UK Man Gets Five Years for Online Abuse Campaign

A Nottingham man has been sentenced to more than five years behind bars after blackmailing and harassing several women, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

The UK’s law enforcement agency for serious and organized crime. revealed that Shaquille Williams, 26, was jailed for five years and three months late last week at Nottingham Crown Court, 

He was found guilty of one count of blackmail related to one victim, three counts of harassing three women and putting them in fear of violence, and two counts of sending grossly offensive messages to two other women.

The NCA said that graphic designer Williams threatened to send intimate private photos of one woman to her family and friends unless she sent him more images.

Williams — of Hartness Road, Clifton, Nottingham — reportedly used various social media accounts to threaten several women, sending them pictures of acid attack victims. In one case, he sent a victim messages that featured the name of her hometown, a picture of hydrochloric acid and the name of the road she lived on, according to the NCA.

Williams had previously viewed footage of women posted online by Abdul Hasib Elahi, 26, who the NCA describes as “one of the worst online sexual offenders” it has ever investigated.

Elahi, of Sparkhill, Birmingham, apparently masqueraded as a rich businessman on “sugar daddy websites” and then tricked victims into sending him sexual images. According to the NCA, once in his possession, he’d use these images to blackmail the victims into videoing degrading acts of themselves.

NCA senior investigating officer, Andy Peach, was quick to link the two offenders.

“Williams inflicted extreme terror on these victims — they have been exceptionally brave in coming forward to ensure he faced justice and went to jail. Williams is a coward and a twisted, callous, sexual deviant,” he said in a statement.

“Some of his crimes were made possible because of Abdul Elahi, whose sadistic depravity and scale of offending horrified the investigative team. There are a series of other inquiries into Elahi’s associates.”