game". He would call her home in the early hours and phone her workplace.

The messages were "constant" and contained threats and harassment. She said: "He said I might get acid in my face. He said he was going to come to my work and humiliate me."

Long afterwards she was terrified of bumping into him. One night she went on a night out in Glasgow city centre and was "frozen with fear" at the possibility of seeing him and had to go home.

"It's just been a terrible ordeal and I pity any poor women who comes in contact with this guy because he's got no pure intentions at all.

"I spoke to him for a long time before I met him and then the very first night, the alarm bells were there. I should have known."

Emma was one of the women who received Cathy's message the night Donnelly stayed in her home.

She had only met him two or three times when the picture appeared on her phone. "I feel like I've had a lucky escape," she said.

Even though they had barely met, Emma said Donnelly became aggressive when she said she didn't want to see him again, phoning her up to 20 times in the space of half an hour and calling her in the early hours of the morning.

She would block his number and he would ring or message from another phone.

"We would all seem to get the same calls at the same time and he would say things like 'You've messed with the wrong person. The last person that tried to do something like this to me they've disappeared and it's not a coincidence'.

"I did worry because I did think, I don't know what he's capable of."

Red flags were apparent early on for Emma too. She says for one of their dates they went shopping in Glasgow city centre and Donnelly appeared from the changing rooms on to the shop floor in just his underpants.

"I did find him completely bananas," she said. "That incident in the shop - I was a bit mortified and wondered has he got a screw loose."

Despite the police investigation and court case, and Donnelly is still present on dating apps and his profile appears to be active.

All four of the women urge others to proceed with caution when meeting men they have met online.

Cathy added: "I said I'll never do online dating again.

"I just think it's dangerous and now I would be terrified to meet anybody in those circumstances.

"I'm quite a strong person but this guy totally knocked the stuffing out of me.

"I've never felt vulnerable ever and now I've just got this feeling a vulnerability when it comes to men. Look at Kieran - this has just caused a trail of destruction everywhere."