A Co. Armagh man today confessed a catalogue of sex offences committed against eight young girls during a so-called catfishing crime spree.
As Max Hollingsbee stood in the dock of Craigavon Crown Court defence KC Eugene Grant asked for 28 of the 32 charges to be put to the defendant again and accordingly, the 20-year-old admitted the raft of offences including blackmail and inciting the victim to send sexually explicit images of themselves.
On an indictment with offending covering an overall time span between June 10, 2021 and April 7, 2023 Hollingsbee, with an address at Orient Circle in Lurgan, entered guilty pleas to 18 charges of having indecent images of children including category A, B and C images of each victim, four charges of inciting or causing children to engage in sexual activity with children aged 13-16, four counts of unauthorised computer access and single offences of blackmail, sexual communication with a child and inciting a child to distribute an indecent image.
Following the pervert’s confessions, prosecuting counsel Joseph Murphy asked for four other charges, including two of inciting child sexual activity, inciting a child to take an indecent image and unauthorised computer access, to be marked as “left on the books”.
None of the facts surrounding the charges were opened today but during an earlier bail application a police officer recounted how Hollingsbee, who was previously a student at Belfast Met, had been coercing children into sending him explicit images and then blackmailing them.
She told the court the PSNI were first contacted about the defendant due to an investigation by Surrey Police on October 13, 2022 when they were investigating a ‘child protection’ complaint regarding a 15-year-old girl.
She told police she had an online conversation with someone called Matt, claiming to be 16 and from Scotland via Whiz, Snapchat and eventually iMessage.
The officer said the defendant created a connection with the girl and asked her to send indecent photos of herself adding that, according to the police case, Hollingsbee had also created fake social media accounts pretending to be both male and female asking children to send them indecent photos of themselves.
The PSNI officer said they were first notified of an investigation by Police Scotland in March last year following similar allegations and there had been a UK wide investigation into at least 30 potential victims with between 100 and 200 photographs being analysed for even more potential victims.
The detective revealed: “The defendant has been operating a sophisticated scheme which is aided by the use of social media. He connects with young female children between the ages of 14-16 years old by Whizz, Snapchat and Instagram and begins the conversation. He uses a number of aliases varying between trying to be a male and a female. Throughout the conversation he flatters and compliments the victims and asks them to send indecent images which the defendant then saves.”
She said that some victims are unaware he had their images but reported unusual activity on their accounts which suggests he hacked into them. Once he has the images he adds those to his collection and these are advertised online via social media accounts the defendant operates pretending to be a young female child.
“Messages linked to these accounts show that the defendant is communicating with other users negotiating payment for content and boasting about the large collection of indecent images and videos he has to offer,” said the officer.
“Once payment is received the defendant provides the user for Dropbox or Megabox. Following this the defendant has then tried to blackmail some of the users. The defendant then informs them they have access to child pornography and threatens if they do not send more money the defendant will report them to police,” said the cop.
In court, Mr Grant asked for sentencing to be adjourned to allow time for the probation board to compile a pre-sentence report while Mr Murphy suggested the victims may also wish to make Victim Impact Statements.
Remanding Hollingsbee back into custody and ordering that he must now sign the police sex offenders register, Judge Donna McColgan KC said she would deal with case on November 21.
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