While most children here are now enjoying their mid-term break this week, there are as many as 3,500 others across the world whose lives have been destroyed by the actions of a 26-year-old man from our own community. Another child, 12-year-old Cimarron Thomas from West Virginia, killed herself because of the actions of that same man. Her father later took his own life.

The man responsible for this devastation is Alexander McCartney from the quiet rural area of Lissummon, just off the Armagh road outside Newry. Between 2014 and 2019 a man we might have regarded as one of our own, abused thousands of children online.

By pretending to be a teenage girl, he befriended, abused and then blackmailed children across the world. McCartney’s callous crimes were only discovered through the courage of a 13-year-old Scottish girl who reported her abuse.

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