Overview
- Sheffield Crown Court sentenced Elijah Palmer to four years and nine months in custody with a four-year extended licence after he pleaded guilty to multiple offences.
- The charges included encouraging or assisting serious self-harm under the Online Safety Act, causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, making and possessing indecent images, and perverting the course of justice.
- Prosecutors say Palmer first contacted the victim on Roblox before moving chats to Discord and using an escalating campaign of coercion that demanded nude images, proof of self-harm and included threats to her family and a fake bomb threat.
- Investigators linked Palmer to the '764' sextortion network, found multiple aliases and devices that held digital evidence, and sought bad-character material from an alleged US victim to show a pattern of offending.
- Police and the Crown Prosecution Service say the case shows how the Online Safety Act combined with digital forensics can be used to prosecute platform-based grooming and they urged other victims to come forward while protecting victim anonymity.