Alexander McCartney preyed on young girls online from the age of 16 – The Irish Times

The scale and impact of the heinous crimes committed by a Co Armagh The man at the center of one of the world’s largest catfish investigations may never be known.

Alexander McCartney (26), was sentenced at Belfast Crown Court to life in prison with a minimum of 20 years for 185 crimes related to the online sexual abuse of 70 children living as far away as New Zealand and the United States.

But this is thought to be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of his transgressions; the former Ulster University computer science student is accused of targeting ‘many, many more’ young victims ‘around the world’, a court heard last week.

In a legal first, he will also be imprisoned for the manslaughter of a 12-year-old American girl who took her life after blackmailing her in 2018.

Catfishing uses a false online identity to target other online users, which then leads to sexual abuse, exploitation and blackmail.

McCartney has made several false claims to his victims; he told them that he himself had been a victim of catfishing, that he had been a victim of child abuse and had been placed in foster care – claims were flatly rejected by prosecutors.

He preyed on young girls online from the age of 16.

McCartney operated from the bedroom of his rural family home on the Lissummon Road outside Newry, posing as a teenage girl on the social media platform Snapchat. Instagram and other messaging sites were also used.

Some of the details outlined during a two-hour court hearing last Thursday – when he pleaded guilty to all charges over a six-year period from 2013 – were too graphic and disturbing to be reported by the media.

“We are breaking new ground here,” Judge John O’Hara told the court.

By befriending vulnerable children “who were gay or exploring their sexuality with other girls”, he convinced them to send sexual images, before revealing himself and blackmailing them into sending more explicit material for his own sexual gratification.

His youngest victim was only 10 years old.

Bestiality images – a girl being forced to engage in sexual activity with her dog – and demanding victims’ siblings to perform sex acts were among the images uncovered in the international criminal investigation. McCartney insisted that the siblings should always be ‘younger’.

“It is as horrific a case as I have seen in terms of the depth of depravity of the perpetrators,” said Jim Gamble, former head of the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

“We initially knew there were category A, B and C images; When people hear that, they often don’t understand what it means.

“Category A images are probing sexual activity with a child and include bestiality.

“The bottom line is, when you look at the worst offenses, the scars will not only be physical, but mental as well. For the victims who survive, it will take years to come to terms with the trauma that will follow.”

Journalists were initially prohibited from revealing the identity of the American victim, who died by suicide.

Cimarron Thomas of West Virginia died in May 2018 after begging McCartney not to send sexual photos to her father for four days.

When she refused his demands to involve her sister in a sex act and then threatened to commit suicide, he told her to “dry her eyes” and began counting down from twenty to one until her death.

Her nine-year-old sister discovered her body.

Following the lifting of reporting restrictions, it also emerged that the child’s father, Bill Thomas, a former US Army veteran, died by suicide 18 months later.

During McCartney’s final court appearance, when a defense lawyer outlined harrowing chat conversations recovered from his devices – in which the children were “crying and shaking… begging him to leave them alone” – he sat in the dock with his head bowed and his hands covering his ears.

In one case, he threatened a girl that he would have people come to her house and rape her if she did not comply.

Scottish police began investigating the student in 2018 after receiving a complaint. His computer and mobile phone were confiscated at his home on the country road.

When detectives examined the devices, they found thousands of images of young girls in “various states of dressing and undressing, performing various sexual acts.”

Concerns have been raised about whether McCartney’s victims could have been protected sooner if that had been the case Northern Ireland Police Service (PSNI) has previously identified evidence.

Searches were carried out at his home, with computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones seized four times since he first came to the attention of police as a teenager.

He has repeatedly breached bail conditions and by the time of the last search in 2019, his offending had escalated through the use of a single mobile phone.

The PSNI referred itself to the independent police watchdog, the Police Ombudsman, for investigation in 2021 after “concerns that the forensic examination of McCartney’s computers and electronic devices may have been delayed” in the early stages of its investigation.

The watchdog report is currently being prepared.

For Jim Gamble, the case will have a “ripple effect” because of the scale of the offenses and the “legacy of pain” for so many victims, many of whom have yet to be identified. The former police officer and online security expert warned that people should not be “luded into a false sense of security” into thinking this is an unprecedented case “and it’s all over”.

“There are many, many versions of this thing in the room every day,” he said. “That is why parents and caregivers and young people themselves must be much more vigilant in the digitally engaged world in which they live.”

Conversations parents have with their children “shouldn’t be about the specific hardware or software they’re using,” but about “making sure they can come and talk to you if they ever have concerns,” he said.

“It’s about using a case like this to say, ‘My goodness, did you see that case?’ Follow it up with a conversation by asking about catfishing so that young person can unpack what they know.

Gamble thinks it’s important to reflect on the fact that McCartney was “a child himself” when he “began his journey as a predator.”

“And so the discussion you have with your children is not just about protecting them from others; it’s about making sure that something that starts out as something they think is funny, something that starts out as pretending to be someone else, to tease someone, can grow to the point where one day you’re in trouble can come – and no one wants that.”