A sex predator who pretended to be a teenage YouTube star to blackmail hundreds of children into performing sexual acts has been sentenced to 17 years in jail.
In handing down her sentence in the District Court of WA on Tuesday, Judge Amanda Burrows said the volume of offences was of such magnitude there was "no comparable case … I can find in Australia".
Muhammad Zain Ul Abideen Rasheed, 29, targeted children in Australia and overseas by pretending to be a 15-year-old social media influencer with a large following.
He would approach children online in that guise, sending them pictures of the online star and initially asking innocuous questions to gain their trust.
The court heard that then escalated to sexually explicit "fantasies" he asked them to approve of, while also asking them for pictures of themselves he could "rate".
'Humiliating' demands
He threatened to send screenshots of their responses to friends and family unless they performed increasingly extreme sexual acts –including those involving family pets and other young siblings or children in the home.
In sentencing, Judge Burrows said those offences were "of a degrading, humiliating nature [and] the conduct involving a family pet was particularly abhorrent".
The court heard Rasheed would set a "countdown" timer, threatening to distribute the responses and further images he had made of them if they didn't comply with his demands.
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