WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT. Alexander McCartney, 26, pretended to be a teenage girl on Snapchat to befriend more than 70 vulnerable youngsters before persuading them to send him sexual pictures
Dozens of young children around the world harrowingly fell victim to the ‘world’s biggest catfisher’.
Alexander McCartney, 26, has today been jailed for a minimum of 20 years at Belfast Crown Court, for posing as a teenage girl in order to befriend other girls on Snapchat and blackmail them. The online predator, from Northern Ireland, threatened youngsters with rape and demanded for a 12-year-old, Cimarron Thomas, to involve her little sister in sex acts.
Cimarron, from West Virginia in the US, sadly took her own life in May 2018 rather than comply with McCartney’s demands, and 18 months later, her heartbroken father, Ben Thomas, also died by suicide. McCartney pleaded guilty to manslaughter relating to Cimarron’s death and admitted 185 charges involving 70 children, though the exact number is believed to be much higher.
McCartney also admitted 59 counts of blackmail, dozens of charges related to making and distributing indecent photographs and scores of charges of inciting children to engage in sexual activity. His victims have been identified all over the world, including Australia, New Zealand and the US. He acted between a period from 2014 to 2019, despite being on bail.
The computer science student used his technical knowledge to carry out his harrowing crimes, and offended from the four walls of his bedroom in his childhood home. McCartney, originally from Lissummon Road outside Newry, targeted vulnerable girls, aged between 10 and 16, who were gay or exploring their sexuality and preyed on their insecurities.
He would first secure a picture from his victims on Snapchat, Instagram or messenger sites, posing as a “young teenage girl who was struggling with body image and her sexuality”, before “revealing his true intent and threatening them with exposure in order to force them to perform sexual acts on themselves and their very young siblings, or even on occassion a dog”.
He blackmailed one girl and said he would get people to go to her house to rape her if she did not comply with his demands. Prosecuting barrister David McDowell KC told the court McCartney “degraded and humiliated them”. He said the chat conversations recovered from his devices “make for the most disturbing reading”.
“They beg him to stop and plead for assurances their images will not be put on the internet or sent to friends and family members,” he said. “Many are crying and tell him they are shaking. Some of the victims told him they would kill themselves as they pleaded with him to leave them alone. Others, in desperation, threatened to harm themselves, some doing so on camera.”
When asked by Judge Mr Justice O’Hara if 70 was a minimum number, Mr McDowell told the court: “There are many, many more victims, in all likelihood. The sentencing exercise is confined to those victims but the suspected number is much, much higher that that.” He said the harm caused to his victims was “unquantifiable”.
After McCartney blackmailed 12-year-old Cimarron and threatened to send sexual images of her to her father if she didn’t involve her younger sister in sex acts, she pleaded with him to stop, and then took her own life. The barrister said that her father “lost interest in life” and killed himself 18 months later.
He read out part of a victim impact statement which had been provided by Cimarron’s grandparents. It said: “Our lives will never be the same. We didn’t get to see her graduate, walk down the aisle or have children. We have been robbed of those memories. Our lives have changed forever.”
McCartney was arrested several times between 2016 and 2019 but continued to offend despite bail conditions until he was remanded in custody in Maghaberry Prison in 2019. Mr McDowell said: “Indeed, as time went on, there was an escalation in the seriousness of his conduct in the form of the depravity of demands he made of the subject children.”
Mr McDowell said the prosecution did not accept McCartney’s claim that he had started offending after becoming a victim of catfishing himself. Defence barrister Greg Berry KC, who represented McCartney, told the court that his client had pleaded guilty, had shown remorse and had no previous criminal record.
