The Northern Irishman preyed on a total of 3,500 children in 30 countries • Guilty on 185 counts
Alexander McCartney recently pleaded guilty to 185 criminal charges. These include one case of murder, 59 cases of extortion, and around 70 cases of attempts to incite children to sexual activity.
On Friday, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
“I feel no shame or remorse,” said McCartney in connection with the sentence.
Alexander McCartney, who is a native of Northern Ireland, has engaged in so-called catfishing – a form of fraud where the person who commits the crime pretends to be someone else.
The case is one of the most extensive in UK catfishing ever. According to BBC McCartney is said to have taken care of around 3,500 children in over 30 different countries. The children have been between 10 and 16 years old.
12-year-old girl took her own life
The charge of murder concerns a 12-year-old girl from West Virginia in the United States.
In 2018, Alexander McCartney connected with the girl on the social media platform Snapchat. McCartney pretended to be “Sarah”, and allegedly managed to get the girl to send a picture of herself without anything on her upper body.
Afterwards, McCartney revealed her true identity and threatened to send the photo to the girl’s father if she did not send more nude photos.
When the girl wrote that she did not want to send any pictures, McCartney wrote that she would “dry her tears”. He also asked the girl to involve her nine-year-old sister in performing sexual acts in front of a webcam. McCartney is said to have counted down from 20. The girl refused and instead shot herself.
The police: The sentence a warning
The girl’s sister found her on the floor of her parents’ room. She later died in hospital. The girl’s father could not live with the fact that his daughter managed to get hold of his gun. A year and a half after his daughter ended her life, he took his own.
For a few years, the family had difficulty understanding what caused the girl to take her own life. Then they found the chat with McCartney
“We can’t do anything to get her back. But if we can help another family avoid going through what we did, something good can come out of this,” say the girl’s grandparents in a statement.
Police have called McCartney’s sentence a warning to those who think they can hide behind fake accounts online.
– You will be captured, and you will face the full force of the law when that happens, says police chief Eamonn Corrigan.