Image source, Northern Ireland Police Service
photo caption, Alexander McCartney was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison.Item information
- Author, Fiona Murray y Cormac Campbell
- Author’s title, BBC News
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18 minutes
A 2019 phone call from a 13-year-old girl in Scotland ultimately led to the capture of a social media predator who has been described as one of the most prolific child sexual abusers in the world.
Alexander McCartney, originally from Northern Ireland, posed as a teenager to befriend children around the world and then abuse and blackmail them, often sharing images with other pedophiles.
Some of the children were as young as 4 years old. Some had never told anyone what they had been through until the police came knocking on their door.
McCartney gradually admitted to 185 charges, including manslaughterafter a 12-year-old girl he abused took her own life.
He has been sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison.
What did the police do?
Image source, Dale Thomas
photo caption, Cimarron Thomas was found by her 9-year-old sister after she shot herself while online with McCartney.
In March 2019, following information from Police Scotland, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) launched an urgent investigation.
Detectives identified Alexander McCartney’s home address, arrested him and interviewed him.
In four separate raids, 64 devices were seized from McCartney’s homein the rural area of Lissummon Road, just outside Newry.
These devices contained hundreds of thousands of indecent photos and videos of minors performing sexual acts while being blackmailed.
McCartney created and used many fake accounts on online platforms, primarily Snapchat, to trap and manipulate his victims.
PSNI Detective Superintendent Eamonn Corrigan said McCartney had been “offending on an industrial scale”.
He tricked victims into thinking they were chatting with a girl of a similar age, before encouraging them to send indecent images or engage in sexual activity via webcam or mobile phone.
McCartney used the same pattern each time, the detective said, adding: “He threatened to share these images online for the pleasure of other pedophiles and use them to further abuse and harass already terrorized and exploited children.”
In one incident, it took McCartney just nine minutes to trap, sexually abuse and blackmail a girl as young as 12.
As time went by, it became clear that McCartney’s depravity extended not only to the United Kingdombut all over the world. The abuse included other people, family pets and objects.
The PSNI worked with police from other countries, locating victims in the United States, New Zealand and at least 28 other nations.
Many of these minors were only identified through evidence detectives found on McCartney’s devices.
According to police, McCartney “built a pedophile enterprise” and had “stolen the childhoods” of his victims.
Prosecutors hear about a “catfisher”
Image source, Delivered by family
photo caption, Cimarron Thomas was just 12 years old when he died.
In the spring of 2019, the police called Catherine Kierans, acting head of the serious crime unit of the North Irish Public Prosecutor’s Office.
They said that “something big was happening… it had to do with catfishing“.
He catfishing It occurs when a person creates a false identity to gain people’s trust and exploit them.
Kierans said girls “of an average age of 10 to 12 [estaban] being threatened in the most depraved way.
She said some of the girls who had been exploited had already spoken openly about their abuse, although others had remained silent.
“Some of the girls had raised the alarm, which helped the police identify him in the first place.”
“But some of the girls, until the police came knocking, had never told anyone what they had been through.”
According to Kierans, McCartney committed crimes “twenty-four hours a day.”
Involuntary manslaughter: a precedent
photo caption, In conversations with minors, McCartney posed as a child and then blackmailed them.
As the investigation spread around the world, prosecutors realized that McCartney routinely saved the images.
“I also saved the map on Snapchat of where the minors were in some cases, and that later allowed the police to locate them.”
His appearance in 2021 was delayed when police discovered the suicide of a girl in West Virginia, USA.
“From the beginning, the level of abuse was so horrific that we feared we wouldn’t know if when the girls were identified, they would be okay,” Kierans said.
“Unfortunately, our worst fears came true when we discovered that one of the girls had taken her own life.”
“Working closely with US authorities, we were able to prove that this girl took her own life during the abuse, while she was still in line with McCartney.
“At that point, the girl’s death was so intrinsically linked to the abuse that we felt we had a strong case to say he killed her.”
Who is Alexander McCartney?
Image source, Other
photo caption, An image of Alexander McCartney.
McCartney grew up five miles from Newry, Northern Ireland.
It is a very rural place with farms, a church and some businesses.
When he first appeared at Newry court in July 2019, He was barely 21 years old, with long hair and the astonished look of someone who was surprised to be sitting where he was.
He has spent more than five years in pretrial detention in Maghaberry prison, from which he only leaves to appear in court and to be questioned by the police.
At those hearings, he opened his mouth to do little more than confirm his name and date of birth and, little by little, quietly plead guilty.
McCartney attended Newry High School and liked video games.
A source told BBC News “He was introverted and socially awkward. He didn’t interact much with people outside his friend group.
“Maybe I was on the sidelines of things, but I had friends who obviously didn’t know anything about this.”
He then took a course at Southern Regional College in Newry, where he was described as “quiet” who “didn’t get involved with the rest of the class”.
When he was finally charged in 2019, he was a computer science student at the University of Ulster.
For his neighbors, the case has been heartbreaking.
“Everyone was stunned,” said one resident.
“At first it was whispers, then disbelief. I’m sure people talk about it in their own homes, but it’s not discussed publicly because people don’t know what to say.”
Another said: “He seemed like a nice, affable and intelligent young man.
“There’s nothing extraordinary about it.”
But what is extraordinary is the enormity of his crimes; Many of his victims had asked for the abuse to stop, but prosecutors said he “continued cruelly, sometimes forcing victims to involve younger children, some as young as four years old.”
According to Catherine Kierans, McCartney’s depravity was such that it was “one of the most distressing and prolific cases of child sexual abuse we have seen in the Northern Ireland prosecution service”.
Kierans said some of the victims have not yet been identified despite extensive efforts by police.
“McCartney’s crimes have harmed thousands of children and left them and their families dealing with the traumatic consequences,” he said.
“Her courage is in stark contrast to the cowardice he had in attacking vulnerable young girls.”
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