WEB PERVERT BLACKMAILED 16-YEAR-OLD GIRL
A-16-YEAR-OLD girl in Glasgow was one of the victims of a man who blackmailed girls into performing sex acts online.
Joshua Probert befriended the girls online and made them send intimate photographs, which he then threatened to reveal.
AN under-graduate blackmailed more than two dozen young girls and women i nto performing degrading sex acts via the internet.
Joshua Probert got his victims to send him intimate photographs of themselves he then resorted to “sextortion”.
One of his 26 horrified and embarrassed victims – who come from the UK, the USA, France, Belgium and the Netherlands – described it as “cyber rape” and when eventually interviewed by police he admitted, “I know, it’s terrible.”
A court heard that two of the victims live in Scotland, one a 16-year-old girl from Glasgow.
He ignored desperate pleas from his distressed victims – 11 of them children – to delete images and videos in which he had ordered them to perform depraved sex acts.
Some were made to call him ‘ master’ and describe themselves as his ‘ slave’ and hold up signs saying their body was his.
Such was the fear and trauma he caused by threatening to share the footage some of the victims contemplated killing themselves.
One 14-year-old girl from Weymouth described herself to him as “the most broken teenager right now”.
Jailing Probert for 12 years with four years extended licence Judge Gary Woodhall said: “You embarked on a course of conduct which involved using the i nternet to identify young females who could be persuaded to exchange nude or sexualised images with you.
“You approached those females using false names and identities and pseudonyms no doubt to cover your tracks.”
Having got them to send them revealing images Probert, who had sometimes initially pretended to be a female, then saved them and used them together with personal information he had obtained from social media and other sources about the victims to blackmail them.
Probert, now 22, hreatened to distribute the images directly to family and friends or distribute them on social media.
Some victims described his behaviour as “aggressive” and “horrible”.
The judge ruled that he poses a significant risk to serious harm particularly to young females which means that Probert will have to serve two thirds of the sentence before he can apply for parole.
Probert, of Portland Avenue, Grimsby, had pleaded guilty to 66 offences involving blackmail, making indecent images and causing victims to engage in sexual activity between January 2014 and November last year.
Three other similar offences were left to lie on the file.