Catfishing victim, 12, took own life over abuser's demands
A 12-year-old girl took her own life rather than comply with an online abuser's demands, a court has been told.
Alexander McCartney, 26, of Lissummon Road, Newry, admitted manslaughter earlier this year after the girl killed herself.
He previously admitted 185 charges, including 70 child victims. McCartney is being sentenced for a litany of crimes in what has been described as “the UK's largest catfishing case”.
‘Catfishing’ involves the use of a false identity online to befriend and exploit victims.
McCartney pretended to be a girl found and befriended young girls aged 10 to 16 on social media, mostly Snapchat, who were said to be struggling with sexuality all over the world.
He used flattery to get a compromising photograph and then use it to blackmail and threaten the children into committing appalling acts or he would publish the images online.
One girl was told by McCartney that he would get people to come to her house to rape her if she didn’t comply.
The prosecution said that McCartney first came to the police’s attention in 2016. He was a teenager at the time.
Searches were conducted and devices seized on four occasions over the following three years.
McCartney pled guilty to the 185 charges in four tranches in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
A lawyer for the prosecution said “the harm he has caused is unquantifiable", adding that "he degraded and humiliated [the victims]".
The court heard of the depravity of McCartney’s actions, with children pleading for their torment to stop as he demanded they commit acts of humiliation, abuse and danger.
Prosecutors said he did this for his own sexual gratification.
The family of the 12-year-old girl who took her own life said in a victim impact statement: “Our lives will never be the same again.
"We didn't get to see her graduate, walk down the aisle or have children. We have been robbed and lives have been changed forever.”
The court heard that McCartney had claimed that he had been the victim of catfishing in his teens, but prosecutors said there was no evidence to support that claim.
During the hearing, some of McCartney's messages to the children were read to the court.
Others were provided to the judge in a pack, which he said he read with "great difficulty".
"It’s excruciating really," he said. “We’re into new territory here really.”
In mitigation, the defence lawyer said it was "not hyperbole to describe this case as quite horrific” but he added that McCartney offered genuine remorse.
He said that the fact that McCartney said that he himself had been catfished was not an excuse but that it had "shaped his behaviour”.
The judge, who hopes to pass sentence next week, said some of the offences can carry a life sentence.