News NI south-east reporter
A 21-year-old County Armagh man has been sentenced to five years and two months for a litany of online sexual offences against teenage girls.
On Friday, Max Hollingsbee, of Orient Circle in Lurgan, was sentenced for his crimes against 14 girls and young women.
His crimes fall into the broader field of online catfishing – where someone uses a false identity to gain the trust of someone before exploiting them, also often referred to as “sextortion”.
Hollingsbee had previously pleaded guilty to 42 charges across two indictments, which prosecutors believe represents an exhaustive all of his offending.
The offences included causing children under 16 to engage in sexual activity, blackmail, possessing indecent photographs, attempted intimidation, unauthorised access to computer material, sexual communications with a child and the distribution of indecent images of a child.
Half of his sentence will be served in prison and half on licence.
‘Sophisticated series of offences’
At Craigavon Crown Court, Judge Donna McColgan said Hollingsbee’s offending had taken place between 2021 and 2023 when he was 17-19.
He used apps including Whizz, Snapchat and Instagram to befriend and exploit victims, blackmailing them into providing him with explicit images.
The court heard that Hollingsbee had an IQ in the top 4% of the population with a particular expertise in technology which he used for nefarious purposes.
He hacked some of the girls’ accounts to obtain further images.
The court heard police had been unable to work out how he had managed to do this in some of the cases.
The court heard Hollingsbee had low self esteem and had been bullied from a young age but had exhibited an addiction to power, control and sexual satisfaction.
The judge said Hollingsbee had left one of his victims petrified, crying in her bed.
Others had declined to speak about what had happened to them.
According to Public Prosecution Service assistant director Catherine Kierans, Hollingsbee was 17 when he began abusing girls online.
“He pretended to be a younger male and on occasions a female to gain the trust of other younger people,” she said.
“He then proceeded to threaten and extort these children to provide him with naked images of themselves.”
Ms Kierans said 14 young women across the UK were now dealing with the fallout of the case which, like others of its kind, began on social media.
“He was using the platforms that are out there where young people gather online,” she said.
“What he also did was try to sell the images and then blackmail the people who were trying to buy the images.
“So it was quite a sophisticated series of offences.”
Hollingsbee’s abuse was brought to a halt after some of his victims came forward.
