A former children’s holiday camp manager groomed more than 75 teenage boys online while pretending to be a 16-year-old girl.
Cameron Osman, 44, told his victims he had a fetish for dominating boys in school uniform and sports kit while using the online alias of a girl from Bristol or Birmingham.
Osman, who worked as a manager at PGL's Windmill Hill adventure centre at Hailsham, pleaded guilty to 36 separate charges at St Albans Crown Court on Tuesday, May 2.
He was found to have contacted the boys aged from 12 to 16 between 2020 and 2021.
He sed the online alias ‘Lizzielemon’ to identify his victims on Instagram, MyLol and Love Crush, before moving them on to Google Hangouts, Discord and Skype.
Danielle Pownall, operations manager for the National Crime Agency, said: “Cameron Osman callously preyed on vulnerable teenage boys, masquerading as a teenage girl for his own sexual gratification.
“I have no doubt, if we had not stopped Osman he would have gone on to commit more severe offending.
“We will continue to work with our partners across the world to combat the perpetrators of online child sexual abuse and hold people like Osman accountable for their crimes.”
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International investigations found that Osman, from Southampton, chatted sexually with underage boys in 27 countries worldwide. He also searched for underage boys in Columbia prior to plans to visit the country.
After luring children onto video chatting sites such as Discord and Skype under his alias “Lizzielemon”, Osman would pretend that his camera was broken to avoid detection.
The NCA arrested Osman in Crowborough days after he had resigned from his job at the activity camp.
Officers found no evidence that Osman had groomed children at the activity centre.
After his initial arrest, he went on to offend again while on bail, pretending to be a younger man and sharing photos of himself.
The NCA advise anyone being pressured or threatened into sending sexual images or video online to remove themselves from the conversation and report the matter to police or a trusted adult.
There are a range of resources available on the NCA website, thinkuknow.co.uk, for adults – to support them in navigating the online world and conversations about it with their children, and children themselves – to help build their resilience online and learn what to do if something does not seem right.
Osman appeared at St Albans Crown Court where he pleaded guilty to 36 separate charges, including attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, causing a child to engage in sexual activity, sexual communication with a child, and making two category C indecent images of children.
Osman is due to be sentenced in St Albans on June 30.
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