'Catfish' predator who drove US girl to suicide jailed for life in Northern Ireland

BELFAST: A prolific "catfish" offender who pushed one of his victims, a 12-year-old US girl, to commit suicide was on Friday jailed for life at a court in Northern Ireland.

Alexander McCartney, 26, who admitted 185 charges involving 70 children, posed as a teenage girl to befriend young females across the world on Snapchat before blackmailing them.

He was told he would spend at least 20 years behind bars.

Detective Chief Superintendent Eamonn Corrigan, of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said McCartney was a "disgusting child predator" whose offending had been on an "industrial scale".

"Sitting in his childhood bedroom in Newry (in Northern Ireland), he began his offending as a late teenager and built what can only be described as a paedophile enterprise," he told reporters outside court.

"McCartney is a dangerous, relentless, cruel paedophile," he added.

Cimarron Thomas from West Virginia in the United States took her own life in May 2018 after McCartney demanded that she involve her younger sister in sex acts he had coerced her into.

Eighteen months later, her distraught father Ben Thomas also died by suicide.

Belfast Crown Court heard earlier other victims had been in the US as well as in Australia and New Zealand.

McCartney previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter relating to Cimarron's death.

He also admitted 59 counts of blackmail, dozens of charges related to making and distributing indecent photographs and scores of charges of inciting children to engage in sexual activity.