The harm caused by a Newry man whose online criminality sparked an international “catfishing” investigation involving 70 young victims was “unquantifiable”, a court in Belfast heard on Thursday.
Alexander McCartney (26), who sat in the dock of Belfast Crown Court with his head bowed and his hands covering his ears, pleaded guilty to 185 offences between 2013 and 2019.
These included the manslaughter of a 12-year-old American girl who died by suicide in May 2018. Other charges admitted by McCartney include multiple offences of causing a child to engage in a sex act, causing a child to engage in sexual activity and sexual communication with a child.
He also pleaded guilty to more than 50 charges of blackmail and multiple offences of possessing indecent images of children.
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After listening to submissions from both the Crown and defence, Mr Justice O’Hara said he would pass sentence next week.
Prior to this, Crown barrister David McDowell KC told the senior judge that while there were 70 victims on the court papers, it was likely there were “many many more”.
Saying the victims were “from all around the world”, Mr McDowell revealed that all the offending concerned McCartney’s “online exploitation of young girls aged between 10 and 16 on social media”.
He said McCartney primarily used Snapchat as well as Instagram and TikTok and engaged in “catfishing” – whereby he created fake online profiles pretending to be young teenage girls – to deceive his victims into sending sexual images of themselves.
Once they had sent these images, the prosecutor said McCartney then revealed “his true intent” and threatened his victims that if they didn’t perform depraved sexual acts, he would send the images he obtained of them to their friends and family.
With the threats of exposure, McCartney forced these children to perform sex acts on themselves which he watched. In some cases, he made his victims involve younger siblings and on one occasion he forced one girl to involve a dog in the sexual acts.
He told one victim he knew where she lived and if she didn’t do what he said, he would send people to her house to rape her.
Describing McCartney’s conduct as “utterly remorseless” and motivated by sexual gratification, Mr McDowell said that prior to this case, many of the defendant’s other young victims begged him to stop, with several performing acts of self-harm on camera due to his commands and threats.
Mr McDowell said the victims were from New Zealand, Australia, Europe, United States, the Republic of Ireland and the UK, and described the investigation as “international” and involving multiple law enforcement agencies.
Saying “the harm he had caused is unquantifiable”, Mr McDowell said a vast majority of the victims were identified only after McCartney’s Lissummon Road home in Newry was searched.
During four separate searches, multiple devices including computer towers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones were seized.
Mr McDowell also spoke of the victim impact reports which he said highlighted the flashbacks, depression and stress they had experienced as well as the shame and embarrassment felt.
While some victims talked of their childhoods being stolen by McCartney, others had expressed suicidal thoughts.
The prosecutor added that while McCartney had claimed that he himself was the victim of “catfishing”, there was no evidence to back this up.
Defence barrister Greg Berry KC also addressed Mr Justice O’Hara and acknowledged that McCartney’s offending was “horrific” but had been shaped by his own experience of being a victim of “catfishing”.
Pointing out his client’s offending ended in 2019 when he was 21, Mr Berry said that despite the Crown’s claims, McCartney had expressed remorse.
He added: “What we are dealing with now is someone who is now 26. He has been in custody for over five years and has clearly had a chance to reflect on the complete horror that his actions caused.”
Mr Justice O’Hara said he would sentence McCartney next week and following this, McCartney was remanded back into custody.
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