A merciless online groomer has become the first person to be jailed for encouraging self-harm in the UK.
Karl Davies, 42, targeted a 14-year-old girl for months by using Discord and fake Snapchat profiles with different personas.
The girl, described as ‘extremely vulnerable’, had been in care and was living with learning disabilities and ADHD.
Manchester Crown Court heard that Davies showed ‘no pity and no mercy’ for the ‘catastrophic’ impact on his victim and had a ‘monstrous sense of sexual entitlement.’
The offences began in June 2023, when a Snapchat account using the name ‘Ben’ messaged the girl, who was aged just 13 at the time.
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Over the following weeks, several accounts contacted the girl, disappearing and re-appearing at various points, with phone calls and further image sharing taking place.
The accounts were in fact all managed by Karl Davies.
The accounts fell under different names and alternated between blackmailing her to send indecent images, or acting supportive of her issues.
This included the girl being asked to send videos of her hurting herself, using items at the encouragement of the accounts.
Eventually, by June 2024, one of the accounts under the name ‘Sean’ told the girl that she had to meet his friend ‘Mark’ to engage in sexual acts.
That month, Davies, under the guise of ‘Mark’, travelled from his home address in the Wirral to Stockport, where he picked up the girl, then aged 14, in her school uniform.
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In four separate meetings, Davies drove 50 miles to collect the victim from school in broad daylight. He then sexually assaulted her multiple times inside his car.
He bought her razors to encourage her to self-harm.
The prosecution said over time, the aliases became more sinister by threatening the girl, saying they would contact her father if she did not do what she was asked.
Davies was described by the police as a ‘family man’ with no previous convictions but The Guardian reported he was arrested nearly five years ago on suspicion of posessing indecent images of children.
Prosecutors dropped the case.
In November 2020, the National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested Davies – three years before he targeted the schoolgirl – but the CPS decided not to charge him.
The NCA said it shared its intelligence with police forces to help any future investigations.
After the victim gave a harrowing three-hour police interview, Davies from Wirral in Merseyside, was arrested at his family home. On Friday he was jailed.
The police interview with the victim came after six months of an assigned social worker creating trust with the girl.
The girl was able to identify the make and model of the Seat Ateca car he had hired to commit the crimes against her.
Police discovered that Davies’s wife had suspected he was having an affair and had called the girl’s number but the victim hung up.
Stacey Gosling, from CPS, said she had ‘never before seen such sophisticated methods used to target a young person.
‘Karl Davies went to great lengths to hide his identity and position himself as the child’s protector when he was anything but.’
Davies was handed a 20 year imprisonment sentence plus being on licence for an additional five years due to the severity of the crimes.
While giving out the sentence, Judge Manley called Davies a ‘depraved and sadistic’ who had ‘plumbed the depths of abhorrent behaviour.
‘For a year after your arrest your victim has been deprived of education and friends. You’ve not just destroyed her childhood and adolescence, you destroyed her family.’