February 2021

‘Sextortion’ dad blackmailed schoolgirl for hardcore indecent images before sharing intimate photos online

A paedophile blackmailed a schoolgirl for hardcore porn before sharing intimate photos of her online when she refused to comply with his demands.

Alexander Griffiths, from Denby Dale, subjected the 14-year-old girl to nearly a month of ‘sextortion’ in March 2019, during which time she self-harmed ‘nearly every day’.

Leeds Crown Court heard Griffiths followed the girl’s own Instagram followers before posting two photos of her on the social media platform.

The married 37-year-old dad was jailed for three years and four months today (Thursday) after pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity to inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and distributing indecent images of a child.

He was also made subject to an indefinite sexual harm prevention order, banning him from having unsupervised contact with any underage girls.

Prosecutor Michael Collins said Griffiths was aged 35 and the victim, from Leicester, was aged 14 when they became friends on Snapchat.

He said Griffiths, who pretended to be aged 16, complimented the victim a lot, which flattered her as she was not used to getting a lot of compliments.

Griffiths sent the child photos of his genitals and she sent him photos of herself both fully clothed and partially naked, which were in the lowest category of indecent images.

He began annoying her by ‘bombarding’ her with messages so she blocked him.

Griffiths then tracked the girl down on Instagram and sent her a message threatening to post one of the photos she had sent him online if she did not take and send him videos of her having sex with her boyfriend.

When she refused, he gave her three options of videos to send him – either one of her performing oral sex on her boyfriend, one of her having sex with him in a position that would not show her face or one of her performing a sex act on herself.

When she again refused, he gave her another three options – either a three-minute video of the couple having sex, a photo of her performing oral sex on her boyfriend or a 20-minute live webcam stream in which they would do ‘anything he asked’.

When she again refused, he told her to either do it or find someone else to have sex with on camera.

The court heard he would not take no for an answer even when she told him she was on her period.

The victim told Griffiths she had been crying in school, she had mock exams in a few weeks, she was too young to have sex and she did not want to cheat on her boyfriend or get pregnant.

But the predator started a countdown until he would post the photos online and started following her Instagram followers in a bid to get them to see and share the photos.

Later that month, he followed through with his threat by posting two of the photos on his public Instagram account.

Police were informed and enquiries led them to the defendant’s house on Wakefield Road, Denby Dale, where he lives with his wife.

He was arrested in November that year. His phone was seized and confirmed his crimes.

He was interviewed twice and admitted messaging the girl but claimed he did not know her age.

Victim personal statement

In a statement read to the court, the victim described feeling ‘trapped’ and said she self-harmed ‘nearly every day’ throughout Griffiths’ sextortion, she would cry herself to sleep, she would leave classes to cry and classmates asking what was wrong made it even worse, adding: “I was constantly stressed, upset and angry. I became a horrible person.”

She said she would also scrub herself in the shower until her body hurt.

The girl said she was referred to the school counsellor and CAMHS but still had not disclosed what he was doing to her because she was afraid of judgement and of getting in trouble with her parents.

She also said she skipped a family trip to Yorkshire out of fear of bumping into her abuser and now feels insecure about her body.