{"id":89289,"date":"2025-05-10T05:37:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T05:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/89289\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T05:37:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T05:37:13","slug":"hollingsbee-latest-in-northern-irelands-growing-list-of-catfishing-cases-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/89289\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollingsbee latest in Northern Ireland\u2019s growing list of \u2018catfishing\u2019 cases \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sentencing of 21-year-old Max Hollingsbee on Friday<\/a> for online sex offences involving teenage girls has once again shone a light on the north\u2019s growing \u2018catfishing\u2019 problem.<\/p>\n

Hollingsbee\u2019s sentencing for 42 charges of online child sexual abuse crimes and blackmail marks the latest case in a series over the past year.<\/p>\n

The process of \u2018catfishing\u2019, which involves the act of creating a fictitious identity online in order to deceive or trick others into interacting with them, has been a feature of several high-profile cases.<\/p>\n

More: <\/b>Dangerous sexual predator – with IQ in top 4% – jailed for online \u2018catfishing\u2019 sex offences involving teenage victims<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Body<\/a>\"Border<\/a>Alexander McCartney \u2013 26<\/p>\n

McCartney was sentenced to life behind bars after orchestrating one of the world\u2019s largest catfishing operations, described by police as \u201ca paedophile enterprise\u201d, from his bedroom in Newry. <\/p>\n

\"AlexanderAlexander McCartney was jailed for a minimum of 20 years at Belfast Crown Court (PSNI\/PA) <\/p>\n

In October 2024, the 26-year-old from the Lissumon Road was sentenced after admitting to 185 charges involving 70 child victims.<\/p>\n

However, the full extent of his offending is estimated to have involved more than 3,500 victims in at least 30 countries.<\/p>\n

McCartney, whose offending began as a late teen and operated between 2013 and 2019, would groom victims into believing they were talking online with a girl of a similar age. <\/p>\n

He would then encourage them to send indecent images or engage in sexual activity via webcam or a mobile phone, before sharing them with other paedophiles online and using them to threaten the children. <\/p>\n

One of his victims, 12-year-old Cimarron Thomas from West Virginia in the United States, took her own life rather than obeying his threats. <\/p>\n

\"CimarronCimarron Thomas took her own life while being blackmailed by McCartney (PSNI\/PA) <\/p>\n

Police said that on one \u201charrowing occasion\u201d it took McCartney only nine minutes to groom, sexually abuse and blackmail a girl of only 12 years of age.<\/p>\n

David John Andrews \u2013 55 <\/p>\n

Andrews was sentenced to 27 years in prison, with a minimum of 13 and a half years, in December 2024, after pleading guilty to 130 charges of sexual abuse relating to 47 victims \u2013 all of which, excluding one, were children. <\/p>\n

Most of his offences related to catfishing, but some also related to the direct abuse of a vulnerable adult woman. <\/p>\n

The 55-year-old, whose offending occurred mostly between 2019 and 2020, posed on social media as a teenage boy in order to contact young girls.<\/p>\n

His youngest victim was aged just eight. <\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid John Andrews (55) from Belfast was sentenced to 27 years in prison <\/p>\n

The judge told the court at the time that he \u201ccynically and with clear pre-meditation, used threats to inveigle and coerce [children] to share images of themselves with him\u201d.<\/p>\n

Max Hollingsbee \u2013 21<\/p>\n

The latest in the north\u2019s series of prolific catfishing-related offenders, Hollingsbee was sentenced to 31 months in prison and 31 months on licence on May 9. <\/p>\n

With his time already spent on remand, it is believed he will be released in November. <\/p>\n

He previously pleaded guilty to 42 charges which included inciting a child to take part in sexual activity and possessing indecent photographs. <\/p>\n

Hollingsbee\u2019s offending, which took place while aged between 17 and 19, involved targeting at last 14 victims from across the UK.<\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice hand out image of Max Hollingsbee. <\/p>\n

With an IQ in the top 4%, he hacked some girls\u2019 accounts to gather images and police were unable to work out how he had managed to do so in some instances.<\/p>\n

His victims were mostly under 18, however he also targeted one woman above 18 and obtained images of her without her permission. <\/p>\n

Awaiting sentencing<\/p>\n

There is currently one other individual awaiting sentencing after admitting to a \u2018vast\u2019 catfishing enterprise which involved targeting multiple child victims and blackmailing them into sending indecent images. <\/p>\n

Charges against the man, who is aged in his 20s, include 36 counts of possessing indecent child images and two of inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity. <\/p>\n

His victims were all male children, some of whom were blackmailed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sentencing of 21-year-old Max Hollingsbee on Friday for online sex offences involving teenage girls has once again…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[42442,1144,1618,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-89289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-catfish","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-psni","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114481925332696663","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}