Guy Lynn

Emma describes being secretly recorded during a video call at 17 by a man posing as a teenager, then coerced into meeting him, where she says she was drugged and raped. He used threats to release intimate images to control her for a year, isolating her and leaving lasting psychological harm. The case highlights forms of sextortion involving coercive control rather than money. Childline, the National Crime Agency and the Metropolitan Police report sharp increases in cases, although authorities say the abuse remains significantly underreported. Charities and police stress that victims are not to blame and should report the abuse, while the NSPCC calls for technology companies to do more to prevent it.

Anthony Littler was beaten to death in a north London alley in 1984, but the case remained unsolved for 42 years. A renewed Metropolitan Police investigation reconstructed the evidence, uncovered family disclosures and used the undercover Operation Snowpitch, including covert recordings of Michael Stewart. Stewart and his brother Anthony were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, with minimum terms of 10 and 15 years. Investigators argued that the brothers and associates had targeted men they believed were gay during robberies, although there was no evidence Littler himself was gay. A recorded admission and Michael Stewart’s unprompted reference to being at the top of the alley helped place him at the crime scene.