A “relentless and cruel” online predator who blackmailed girls around the world was sentenced to at least 20 years in prison on Friday after being convicted of the manslaughter of a victim who took her own life.

Prosecutors say 26-year-old Alexander McCartney, from Newry in Northern Ireland, pretended to be a teenage girl and carried out catfishing attacks on 3,500 female victims he contacted on platforms including Snapchat.

MASS RAPE TRIAL LAYS BARE FRANCE’S DISTURBING CULTURE OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, CRITICS ALLEGE

Catfishing is using a fake online identity to deceive victims. Authorities said McCartney encouraged his victims to send intimate photos or engage in sex acts, then extorted them by threatening to share the images.

A 12-year-old in West Virginia killed herself in May 2018 during an online chat with McCartney as he demanded sex acts. The victim’s father died by suicide 18 months later.

Prosecutors said they believe this is the first time someone has been convicted of manslaughter in a case where victim and perpetrator never met.

“Working closely with police, the prosecution team was able to establish to the criminal standard that McCartney’s actions had caused the girl’s death, and he had a case to answer for manslaughter,” said Catherine Kieran, acting Head of the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service Serious Crime Unit.

Police have identified victims in 30 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

McCartney, who carried out his crimes from the bedroom of his childhood home, pleaded guilty to 185 charges involving 70 children, including the manslaughter charge. At Belfast Crown Court, judge John O’Hara sentenced him to life with no chance of parole for 20 years.

“To my knowledge there has not been a case such as the present where a defendant has used social media on an industrial scale to inflict such terrible and catastrophic damage,” the judge said.

Detective Chief Superintendent Eamonn Corrigan of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said outside court that McCartney was a “relentless and cruel” pedophile.

“We cannot underestimate the devastation that he has caused and the childhoods he has stolen,” the officer said. “There was nothing that was going to stop him, apart from putting him in jail.”

As the war enters its 976th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Monday, October 28, 2024:

Fighting

• An elderly man from Ukraine’s port city of Kherson was killed after explosives were dropped on him from a drone, and another man was killed by artillery fire, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on the Telegram messaging app.

• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defence units destroyed 21 Ukrainian drones overnight targeting the border Belgorod region as well as Bryansk, Voronezh and Kursk regions.

• A drone attack sparked a fire at an unspecified industrial facility and injured one person, according to Alexander Gusev, governor of the Voronezh region in southern Russia. He said emergency services were dispatched to the fire.

• Two explosions were heard near an ethanol plant in the village of Krasnoye, according to the Baza news Telegram channel close to Russia’s security services.

Politics and diplomacy

• Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Defence Ministry was working on different ways to respond if the United States and its NATO allies help Ukraine to strike deep into his country with long-range Western missiles.
• Putin’s Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said cooperation within the “Ukraine plus Northern Europe” format is gaining speed with more steps that can increase pressure on Russia expected in the coming week. The five Nordic countries – Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland – are now NATO countries and have all been staunch supporters of Ukraine.
• A high-level delegation from South Korea will brief NATO about North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia, the alliance said, after the US expressed grave concern over the possible use of the troops against Ukraine.
• Ukraine said it is investigating reports that Russian soldiers shot at civilians in the embattled front-line town of Selydove. A video posted on Telegram by “Ghost of Khortytsia”, a Ukrainian army unit, purported to show Russian forces opening fire on a civilian vehicle.