A married dad-of-two has become the first person in the UK jailed for encouraging a child to self-harm under the new Online Safety Act.

Karl Davies, a 43-year-old quantity surveyor from the Wirral, targeted the girl, from Cheshire, through Snapchat, encouraging her to harm herself before carrying out contact sexual offences. Today he was jailed for 20 years today at Manchester Crown Court.

He admitted and has been convicted of 17 offences relating to a school girl aged between 13 and 14. He showed “no pity and no mercy” for the “catastrophic” impact on his victim and had a “monstrous sense of sexual entitlement”, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Davies first made contact with the girl on Snapchat in June 2023, threatening and coercing her into sending him indecent images and videos of he

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