A twisted fantasist set up fake social media profiles to trick an 18-year-old woman into sending him nude photographs of herself.

Lee Alexander’s victim thought she was sending the images, which were sent via Snapchat, to a bona fide model agency.

But the Snapchat account was, in fact, being operated by then 20-year-old Alexander.

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Within days of her sending the images, the online pervert messaged her from another account under a different name – claiming to have hacked the model agency’s Snapchat.

He demanded she send more explicit photographs, threatening to release the original photographs online if she didn’t comply with his vile demands.

Oxford Crown Court heard the woman went to the police in early March 2020 when she received the demand.

Alexander was arrested in a dawn swoop at his parents’ home in Thame on March 4. He began spinning the web of lies in which he would later find himself stuck fast.

He claimed not to have a phone, although police found two in his home that he’d used to log in to the fake social media profiles.

He said that ‘Joe Averry’, the Instagram profile that had made the initial approach to the 18-year-old victim, was a friend who lived in Manchester although ‘Joe’ had given Alexander access to his Instagram account. It emerged that the Joe Averry profile was linked to the defendant’s Giff Gaff mobile number.

Three weeks after his arrest, the victim’s sister received a threatening message from Alexander accusing her sibling of ‘making b****** up’. The victim’s friend was messaged in similar terms, warning him to ‘be careful’ as she ‘gets people arrested for not reason’.

In a second interview later in the year, Alexander handed police a prepared statement in which he suggested his accounts had been ‘hacked in some way’.

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Alexander, now 22, of Lacey Drive, Thame, had denied counts of blackmail and fraud by abuse of position, missing two planned trial dates because he had coronavirus. He eventually pleaded guilty to fraud in April, with prosecutors not proceeding with the blackmail charge.

Jailing him for two years and nine months on Friday, Judge Ian Pringle QC said: “It is almost impossible to think of a greater humiliation for a young girl to have to go through than to be told pictures of her without any clothes on are going to be published online unless she sends more pictures of herself in the nude to you.”

Mitigating, Gordana Austin said her client had ‘never had boundaries’ growing up. He had mental health difficulties and would struggle in prison. He had no previous convictions.

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