"If you ever block me on social media your secret will be out."
Moosa Kayat, aged 22, of Batley, West Yorkshire, was jailed for four years after he demanded teenagers to send him degrading images and videos. The sex offender had tricked them into sending sexual images before blackmailing them.
Leeds Crown Court heard his victims were four vulnerable boys who lived in fear of being exposed to friends and family.
It was a twisted campaign which dated back to 2015.
Richard Woolfall, prosecuting, said Kayat targeted a 15-year-old boy in 2015 after they met through a website.
The boy told Kayat that he was not openly gay and had joined the website to find people to talk to about his sexuality.
The victim initially thought Kayat was a nice person and seemed to understand the issues that he was struggling to deal with.
They spoke on the phone and messaged each other. The boy later sent sexual images of himself to Kayat.
Kayat began requesting more graphic images and asked that the boy include his face in the material. He also invited the boy to meet him in Leeds so they could have sex.
The boy eventually became suspicious and stopped contact with Kayat.
Mr Woolfall said Kayat then contacted the boy on Facebook and began threatening him. He told the victim he would expose him online and threaten to send the images he already had of him to his friends unless he complied with his demands.
The boy initially complied with Kayat’s demands but his requests became more depraved.
Kayat demanded to be sent images of the boy having sex with his pet cat, which the victim refused.
The sex offender sent an image of the boy carrying out a sex act to one of the victim’s friends. Kayat also threatened to post more videos online even though the boy begged him not to.
Kayat demanded that the boy get other teenage boys to engage in sexual activity with him.
He told the victim: “If you ever block me on social media your secret will be out.”
A second victim, aged 16 at the time, was targeted after they met online and exchanged sexual images. Kayat told the victim that he “owned” him and demanded that he be his slave.
He demanded graphic videos and images to be sent which the victim complied to, however, the demands became more depraved.
Mr Woolfall said the victim felt suicidal and eventually told his mother about the abuse.
A third victim was targeted when the sex offender posed online as a boy named Sam. He obtained a sexual image of the boy which Kayat threatened to send to the victim’s friends.
A fourth victim was targeted in a similar way. He described how the offending had made him feel “fragile” and “lacking in self-worth”.
Police seized Kayat’s phone and recovered over 100 indecent images. Twenty-two of the images were at category A – the most serious level of offending.
Kayat pleaded guilty to blackmail, five counts of attempting to cause a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, two of causing a child to engage in sexual activity, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual activity, two of distributing indecent photographs and three of making indecent photographs.
Mr Woolfall said: “This investigation started life with there being the possibility of 40 separate victims.”
The victims lived in different areas of the country.
Police downloaded 5,000 pages of evidence from Kayat’s phone.
In mitigation, Ricky Holland said Kayat began the offending when he was a youth. He said his client felt isolated.
He said: “His best friend became his smartphone. He wasn’t generating any great friendships and in that particular vacuum became interested in this activity.
“It became an addiction that was borne out of sexual motivation. He felt empowered in relation to others.
“He took on the role of being dominant.”
Judge Tom Bayliss QC told the sex offender: “Any injury done to the victims in a case like this is likely to be enduring.
“They felt shame, ever-present anxiety and fear of exposure.
“It was designed to demean them and designed to humiliate them.
“You gained sexual gratification from demeaning these boys and humiliating them.”
Judge Bayliss thanked the investigating officers, adding:
“It was very important that it was conducted with the care that it was. They are to be commended, and formally commended.”
After the case, an NSPCC spokesperson said: “This horrific case, and the depth of Kayat’s depraved manipulation of four vulnerable boys underlines how devastating online grooming can truly be.
“We hope his victims have the support they need to move on with their lives.
“For too long, tech companies have seemingly put their own interests ahead of the safety of our children online.
“It is crucial that the Government acts as soon as possible, bringing in a full Online Harms Bill, to hold these social media companies to account and to help prevent offenders like Kayat from trying to target, groom and abuse children online.”
Kayat was jailed for four years.
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