Manipulative Cov paedophile groomed girls online for a decade
Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2018 7:43 pm
Benjamin Reynolds had more than 23,000 indecent images of children
A man from Coventry has been jailed after hijacking a teenage boy's social media profile and using it to groom girls for more than a decade.
Benjamin Reynolds targeted children from as far away as the USA in his near 10-year campaign.
Twisted Reynolds, 30, persuaded the children to send him indecent images and perform sex acts in front of webcams.
The West Midlands Police investigation led detectives to uncover victims as far afield as the United States.
At Warwick Crown Court on Thursday (5 July) he was jailed for 15 years having admitted three charges of making indecent images of children, five of inciting children to engage in sexual activity, one of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, plus four counts of blackmail.
Detective Constable Lindsey Seeley from the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team, said: “Reynolds was very calculating and meticulous in maintaining his cover as a 14-year-old boy; we found notes he’d written as reminders of the lies he’d told, things like birthdays, what school he attended, friends names, where his parents live and their occupations.
“And when victims asked for specific images to satisfy themselves they were talking to the boy in the profile pictures, he blackmailed the 14-year-old into sending him more images, including one asking for a topless photo of him holding a green sock.
“He bullied and manipulated the girls to engage in sex acts and even asked one to send him indecent photos of her younger sister; some of his victims were crying in the videos and begging him to stop his depraved demands."
