A student at St Andrews University blackmailed children into making sexually explicit videos which he shared online with other paedophiles.
Glen Wilson, 18, manipulated and threatened children after grooming them on social media.
He made girls as young as 12 send images and films, which he offered to share online with other paedophiles. He forced one victim to film herself on Skype while he set up a social media channel to let another user watch.
Wilson pretended at first to be a similar age to his victims and in less than a year sent 450 messages to children across the UK threatening to humiliate them.
At Perth sheriff court yesterday Wilson, who lives with his parents in Longforgan, Perthshire, admitted a catalogue of charges relating to “revenge porn”, extortion, and distributing images of child sex abuse between September 2015 and June 2016.
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Sheriff Gillian Wade remanded him in custody and placed him on the sex offenders’ register, but expressed concern that his case had not been prosecuted at the High Court.
The court was told that Wilson, who used numerous aliases on sites including Snapchat, Instagram, Skype and Twitter, had admitted 23 charges. He had faced 49 charges on an indictment running to ten pages, but the Crown accepted a guilty plea to a smaller number in the interest of avoiding the need for his victims to attend court.
A national investigation was opened after one victim reported what Wilson had done to Childline, while others told their parents.
Fiscal depute John Malpass told the court that Wilson found girls aged between 12 and 15 who were willing to chat to strangers on social media.
He said Wilson persuaded the girls to send explicit pictures of themselves before sending in reply a screenshot with their contacts and a threat to send the pictures to their friends and family if they did not comply with his wishes.
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Mr Malpass said the girls were scared of their families knowing and complied with Wilson’s increasingly extreme demands, including that they make and send explicit videos of themselves.
Although one girl told Wilson he was making her feel suicidal “he reminded her of his threat and continued to pressure her into sending further videos”, Mr Malpass said.
Wilson had told victims: “You have two options. You either do what I ask or I send. Block me, delete me, report me, tell your parents — do any of these things and I press the send button.
“Everyone you know will see everything and your friends and family will think of you as a slut.”
Wilson admitted extortion offences against three girls aged 12, two aged 13, two aged 14 and one aged 15.
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He also admitted two charges of having images of child sex abuse involving children from three to eight years old, and was warned that this alone would be enough attract a custodial sentence before the other charges were taken into account. He was remanded in custody and sentencing was delayed pending reports.