The UK’s most prolific catfish ran a “paedophile enterprise” targeting 3,500 children in 30 countries, a court has heard.
Alexander McCartney was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 20 years after posing as a teenage girl to befriend young girls on Snapchat before blackmailing them.
Police said the 26-year-old “stole childhoods” and “shocked communities around the world” with his depravity.
He carried out the abuse on social media on an “industrial scale” and traumatised one girl so much that she took her own life.
Cimarron Thomas, 12, from West Virginia in the US, took her life in May 2018 after McCartney demanded that she involve her younger sister in sex acts and send him pictures.
Her father, Ben, killed himself 18 months later. He died never knowing what had caused his daughter to end her life.
In total, McCartney admitted 185 charges against at least 70 children. He also pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Cimarron.
Prosecutors said they believed it was the first time any abuser in the world had been held accountable for manslaughter despite never meeting their victim in person.
Sentencing McCartney at Belfast crown court on Friday, Mr Justice O’Hara said he had used “social media on an industrial scale to inflict terrible and catastrophic damage on young girls, up to and including the death of a 12-year-old”.
He added: “The defendant was remorseless. He ignored multiple opportunities to stop. He ignored multiple pleas for mercy. He lied and lied and then lied again. It is truly difficult to think of a sexual deviant who poses a greater risk than this defendant.”
Catherine Kierans, the acting head of the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service’s Serious Crime Unit, said it was one of the “most distressing and prolific cases of child sexual abuse”.
Victims were identified all over the world, including in Australia, New Zealand and the US.
McCartney, a former computer science student from Newry, Northern Ireland, carried out his offences from the bedroom of his childhood home.
One senior investigator described McCartney’s offending as a “paedophile enterprise” and said he may have targeted 3,500 children from around the world.
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.
The court heard that McCartney first contacted Cimarron four days before her death and blackmailed her into sending images. After that first night she believed the ordeal was over, but he contacted her again on May 10.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) recovered the distressing online conversation between the two.
In it, Cimarron repeatedly asked McCartney to leave her alone while he coerced her into sending further pictures. At one point, she told him: “I don’t like this.” When she said she would call the police, he responded “IDC”, meaning I don’t care.
The court heard that a PSNI officer who reviewed the material said Cimarron was “utterly distraught and sobbing at the time”.
McCartney then demanded she send pictures of her nine-year-old sister. She replied: “Please, not her.” When Cimarron continued to refuse McCartney’s demands, he began a countdown of 30 seconds before he threatened to post pictures of her online.
He told her: “I am posting, bye. Ben Thomas first [Cimarron’s father]. He should see the pix first.”
Cimarron responded: “No, I will obey.” The conversation then stopped. Three minutes later, Cimarron’s younger sister found her body on the floor of her parents’ bedroom.
McCartney first became known to police in Northern Ireland in 2016, when he was arrested in relation to indecent images of children found on his electronic devices. At this stage, no victims had been identified and he was bailed. He was arrested again on similar offences in 2018.
Despite the attention of police, and bail conditions, McCartney continued to offend. He even replaced phones and laptops which had been seized.
In March 2019, Police Scotland contacted PSNI in relation to a report of a 13-year-old girl who was being groomed by an adult suspect believed to be residing in Northern Ireland.
When police raided his home, he was in the middle of offending and Snapchat was open on one of his phones. Devices seized from his bedroom were found to contain hundreds of thousands of indecent photographs and videos of underage girls.
He targeted young girls who were vulnerable or professing doubts about their sexual identity and body image. He would use this vulnerability to persuade them to send a photo.
Once he had the image, McCartney would go to the notes section of his phone where he had a pre-prepared statement, which he would cut and paste into the conversation.
The message would say: “Alright, I used a fake camera snap app. I have your face pic and nudes. You are gonna do as I say for tonight and then I’ll leave after. But if you don’t then I’m uploading everything online for everyone to see. Understand?”
Although McCartney promised to leave the victims alone after one night, he often returned later to continue the abuse. He would blackmail them into sending more images or engaging in sexual activity online, threatening to share the images with other paedophiles.
He forced some children into abusing younger siblings or forced them to involve family pets and objects.
Detective Chief Superintendent Eamonn Corrigan, of PSNI, said McCartney began “offending as a late teenager” from his childhood bedroom. He had a number of devices and was operating across different time zones.
“McCartney is nothing but a disgusting child predator who was posing as young girls online to groom, manipulate and sexually abuse his victims, as young as four, to satisfy his own sexual perversions and that of other online child sexual offenders,” he said.
Derek Gordon, the special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) based in Washington DC, said: “McCartney committed some horrific and disturbing crimes, and deserves every minute he serves in prison. His wretched conduct tragically led to a child in West Virginia taking her own life.
“We are thankful that our law enforcement partners in Northern Ireland saw fit to apprehend and charge McCartney for his role in the girl’s death. Their investigation and prosecution of this case were nothing short of brilliant.”
In a statement after McCartney was sentenced, Cimarron’s grandparents said: “We all have been devastated by our granddaughter’s passing.
“We know that nothing that we do or say will bring her back. But if we can help another family to not have to go through what we did, something good could come out of her death. Parents, please keep the doors of communication open concerning the evil of some people online.”
Child abuse charities said the case showed that social media was “an open door to our children’s bedrooms, through which criminals like McCartney can gain access”.
Derek Ray-Hill, the interim CEO of the Internet Watch Foundation, said the paedophile had “snatched away childhoods, ruined young lives, and terrorised children the world over”.
“Over the last decade, the IWF has seen offences like this skyrocket. Offenders like McCartney can now contact children and force them into the most appalling sexual abuse – all without needing to ever be in the same room.
“The internet is an open door to our children’s bedrooms through which criminals like McCartney can gain access.”
The case has fuelled calls for the Online Safety Act, which was passed last year and holds tech giants legally responsible for protecting children on the internet, to be tightened to guard against adults “masquerading” as children.
A former minister said the reforms would be complex, with inevitable knock-on effects, but “that shouldn’t stop us doing some of them, because the balance of what we’re trying to defend against is huge”.
A spokesman for Snapchat said that the “sexual exploitation of any person is horrific and illegal”.
They added: “If we discover this activity or it is reported to us, we remove it, lock the violating account and report it to the authorities. We have extra protection for teens to make it difficult for them to be contacted by strangers.”
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