Northern Irish man jailed for sexual extortion of girls on 'industrial scale'

A Northern Irish man was given a life sentence on Friday for the mass online child sexual abuse and blackmail of young girls around the world, with police saying one incident led to a 12-year-old American girl and her father taking their own lives.

Belfast Crown Court heard that 26-year-old computer science student Alexander McCartney, operating from the bedroom of his family home, groomed victims on messaging sites including Snapchat and Instagram by making them believe they were talking online to a teenage girl of similar age.

He would then encourage them to send indecent images or engage in sexual activity via a webcam or mobile phone, which he would then share online with others and use to threaten the children. He regularly took on the identity of previous girls he had targeted and sometimes forced his victims to involve siblings as young as three in the abuse.

The charges related to 70 victims from countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, Ireland and Australia, but Northern Ireland Police said that was a tiny fraction of around 3,500 victims believed to have been targeted in around 30 countries.

"His offending was on an industrial scale... his depravity knew no bounds," Police Service of Northern Ireland Detective Chief Superintendent Eamonn Corrigan told reporters after the sentencing.

One of his victims, 12-year-old Cimarron Thomas from West Virginia, took her own life in 2018 with her father's gun during online contact with McCartney and was found by her nine-year-old sister, the court heard. Their father took his life in the aftermath of her death, police said.

"We will never forgive and we never forget the horrific things this predator has done," the father of one New Zealand victim of McCartney's was quoted as saying in a police statement.

McCartney, who Justice John O'Hara told the court was guilty of "sadism and depravity", will be eligible for consideration of release in 2039.

McCartney sat with his head down as O'Hara listed his crimes and stood up with his eyes closed when the sentence was announced. He was led away in handcuffs. He had pleaded guilty to all charges.

Police said that during their investigation they seized 64 devices with hundreds of thousands of indecent photos and videos, and the fake digital accounts used by McCartney.