The extent and impact of horrific crimes committed by an individual Co Armagh The man at the center of one of the world’s largest catfishing investigations may never be known.

Alexander McCartney (26), Sentenced to life imprisonment with minimum term of 20 years at Belfast Crown Court For 185 offenses linked to the online sexual exploitation of 70 children living as far away as New Zealand and the United States.

However, this is thought to be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of his crimes; A former Ulster University computer science student is suspected of targeting many, many more young victims “all over the world”, a court heard last week.

In a legal first, he will also be jailed for the manslaughter of a 12-year-old American girl who took her life after blackmailing him in 2018.

Catfishing involves using a fake online identity to target other online users, which then leads to sexual abuse, exploitation, and blackmail.

McCartney made numerous false allegations against his victims; He said he himself was a victim of catfishing, was abused as a child and was placed in foster care; The allegations were flatly denied by prosecution lawyers.

He started preying on young girls on the internet since he was 16 years old.

Operating from the bedroom of the rural family home on Lissummon Road outside Newry, McCartney posed as a teenage girl on social media platform Snapchat. Instagram and other messaging sites were also used.

Some of the details outlined during a two-hour hearing last Thursday, during which he pleaded guilty to all charges dating back to a six-year period from 2013, were too graphic and disturbing to be reported by the media.

“We are entering new territory here,” Mr Justice John O’Hara told the court.

Befriending vulnerable children who were “gay or exploring their sexuality with other girls”, he persuaded them to send sexual images, then exposed himself and blackmailed them into sending more explicit material for his own sexual gratification.

His youngest victim was only 10 years old.

The images revealed by the international criminal investigation included images of bestiality (a girl being forced to have sexual intercourse with her pet dog) and the victims’ siblings being requested to perform sexual acts. McCartney insisted that the brothers were always meant to be “younger”.

“It’s as egregious a situation as I’ve ever seen in terms of the depth of the depravity of the crime,” says Jim Gamble, former head of the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

“Initially we knew there were Category A, B and C images; When people hear this, they often don’t understand what it means.

“Category A depiction is penetrative sexual activity with a child and includes bestiality.

“The bottom line is this: you look at the worst types of crimes and the scars will not only be physical, they will be mental as well. “It will take years for victims who survive this to even be able to cope with the trauma that follows.”

Journalists were initially prohibited from reporting the identity of the US victim who died by suicide.

Cimarron Thomas, of West Virginia, died in May 2018 after begging McCartney not to send sexually explicit photos to her father over a four-day period.

When she refused demands to involve her sister in a sex act and then threatened to kill herself, the man told her to “dry her eyes” and began counting down from 20 to one until her death.

His nine-year-old sister found his body.

After reporting restrictions were lifted, it was revealed that the child’s father, Bill Thomas, a US army veteran, also died by suicide 18 months later.

During McCartney’s final trial, he was sitting in the defendant’s chair with his head bowed and his hands tied when a defense attorney outlined disturbing chat conversations recovered on his devices – in which children were “crying and shaking…begging him to leave them alone” . his hands are covering his ears.

In one case, he threatened a girl that if she did not comply, he would have people come to her house and rape her.

Scottish police began investigating the student in 2018 upon a complaint. His computer and mobile phone were seized from his house on the village road.

When detectives examined the devices, they found thousands of photographs of young girls “dressing and undressing in various ways and performing various sexual acts.”

Concerns have been raised about whether McCartney’s victims could have been protected sooner. Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) detected the evidence earlier.

During searches at his home, computers, laptops, tablets and a mobile phone were seized four times since he first came to the police’s attention in his youth.

He repeatedly breached his bail conditions and when last searched in 2019 his crimes had been compounded by the use of a single mobile phone.

The PSNI referred themselves to the independent policing watchdog, the Police Ombudsman, for investigation in 2021, following “concerns that forensic examination of McCartney’s computers and electronic devices may have been delayed” in the early stages of the investigation.

The draft of the observer report is currently being prepared.

According to Jim Gamble, the case will have a “ripple effect” due to the scale of the crime and the “legacy of pain” for the many victims, many of whom have yet to be identified. The former police officer and online security expert warned that this was an unprecedented situation and people should not be “lulled into a false sense of security” by thinking it’s all over.

“There are multiple versions of this case happening in space every day,” he said. “Therefore, parents, caregivers and young people need to be much more careful in the digital world they live in.”

He said the conversations parents have with their children “shouldn’t be about the specific hardware or software they’re using” but about “making sure they can come and talk to you if they’re worried.”

“It’s about using a case like this to say: ‘Oh my God, have you seen that bag?’ Follow this up with a conversation, asking questions about catfishing to allow the young person to reveal what they know.

Gamble believes it’s important to consider the fact that McCartney was “a child himself” when he “began his journey as a predator.”

“And so the discussion you have with your children is not just about protecting them from others; It’s about making sure that something that might start as something they think is funny, something that might start at the low point of pretending to be someone else, making someone angry, can grow to the point where one day it could get you in trouble. – and no one wants that.”