Man jailed 14 years after grooming and sexually exploiting over 40 minors via Snapchat

Summary

Stuart Latham, 22, was jailed for 14 years for raping a 12-year-old girl and exploiting dozens of others through Snapchat and other social media platforms. Latham, who posed as a 14-year-old boy named Josh, sent messages to hundreds of girls aged 11 to 13, requesting explicit images and offering money or threatening to leak the images if they refused. He admitted to 49 offences involving at least 41 victims, including eight unidentified girls. The case, described as one of the UK’s largest online child sexual abuse investigations, involved over 4,000 indecent images found on Latham’s devices, with more than 1,000 classified as the most serious category A images. The court heard that Latham continued his abuse while on police bail and attempted to arrange a threesome with the 12-year-old girl and her friend. The judge described Latham as a “highly dangerous individual” with little remorse, and the case has prompted calls for stricter age verification protocols on social media platforms.