Derbyshire paedophile who used TikTok to prey on young girls arrested after victim’s mum alerted police.
This is the moment a paedophile who used TikTok to prey on young girls was arrested after the victim’s mum alerted police.
Stephen Blackwell, 46, posed as a 17-year-old boy on the social networking site to target girls as young as 10.
Stephen Blackwell, 46, posed as a 17-year-old boy on the social networking site to target girls as young as 10.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The sexual predator who used TikTok to send explicit content to girls as young as 10 has
00:06been jailed for more than 11 years.
00:09Stephen Blackwell began messaging a 10-year-old girl using the app and bombarded her with
00:13sexually graphic photos and videos and asking for the same in return.
00:18He was caught when the girl's mum found the messages on her phone and contacted police.
00:22Blackwell was arrested and later bailed while investigations continued.
00:26While on bail he also began messaging accounts he believed belonged to 14-year-old girls.
00:31Again he sent numerous videos showing him performing sex acts on himself and asked the
00:34girls to do the same.
00:36However, these accounts were not real.
00:38They were in fact decoys run by an online child protection activist group.
00:43The phone number was traced to Blackwell and he was arrested and subsequently charged with
00:46offences including engaging in sexual communication with a child, causing a child under 13 to
00:52engage in sexual activity and causing a child under 13 to look at images of sexual activity.
00:57So we've had important information received, okay, that there's an online account linked
01:01to yourself that's been chatting with 14-year-old girls, okay.
01:05So at this moment in time it is 10 to 7, so I'm arresting you on suspicion of attempting
01:12to engage in sexual communications with a child, okay.
01:15The 46-year-old of Matlock denied the offences but was found guilty by a jury at Derby Crown
01:20Court and has now been jailed for 11 years.
01:22He was also given a sexual harm prevention order and placed on the Sex Offenders Register
01:26for life.