10-month sentence for 'evil' sexual predatory blackmailer

AN "EVIL...sexual predatory blackmailer" who put a vulnerable woman "through hell" after she sent him intimate images has been jailed for a total of 10 months. Jailing Cathan Quinn (pictured below), at Ballymena Magistrates Court, Deputy District Judge Chris Holmes told the 25-year-old that in his 10 years as a judge "you are absolutely the most serious case I have ever sentenced in... you are in totally the wrong court."

     Cathan Quinn 25-year-old jailed for 10                                    months 

"You are a blackmailing predator and you should be in prison for as long as I can possibly put you there," he said. "I hope it's clear to everybody here that it's not a case of sending nasty texts... it's just evil." 

Refusing to give Quinn any credit for his guilty pleas, the judge imposed the maximum six-month jail sentence but also activated a four-month, previously suspended prison sentence for driving offences and put it to run consecutively, making a total prison sentence of 10 months in total.

At an earlier hearing Quinn, of Wesleyanne Mews in Magherafelt, entered guilty pleas to three counts of using a telecommunications network to send a "message or other matter that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character" on February 24th 2020, threatening the female victim that he would post and share intimate images and a video she had sent him. Summarising the case during his sentencing remarks, District Judge Holmes said that with Quinn using a Twitter profile entitled "big daddy pay big", the predator said he would pay £500 for intimate images but when the victim responded, she "almost immediately regretted it".

                        Cathan Quinn 

She sent Quinn numerous messages asking him to delete the images and the video, telling him she did not want any money but as the judge put it: "You had her... and you were not letting go." Quinn "immediately started messaging her" that she had to cooperate with him, naming people that he was aware she knew, threatening to send them the intimate material and post it online.

One part of the material from the vulnerable woman was temporarily posted online but was later removed. 

A PPS spokeswoman said: "Taking into consideration, including the fact that there was no evidence of a demand for money in this case, it was determined that the appropriate charges were three counts of sending menacing messages through the communications network. This is a summary offence which can only be prosecuted in the magistrates court."

With many thanks to: The Irish News for the original publication.