Jessica LanePreston and
Jonny HumphriesNorth West
A child rapist has been jailed, following a campaign of online grooming and blackmail which experienced detectives described as “one of the most horrific cases” they had ever dealt with.
Stuart Latham, from Greater Manchester, also raped one 12-year-old girl and sexually abused her friend after convincing them to meet him in person.
Police said blackmailing children into sending increasingly depraved pictures of themselves became the unemployed 22-year-old’s “full-time job” from his bedroom at his parent’s house in Wigan.
Jailing Latham for 14 years at Preston Crown Court earlier, Judge Philip Parry called him “highly dangerous” and said: “You have left emotional wreckage in your wake.”
Latham had pleaded guilty to 49 charges including rape, blackmail and multiple counts of engaging in sexual communications, causing or engaging in sexual activity with a child, making and distributing indecent photographs and possessing extreme pornography.
Detectives found more than 4,000 indecent images of children on his phone – most of which he had manipulated the young girls into sending.
The court heard he had posed online as a 14-year-old boy called Josh, using a fake ID, and manipulated girls aged between 11 and 14 into sending him intimate images, sometimes after offering £200 or gift cards.
If they agreed, Latham would then threaten to reveal the images to his victims’ family members if they did not do what he wanted.
While there was evidence he had targeted hundreds of girls, charges were brought in connection with 41 victims in the UK and America – eight of whom remain unidentified – between 2023 and 2024.
Judge Parry told him: “You are a highly dangerous individual; you are a predatory sexual offender with little to no empathy or remorse.”
The court heard how Latham was first arrested in 2023 when the 12-year-old girl contacted Lancashire Police to report being raped by Latham, then 19, after he convinced her to meet him by pretending to be a 15-year-old boy.
Meanwhile, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) had been following up intelligence about a Snapchat account preying on young girls – and had discovered it was connected to a phone number linked to Latham.
Det Sgt Simon France, who led the GMP side of the investigation, said: “He basically operated on his mobile phone. He lived at home with his parents [and] would very rarely leave the address.
“We described it as being his full-time job.”
Det Sgt France said Latham would “use his power” – as he saw it – to blackmail the girls into sending “some of the most horrific images you could imagine”.
“It’s about nothing else – the power that makes these children do these unspeakable things. There’s no other way to describe it. He got his sexual gratification from both the power that he had, and from what these children were sending him.”
Det Sgt France said Latham preyed on the “sheer fear” of his victims, calling him “one of the most dangerous offenders I have dealt with”.
‘Most horrific case’
In court, the two girls Latham had sexually abused in person watched the sentencing hearing from the public gallery, at times holding each other’s hand.
Latham sat in court wearing a blue tracksuit, looking down for large parts of the session, as victim impact statements repeatedly described him as “disgusting”.
After Latham was taken to the cells, Judge Parry told the two tearful child victims: “You should all be proud of yourselves as you move forward.
“You have all beaten him. He has not won.”
After the hearing, Det Con Emma Murtagh, from GMP’s Online Child Abuse Investigation Team called it “one of the most horrific cases I have ever had to investigate”.
“This case demonstrates, unfortunately, the ease with which those looking to exploit children can target, manipulate and blackmail them online,” she said.
Latham was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life, and will remain on licence for an additional eight years after his sentence expires.
