Ulster University 'catfish' student faces nearly 200 charges including child sex offences

By Paul Higgins

A university student accused of the biggest so-called ‘catfish’ case in the UK will face almost 200 charges, a court heard today.

A prosecuting lawyer told Armagh Magistrates Court, sitting in Lisburn, that “198 charges have been drafted” against 22-year-old Alexander McCartney, adding that the file will be with the PPS “case prep department” by the end of next week.

As it stands at the moment McCartney, a university of Ulster student from the Lissummon Road in Newry, faces a total of 410 charges spread across two indictments, alleged to have been committed on various dates between September 2017 and July 2019. 

They include offences of possessing, making and distributing indecent images of children, sexual communication with children, inciting children to engage in sexual activity, blackmail, intimidation and encouraging a child to have intercourse with an animal.

Previous courts have heard that in addition to offences allegedly committed against more than 60 young girls across the UK and RoI, that number does not “accurately reflect his number of victims - there are hundreds more” from as far afield as the US and New Zealand, with the PSNI having to “cooperate with police forces around the world to make sure they victims are safe and to identify further victims.”

During an unsuccessful bail hearing in April, a prosecuting lawyer outlined how the investigation began in March 2018 when Scottish police alerted the PSNI to a so-called “catfish” incident involving a 12-year-old girl who was befriended on Snapchat.

It is the police case that the school girl sent a naked picture of herself to the defendant who is then alleged to have blackmailed her that “if she didn’t do what was asked her image would be uploaded to the internet.”

Police enquires identified McCartney and when his home was searched, police seized a computer and mobile phone which when examined, officers uncovered thousands of images of young girls in “various states of dress and undress, performing various sexual acts.”

After that initial complainant came forward, over the next number of months three more alleged victims reported that the same thing had happened to them including being told to perform sexual acts on themselves and younger siblings, to take images of their younger siblings and even to have “sexual penetration with animals, namely dogs.”

Arrested and interviewed for those initial allegations, McCartney refused to answer police questions and was originally formally charged last July.

Last December however, a further 386 charges were laid against McCartney and the lawyer told the court it is the “biggest case of its kind” in the UK.

“The actions of the defendant, his routine, is the same,” said the lawyer who continued that he “contacted victims, mostly young girls, pretending to be a girl, to send images to gain trust to get indecent images which are then used to blackmail to send further and more graphic images, all for his own sexual gratification.”

There was also evidence, claimed the lawyer, that McCartney “was planning to sell these for profit” and there was also elements of sadism in that McCartney ordered victims to “urinate on their underwear,” to choke themselves and to commit acts of self harm. 

In court today (wed), the PPS asked for the case to be adjourned to 15 July when they envisage a date for a Preliminary Enquiry will be set for the case to be sent to the Crown Court.

Defence counsel Kevin O’Hare told the court that given the scale of the case, it will “likely require an application to the Legal Services Authority for exceptionality.”

District Judge Amanda Brady adjourned the case to 15 July.