A “callous paedophile” has been given sentences totalling 23 years for subjecting three young boys to rape, sexual abuse and degradation.
Jailing Stephen-Lee McIlvenny at Craigavon Crown Court on Friday, Judge Donna McColgan said the 21-year-old had enticed his victims into his “lair of deprivation” using a combination of “lies, intimidation, bribery, coercion, and exploitation”.
“In respect of all three victims, there were threats to post the images online and some of the images were posted online,” the judge said.
“In essence, the defendant took full advantage of the youth and vulnerabilities of each of these three boys to achieve his own perverse goals.”
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McIlvenny, originally from west Belfast, entered guilty pleas in November to all of the 77 charges against him.
He was accused of 33 counts of inciting, causing or engaging in child sexual activity; nine counts of rape; one of attempted rape; three of sexual assault; two of paying children for sexual services; and five of distributing indecent images of children.
McIlvenny carried out his offending while aged between 16 and 19, abusing three boys younger than him.
He also pleaded guilty to charges of intimidation, blackmail, possessing or making indecent images, causing grievous bodily harm, common assault, causing a victim to fear violence, voyeurism and having extreme pornography.
The offences came to light in November 2022 after McIlvenny assaulted one of his victims, leaving him unconscious and with a bleed on the brain.
While the teenager was in hospital, his sister looked through an iPad and uncovered messages where McIlvenny was blackmailing the boy. The boy refused to discuss it but wrote a letter to his sister describing the abuse.
“He disclosed that since March of 2022, the defendant had been blackmailing him into having sex with him, forcing him to have sex with another victim and recording it,” the judge said.
The letter was reported to police and detectives spoke to the second victim, who also disclosed that McIlvenny had been blackmailing him into sexual activity by threatening to release a covert recording of him.
There was also evidence, the court heard, of McIlvenny being paid by unknown third parties for live streaming the abuse. Judge McColgan said McIlvenny also uploaded some of the videos to a pornography website and was paid $19 after they were viewed just over 30,000 times.
The third victim, who was actually the first boy McIlvenny abused, was identified through images and videos uncovered on the defendant’s devices.
Judge MColgan imposed sentences totalling 23 years with a licence extension period of five years. He was also placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life and will be subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention Order for 10 years upon release.
Speaking after McIlvenny was sentenced, Catherine Kierans, of the Public Prosecution Service’s Serious Crime Unit, said the defendant was “a callous paedophile who manipulated boys several years younger than him to inflict horrific sexual abuse” on them.
She commended the three victims for “their immense courage in speaking out about the cruel and depraved abuse they suffered” and going through the criminal justice process.
Ms Kierans said McIlvenny initially “befriended his victims and then manipulated and coerced them into a litany of sexual abuse”.
She noted that McIlvenny is a young man and “may not fit the general perception” of what a paedophile is. “But there is no typical abuser, and anyone of any gender can be a victim or perpetrator of sexual abuse.”
