Jailed.. online predator who drove girl to death aged 12

Vile student may have 'catfished' 3,500 kids round world

- JONATHAN MCCAMBRIDGE

ONE of the world's worst online predators, who drove one of his catfishing victims to suicide, was jailed for life yesterday.

Alexander McCartney, 26, was given a 20-year minimum term after admitting 185 charges involving 70 children.

He had posed as a teenage girl to befriend girls as young as four on Snapchat before blackmailing them.

Cimarron Thomas, 12, from West Virginia in the US, took her own life in May 2018 rather than comply with McCartney's demands for her to involve her younger sister in sex acts.

Eighteen months later, her heartbroken dad Ben also killed himself.

It is believed McCartney could have abused 3,500 children around the world from as far as Australia and New Zealand.

McCartney had admitted manslaughter relating to Cimarron's death.