By Katie Boyden
Copyright metro
Stuart Latham has now been sentenced (Picture: Greater Manchester Police)
A man has been jailed for 14 years for child sex offences including rape and blackmail against 39 young girls.
Stuart Latham, 22, ‘catfished’ the children into believing he was a 14-year-old boy and bribed them to provide him with indecent images in return for cash or gift cards.
He posted an advert online as 14-year-old ‘Josh’ saying he’d give girls a £200 gift card if they could ‘help him out’ by sending him indecent images.
He’d then threaten to leak the pictures if they asked him to delete them.
Girls as young as 11 responded to the advert.
Latham, from Wigan, has been sentenced at Preston crown court for 49 child sexual offence charges including rape, blackmail, making indecent images and causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
Up Next
Previous Page
Next Page
Latham has been jailed at Preston Crown Court (Picture: MGO)
He abused two girls in person, including a 12-year-old girl he raped when he was aged 19 – the girl believed he was 15.
He committed dozens of offences online against the other 37 victims, the court heard – all aged between 12 and 15, who lived across the UK.
Jailing him, Judge Philip Parry said: ‘You are a highly dangerous individual, you are a predatory sexual offender with little to no empathy or remorse.
‘It is no exaggeration to say, you have left emotional wreckage in your wake as a result of the offending you committed against multiple young girls.’
When Latham was arrested in December 2023, police found a phone hidden in the back of a wardrobe containing around 4,000 child sex abuse images – including videos up to an hour long.
He was arrested after his first victim told authorities she was in a sexual relationship with Latham. He then went on to abuse his first victim’s friend, and both girls were sat in court as he was sentenced.
After Latham was taken from the dock, Judge Parry addressed the two tearful victims, who held hands, sat alongside their families.
He said: ‘You are incredibly brave. I don’t know many adults who would be brave enough to do what you did. No child or adult should blame themselves.
‘You should all be proud of yourselves as you move forward. You have all beaten him. He has not won.’
Greater Manchester Police say the case is one of the largest multi-victim online child sex abuse cases it’s ever investigated.
And the force fears Latham could have more victims based in the US as well as UK. They are encouraging anyone else targeted by him to contact them.
Got a story? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. Or you can submit your videos and pictures here.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
Follow Metro.co.uk on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news updates. You can now also get Metro.co.uk articles sent straight to your device. Sign up for our daily push alerts here.
