Scots businessman shares relief after “nutcase” who threatened to cut throat of newborn son pleads guilty

A SCOTS businessman has shared his relief after a “nutcase” who threatened to cut his newborn son’s throat has pled guilty to the charges against him.

Craig Campbell was subjected to vile threats and harassment from John McWhinnie over the course of several years, after the latter claimed Campbell was ruining his business by order of “the Russian mafia“.

The 43-year-old initially met McWhinnie, 37, in a one-to-one web design class but their relationship quickly soured after Campbell pulled a harmless prank that McWhinnie took to heart.

Campbell, from Glasgow, was soon pestered with violent emails and messages from McWhinnie, who initially apologised but soon restarted, culminating in his eventual arrest in March this year.

Campbell, who is a search engine optimisation (SEO) specialist, initially held a personal class with McWhinnie, from Port Glasgow, Inverclyde, in July 2018 to advise him on web design and SEO.

Campbell then met McWhinnie again at one of his talks in September 2018, striking up a casual friendship after realising the pair got on very well.

However, after Campbell and a pal decided to prank McWhinnie with a spoof text message from Amazon, the friendship went south, with McWhinnie removing Campbell and others from social media.

It was after this that McWhinnie’s threats began, when in March 2019 he emailed the SEO businessman with a threat that his “throat was getting cut as well as the throat of [his] newborn son“.

Shaken, Campbell immediately reported the message to the police and distanced himself from McWhinnie for months until, in November 2021, McWhinnie asked for a call to “clear the air”.

The two men spoke over a Zoom call, in which McWhinnie explained that he has psychosis, before apologising to Campbell for telling people that he was a “Russian mafia leader”.

However, it was then in January 2023 that Campbell received a 17-minute phone call from McWhinnie, who reiterated that he would cut his throat for “harassing his business for four years”.

McWhinnie then went on to allege that Campbell was “high up in the Russian mafia food chain”, before claiming that he was “in a life-or-death situation” and intended to kill Campbell before killing himself.

McWhinnie then followed up these horrific threats with a further bizarre message the next month.

Campbell claims the rambling message read: “You better send a hitman instead of wee cryptic messages ya [sic] f***ing animal.

“Try and manipulate Peter all you want, that will be part of the chapter.

“If I don’t cut your throat literally (based on you driving me to suicide and me doing you first). I’ll make sure you bleed like a hog in front of that audience that you adore so much.

“You started this, you also kept it going, well wee s****y Johnny is gonna [sic] finish it.

“Off to bed before you dismissed me as a drunk, had a few cans but free for a chat all day tomorrow.

“You think the mentality I’ve built gets rocked that much [by] hangovers, the harassment I have endured has created a convict type.”

Following these messages, McWhinnie was then arrested by police in March this year, after they tracked him down in Edinburgh.

He was subsequently charged and let out on bail under the conditions that he must not approach or contact Campbell.

However, Campbell claims that as a result of this condition, McWhinnie was given both his office and home addresses so that he would know where he’s not allowed to go whilst on bail.

It was then on 27 June that McWhinnie allegedly repeatedly tried to call Campbell’s office, eventually getting through to his wife and asking: “Where’s Craig?”

After being told that Campbell wasn’t there, McWhinnie allegedly then told Campbell’s wife that he was going to come and find him and her, and asked if there were “any last messages” she would want to say to her husband.

Campbell then reported this to the police, who added the incident to his report which was then presented to the procurator fiscal.

McWhinnie appeared in court on 6 July where he pleaded guilty to two charges of sending – by means of a public electronic communications network – a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.

Prior to the court appearance, McWhinnie had wrote in a post to social media: “Craig Campbell has helped me ruin my life.

“He hacked my phone and is taking me to court in July! Weaponising the justice system, all part of his sick game.

“Go to therapy Craig, honestly, I’ve got to show up in court as the accused vs this weak, loudmouth bully who ‘wants the best for Glasgow SEO’.

“Ever since I arrived, he mocked me and used his power to make sure his status would not be challenged.

“The slightest threat sent to his fragile ego (and that’s coming from me!), his spider senses were tingling.”

Speaking today Craig Campbell said: “It all started in July 2018, the guy came to me for a one-day, one-to-one training session for digital marketing as he wanted to start his own business building and selling websites to companies.

“He enjoyed it and got quite a lot from it and we actually got on really well. He had just left his job at the Yellow Pages where he sold websites to clients.

“A few months later, I did a talk in Glasgow about SEO.

“As a joke me and a friend send him a text message through something called a text message spoof software (SMS Spoof) – this is now illegal but wasn’t at the time.

“All you need is the person’s mobile number and you can pretend to text them posing as any person or company in the world.

“We text him a message pretending to be from Amazon that said something like: ‘We’ve delivered your dildo to your back door but the box has got wet so the product is waiting for you with just the packaging.’

“This really freaked him out and we apologised for this and he removed me and several friends from his Facebook.

“After he appeared at several talks that I was giving I hadn’t heard from him since.

“Then in November 2021 he text me saying that he wanted to clear the air and said that he wanted to give me a quick call.

“In that call he told me that he had felt really guilty and that he needed to apologise to me as he had been telling people that I was a psychopath and a narcissist.

“He said: ‘I suffer from psychosis and I hadn’t been taking my tablets, I thought you were part of the Russian mafia’.

“The guy had been targeted by someone as his website had been hacked as well as some of his details, I think the incident with the text joke made him think that I was behind it.

“He’s been terrorised for four years and he thought I was behind it.

“I didn’t really think anything of it, I just thought that guy was a f***ing nutcase if I’m honest.”

Campbell then revealed that he was told McWhinnie moved to Tenerife with a woman he met online, who he then allegedly believed was a “Russian spy” sent by Campbell.

He said: “A mutual friend told me that he moved to Tenerife and hooked up with a girl on Tinder, and after a couple of months moved in with her.

“Apparently he locked her out of the house one night because he thought she was a Russian spy sent by me.

“However, I then get another call from him in January.

“He calmly said: ‘Hi Craig how are you doing? I don’t want to escalate things further but I’m going to cut your throat, this is life or death for me, you know what you’ve done.'”

Campbell also claims that McWhinnie even said he would commit suicide.

McWhinnie allegedly added: “Craig I don’t know if you’re part of this network but I know you’re high up the food chain and you’ve sent people to my house to kick [my] head in.”

Campbell explained: “He threatened to cut my sons’ throat when he was born, he also sent a message saying ‘If you come to Glasgow (Greenock) I’ll cut you and your son’s throats’.

“At the time my son was about 6-8 weeks old.

“I rang the police and they took a statement, after that he was arrested and was let out on bail under the conditions that he had nothing to do with me.

“The police then handed him two addresses, one was my office address which he already knew, but the other was my home address which he didn’t know about and was told to stay away from those two places.

“Police Scotland handed someone threatening me, my home address which he never, ever had which was really bizarre.”

Campbell continued: “After the initial threats were made in January 2023, the police passed this around and literally nothing for the first four weeks, until his second threat came via text.

“Their response to me was ‘until actually does something we can’t do anything’.

“I had to go via a local councillor to get the police to take this seriously, which is when the case was taken over by an officer in Helen Street, Glasgow who has been super ever since.

“But the system was very slow to respond, and also the handing out of my home address to some stalker/psycho is a problem.

“I also did raise this with my local councillor who said this was standard practise and he had the local police chief call me to explain how that works.

“He somehow got hold of my home phone number and talked to my wife where he threatened me via her which breached his bail conditions – my family are scared; I was abroad in Spain at the time giving a talk.

“I’m always looking over my shoulder, the office is always shut, I even told staff not to come in for two weeks in case he shows up.

“Even coming into my house you’re on edge that he’ll jump out at you, he’s more than capable, it’s in his locker to do something.

“The police have urgent response markers on my office and house, it’s horrible and a terrifying experience.

“The crazy thing is, I used to give this guy customers, I’ve even been told by mutual clients that he said that I was a great guy, yet five minutes later I get a text from him saying that he’s going to cut my throat.

“I believe he’s claiming all this because he’s off the medication, I know he moved from Greenock to Edinburgh and none of his family have anything to do with him.

“He pleaded guilty last month – I hope the guy gets the help he needs, but also get put behind bars because its not acceptable to threaten someone’s family.”

Campbell concluded: “The guys an oddball, he’s clearly off his f***ing rocker, he claimed that I had weaponised the justice system as I’m a hacker in the Russian mafia.

“I’d be relieved but I have the fear that he will just get community service and a fine and that my family will all suffer from this all over again.

“I have only ever met this guy on a handful of times, I have only ever given him the best advice to my knowledge.

“So why he would think that I was out to get him I will never understand, the only thing I can think it can be is jealousy.”