An East London paedophile who posed as a trombonist with a camel business in Dubai so he could sexually abuse children as young as 12 faces jail. Barthimaus Ehiemere, 25, ran a social media channel where he groomed seven boys for explicit videos and offered paltry sums of money for sex, raping two of them after they were lured to meet him, a trial heard at Snaresbrook Crown Court in July.
Ehiemere, of Chart Street, Hackney, admitted 32 offences before the trial, including rape of a child under 13 and breaking the terms of his sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) that was issued by Wood Green Crown Court for indecent images offences in 2021. Ehiemere was found guilty of 15 more offences in August, including further sexual assaults and paying for the sexual services of minors.
In February this year, Ehiemere’s younger brother Richard was convicted on three counts of possessing indecent images and two counts of fraud – the frauds in relation to personal data he was selling to CVLT, an online neo-Nazi group that blackmails young children by grooming them to record sex acts, and, in the worst cases, to take their own lives on camera.
During his trial, Richard Ehiemere claimed that when he was arrested in April 2021 the illegal material had already been on a Samsung phone given to him by his older brother. Barthimaus had been caught with hundreds of indecent images of young boys in September 2020, for which he received a suspended sentence and SHPO from Wood Green Crown Court in 2021. Richard was still found guilty.
When Barthimaus faced jurors in July, the court heard he was 19-years-old when he contacted boys using the ‘Spotafriend’ social media app, where he would share pornography and indecent images with them and ask them to replicate sex acts. Ehiemere argued the boys had not been frank about their true age, but prosecutors proved it was obvious from their appearance in photos.
One of Ehiemere’s victims said he posed as a trombonist with a camel business in Dubai, and offered him £20 for sex as it was ‘his first time’. Ehiemere was convicted of sexually assaulting the boy after luring him to a woodland in Surrey and penetrating him over the branch of a tree. In evidence the boy said it “looked like he had a ring of people he was doing these things with and having sex with”.
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