Sex attacker Cronin freed from prison

SERIAL sex offender John Cronin has been released from his latest prison sentence in Birmingham.

The 39-year-old from Tranent, East Lothian, was jailed for life in 1992 for attacking a Tory activist, Judy X, in her Edinburgh home.

But following his early release in 1996, he was put back behind bars several times for carrying out crimes, including fraud and armed robbery, across Britain, Ireland and in Sweden.

He was jailed for two-and-a-half years in 2008 for a 9,000 fraud spree carried out in Newcastle and the West Midlands.

He opened business accounts and then used the chequebook to pay for expensive items such as hotel rooms, diamond rings and designer clothes.

Once he even pretended to be the ex-mayor of Edinburgh.