McCartney admitted 185 charges after targeting children worldwide for years, working across time zones from the bedroom he grew up in. Prosecutors said he “degraded and humiliated” his victims – with footage showing many pleading with him in tears.
An online predator who led an American girl and her father to take their own lives has been jailed for at least 20 years after the UK’s largest “catfishing” case.
Warning: This article contains references to suicide and child sex abuse which readers may find distressing.
Alexander McCartney, 26, previously admitted 185 charges, including the manslaughter of a girl who took her own life.
Police called him a “dangerous, relentless, cruel paedophile” who “may as well have pulled the trigger himself” and said there were about 3,500 victims.
Devices seized from his bedroom contained hundreds of thousands of indecent photographs and videos of underage girls.
Belfast Crown Court heard victims were aged between 10 and 16 and based in the UK, USA, continental Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
McCartney, from south Armagh in Northern Ireland, used Snapchat and other sites to pose as someone else online, known as catfishing.
He pretended to be a young girl to persuade his victims to send images. He then blackmailed them into sending more explicit material.
Cimarron Thomas, 12, from West Virginia, shot herself with her father’s gun instead of complying with his demands after he gave her an online countdown.
But there were more tragic repercussions.
Unable to live with the loss, her father Ben Thomas, a former US Army veteran, died by suicide 18 months later.
Former computer science student McCartney pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter, 59 of blackmail, and 70 of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
