Alexander McCartney was handed down a life sentence with a minimum term of 20 years in jail at Belfast Crown Court Court today for manslaughter of a 12-year-old girl and more than 185 other charges relating to extreme online child sex abuse.
Pretending to be a teenage girl, McCartney from the Lissummon Rd outside Newry, targeted around 3,500 children around the globe in a catfish blackmail abuse operation.
Mr Justice O’Hara says victims often cried and told McCartney they were terrified.
Some told him they would kill themselves or showed him images of self harm.
McCartney’s responses, the judge says, were “devoid of normal human empathy.”
The Judge cites a case where a victim sent him a message saying she thought she was going to die.
McCartney replied: “I don’t care.”
McCartney targeted young girls aged between 10 and 16 on social media platforms and pleaded guilty to a total of 185 offences including the manslaughter of Cimarron Thomas, a child from West Virginia in the US, who took her own life because she was blackmailed by him.
McCartney a former computer science student at Ulster University tricked Cimarron into sharing intimate images and then threatened to share them with her friends and family members unless she sent more images.
After being abused by McCartney she told him she was going to kill herself, to which he replied “good luck and goodbye”.
The PSNI identified and contacted victims in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Britain, Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealand.
Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service has described it as the largest and most complex sexual offences case it has handled.
By Sean Donegan
