Man admits posing as TV celebs to film girls naked online

A MAN who assumed the identities of two TV personalities to persuade young girls to strip naked during live webcam sessions will be sentenced next week.

Austin Quigg coerced one of the girls to perform a sex act during one of the exchanges, Londonderry Crown Court heard.

A barrister for the Public Prosecution Service said “girls as young as six were involved, ranging up to young girls in their early and mid-teens”.

Quigg (28), from Curragh Road in Dungiven, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to 14 charges of making indecent images of female children, guilty to three charges of inciting female children to engage in sexual activity and guilty to three charges of attempting to incite female children to engage in sexual activity. He committed the 20 offences between October 2009 and March 2012.

The barrister said the offences were detected after one of the girls contacted police in England in November 2011.

In March 2012 Quigg’s home was searched by the police. The officers seized his computer and his mother gave police another computer her son had access to.

The computers contained 90 indecent videos of children and 609 indecent photographs of children. Almost all of the videos and photographs were categorised as being at the lower level in terms of seriousness.

The prosecutor said: “He chatted online to a number of young girls while assuming the identities of two well known television personalities. He said he did this to appeal to the young girls.”

He added: “He then encouraged the girls to expose themselves and coerced them into sexualised behaviour and he recorded the incidents”, the prosecutor added.

Defence barrister Eoghan Devlin said the offending was reprehensible, inexcusable and appalling and he said Quigg would rightly suffer a degree of odium which society and the courts attached to such offending.

Mr Devlin said Quigg had not reoffended since his crimes were uncovered and an experienced probation officer said that Quigg’s regret and remorse were both genuine and sincere.

Quigg has been assessed as presenting a low risk of reoffending, the court heard.

Judge Philip Babington said he would sentence Quigg next Friday and released him on continuing bail until then.