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An “abhorrent” Snapchat predator has been jailed for 14 years for raping a 12-year-old girl and exploiting dozens of others in one of the UK’s biggest online child sexual abuse investigations.
Stuart Latham, 22, is believed to have solicited explicit images from hundreds of girls, most aged between 11 and 13, on social media over the space of a year.
Latham was under investigation on suspicion of raping a 12-year-old girl when he obtained many of the 4,000 indecent images found on his devices. More than 1,000 images were Category A – the most serious kind – which includes “sadistic” sexual acts or activity with animals.
DS Simon France, of Greater Manchester police (GMP), said Latham was “one of the most dangerous offenders” he had encountered in 14 years investigating sexual offences. He said “potentially hundreds” of young girls had been exploited by the “abhorrent” Latham.
Sentencing Latham to a minimum of 14 years in prison on Friday, judge Philip Parry said: “You are a highly dangerous individual. You are a predatory sex offender with little to no remorse. Young girls who come within your orbit, either in person or online, are in danger of being sexually abused by you.”
Latham, who was not previously known to police, had admitted 49 offences in relation to at least 41 victims, of which eight are unidentified.
GMP said the case was one of the biggest online child sexual abuse investigations it had ever undertaken and appealed for other potential victims to come forward. At least three girls have been identified in the US.
Preston crown court heard how he posed as a 15-year-old boy named Josh, sending out hundreds of messages at a time to young girls on Snapchat and other social media.
He would quickly steer the conversation to request sexual images, sometimes offering money. When victims refused to send more, he threatened to post their images online, telling one girl: “I guess I’ll leak these to your friends or family.”
Latham struck up a relationship with a 12-year-old girl who initially told him she was 14, believing him to be 15. He was 19 at the time. He bought her sex toys and erotic outfits, the court heard.
Teachers at the victim’s school became aware of the relationship and alerted Lancashire constabulary.
After his arrest in December 2023, Latham admitted sexual contact with the girl but denied knowing she was 12, claiming he believed she was of legal age.
The court heard that he attempted to arrange a threesome with the girl and one of her friends, who he had also sexually assaulted.
Latham continued his sexual relationship with the 12-year-old when he was released on police bail, according to videos later found on his phone.
Asked by police why he had carried on abusing the girl when he knew it was wrong, Latham said he “knew he was already in trouble for physically abusing the two girls and just thought that he couldn’t be in a worse situation”.
The judge was told how one 11-year-old girl had been left “distraught” and “crying in the corner of her room” after being targeted online by Latham.
The mother of another of his victims said: “This entire ordeal has taught our daughter that her body is up for grabs, for whoever wants to grab it.”
Nicholas Clarke KC, representing Latham, told the court that the online sexual abuse the defendant suffered a decade ago had influenced his offending.
Clarke said the 22-year-old’s emotional age was not too distant from his victims and that his level of maturity had improved since his arrest – a claim that provoked angry reactions from the friends and families of the victims in court.
The judge said Latham “struggled to show any meaningful empathy” for his crimes and that he attempted to “appear naive in order to minimise his responsibility”.
“[It is] no exaggeration to say you have left emotional wreckage in your wake in the offending that you have committed against multiple girls,” he added.
France said many people assume child sexual abuse images were limited to the dark web, away from easily accessible parts of the internet. He described Snapchat and other popular sites as a “hive of activity for people who are committing these sort of offences”.
He said social media firms should have stricter protocols for verifying the age of users and urged parents to keep a closer eye on their children’s online use. “It’s just horrific,” he said. “The level of offending on this scale I’ve never seen before.”
