A man who repeatedly ‘catfished’ children online has admitted manslaughter after one of his young victims killed herself.
Alexander McCartney, 25, of Newry in Northern Ireland, has pleaded guilty to 185 charges involving more than 60 victims.
He used a fake identity to exploit and blackmail children online, threatening consequences if they did not provide explicit photos.
The 12-year-old girl who killed herself died in 2018. She cannot be named for legal reasons.
Reporting restrictions were lifted today at Belfast Crown Court allowing media to report his guilty pleas which span a period from 2013 to 2019.
Victims included those in the UK as well as the US and New Zealand.
Among the offences were 59 counts of blackmail, as well as counts relating to making and distributing indecent images and inciting children to engage in sexual activity.
McCartney will return to the court to be sentenced in May.
Mr Justice O’Hara said it would be a ‘very complex sentencing exercise’ as he needed a comprehensive list of all the offences which will show the number of girls affected.
Responding after the guilty plea was given, Susie Hargreaves, chief executive of the Internet Watch Foundation which fights child sexual abuse imagery, said: ‘The online coercion and abuse of children costs lives. Children who are blackmailed by these selfish, cowardly abusers are dying, and it is real.
‘At the IWF, we see imagery of children who have been bullied or tricked or terrorised into performing sexually for these predators. These children’s lives are torn apart by the cruelty of abusers who extort them for their own vile purposes. We’ve seen the amount of this kind of imagery explode online in recent years.
‘I want children to know that, whatever the situation, it is never their fault, and they are not alone. Parents and carers will rightly be concerned about this. They can go to talk.iwf.org.uk to find out how to have vital conversations about online child sexual abuse with the children in their lives.’
She said children can report explicit images of themselves which have been shared online or are at risk of being with ChildLine’s Report Remove tool.
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