Scots schoolgirl blackmailed online by prolific 'sex slave' paedo calls on tech giants to act fast on safety bill
| Published date | 26 September 2023 |
| Publication title | Daily Record, The / Sunday Mail: Web Edition Articles (Scotland) |
The fiend, from West Sussex, was sentenced to 18 years in prison last year after posing as a 16-year-old boy online and abusing 26 victims -one as young as 12.
Brave Aoife, now 19, is working with children’s charity the NSPCC to urge tech giants to better protect more young people from harm on the internet.
She is one of 100 victims who signed a landmark letter to social media bosses as MPs voted in the new Online Safety Bill last week.
Aoife told the Record how she was groomed by vile Croft on Yubo, before being asked to move to messenger site Telegram.
She said: “It took me five minutes to make an account. I thought it was a boy my age I was speaking to. We were chatting and got on surprisingly well.
“He asked me to send pictures of myself. It was after I sent the first couple that he revealed that he was actually a lot older and said he had a degree in cyber security.
“He made himself seem untouchable, like it didn’t matter what I did, no one would find him.
“He wanted me to send him exactly what he’d ask me to send. I had to keep talking to him. I wasn’t allowed to go to sleep or use the toilet without asking.
“He said if I didn’t keep doing what he requested then my pictures would be sent to my Facebook family and friends. He had managed to find my profile and sent me a picture of it.
“I realised I was in trouble. I was petrified. It’s something you just don’t want your mum and dad, or anyone, to find out about.”
The terrified teen remembered being told about CEOP -Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command -at school and reported the images in the middle of the night.
The next day her school made contact and she confided in her mum and dad about what had happened before making a report to police.
Aoife was later contacted by the National Crime Agency, who were investigating Croft and tracking a trail of victims across the UK.
In November, she bravely faced Croft in court, who was described as an “extremely dangerous”, “serial paedophile”.
He pleaded guilty to 65 counts relating to serious child sexual abuse at Lewes Crown Court.
Croft had refused to hand over passwords to any of his accounts and it took investigators six months to break the encryption.
He used 20 different usernames on four social media platforms to contact at least 5,000 potential victims and stored 900 images.
Aoife read a victim impact statement in court.
She...
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