Facebook hacker’s photo blackmail

William Wooles, 20, from Great Dunmow, Essex, was studying at Leeds University when he hacked into the email account of his victim, a 20-year-old female student in Manchester.

He then sent her an email saying he had found some “interesting” things on her account – and telling her he wanted to see more intimate images, Manchester Crown Court heard.

The victim had previously sent private images to her then boyfriend and they remained in her sent items box.

Wooles, who did not know the victim, emailed her in May last year, threatening to publish the photos online if she did not send him some intimate images.

A third email from Wooles said: “Sorry, this could have been avoided if you just sent me what I asked for?” But the emails from Wooles had been filtered as spam on the victim’s account – and she only discovered them when it was too late.

The victim logged on to her Facebook account and, to her horror, saw a number of naked pictures of her posted on her profile page.

With more than 1,000 followers, many of her friends and family may have seen the images.

Wooles, who also targeted another woman, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two offences of blackmail and two offences of computer misuse.

Yesterday, he was sentenced to two years imprisonment, suspended for two years, for the blackmail offences and one year, suspended for 12 months, for each computer misuse offence, all to run concurrently.

He was also ordered to complete 150 hours of community service and was given a restraining order not to contact victims, a forfeiture order and destruction order for his laptop.

After discovering the images on her Facebook page the victim contacted Greater Manchester Police (GMP), who traced Wooles to Leeds University through his computer’s IP address.

Officers then went to his halls of residence and arrested him.

During police interviews he admitted to hacking another woman’s email address and saving further photos he found in this email account to his computer.

Officers contacted this woman, who is also a student, and discovered that she had also been blackmailed by Wooles who wanted her to send him intimate videos.

Wooles had threatened to put the images he had found of her on the internet but his threat was never carried through.

Detective Constable Ian Wrench, from GMP, said: “Wooles’ offences of blackmail were a disgusting betrayal of two girls’ most private intimate moments.

“We can all imagine the emotional damage, not to mention embarrassment, of having private images posted all over your Facebook page from loved ones and friends to see.

“Thankfully, the first victim had the bravery to not suffer in silence and come and speak to us. Without her courage Wooles might have been able to threaten more victims and continue this modern day computer aged blackmail.”

It is the latest of a number of internet-based blackmail cases, with police in Yorkshire recently warning of the need to tighten up personal security after a man who stripped in front of a webcam in the hope the woman he was chatting to online would do the same, was blackmailed into sending her cash after she secretly recorded him undressing and threatened to send stills to his family on Facebook.

DC Wrench added: “Wooles worked out people’s passwords via open source information that was available to anyone on the internet. Everyone needs to be aware that security question answers are sometimes easily guessed and it is imperative that people use the highest standards of care when choosing passwords.”