Man who blackmailed schoolgirls with fake nude photos jailed

A Glasgow man who blackmailed schoolgirls with fake nude photos with their faces superimposed on them in a bid to get the teenagers to send him pictures has been jailed for three years.

Sean McCuaig

Sean McCuaig, 22, targeted nine girls between 12 and 17-years-old on social media using a string of fake names.

On one occasion he posted the photoshopped picture on a girl’s Facebook for her friends and family to see.

He threatened to harm the families of some of the girls if they did not send him pictures. For others, he threatened to post the pictures on Facebook if they did not agree with his requests.

Police found a document detailing fantasies of abducting, raping and hurting one of the girls.

McCuaig, from Knightswood in Glasgow, pled guilty at the city’s Sheriff Court yesterday to 20 charges spanning from January 2016 to June last year.

The string of charges also includes downloading, distributing and having explicit pornographic images depicting women being raped.

Sheriff Johanna Johnston QC yesterday jailed him for three years with a three year supervision community order when he is released. McCuaig will be on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.

Passing sentence, Sheriff Johnston said: “This case involved you targeting young vulnerable girls on the internet over a lengthy period and persisting in a pattern of criminal behaviour.”

She added: “You menaced and frightened these girls and used their images for your own sexual gratification.”

McCuaig had 2,653 indecent images of children and 65 moving images ranging to the most serious category.

He used pseudonyms and threatened to upload naked images of females with the girls’ heads photoshopped on to them to social media.

The court heard the police investigation started in March last year when one of the victims, a 14-year-old, contacted the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre to report being blackmailed.

McCuaig set up a number of Facebook profiles, including several in the name of Cara Smith, Cara Clark and Cara Rodgers, as well as Toby Greenhill and Philip Greenhill.