Two men who coerced two teenage girls into serious self-harm before mocking them in online forums have been jailed.
Charlie Johnson, 24, and Prince Singh, 23, encouraged the girls to carve names into their own bodies, intending that the injuries would leave permanent scars, Woolwich Crown Court heard.
The case is the first time a jury has convicted defendants of assisting or encouraging serious self-harm under the Online Safety Act of 2023.
Johnson received a four year jail term. Singh was sentenced to two years and nine months.
Both were charged in April with multiple offences involving the two victims, who were 16 and 17 at the time. The offences took place throughout 2024 and into January 2025.
Sentencing them, Judge Ruth Downing said the men had been united by a shared interest in encouraging schoolgirls to harm themselves. She said: “I am of the view that both these men took a deeply unhealthy interest in this idea in encouraging others, young women, inevitably women, to self-harm.”
She added that their “deliberate planned acts” were treated as a “game”, with vulnerable girls selected as targets.
Evidence retrieved from devices seized in their bedrooms showed indecent images and records of encouraging girls to self-harm. The material included references to other girls not directly involved in the trial.
At the sentencing hearing, both victims described the long lasting effects of the abuse. One said Johnson, who was in his twenties when they met, had “weaponised” her youth. She said she still experienced “nightmares of the abuse”.
She told the court: “I was made to feel like everything was my fault, even when he hurt me.” She added: “Emotionally, I felt worthless for a long time, I felt disposable and I even felt guilty that he was facing consequences.”
Johnson was convicted of two counts of encouraging self-harm, two counts of distributing indecent images of a child and three counts of assault by beating. He also admitted two counts of making an indecent image.
Singh admitted making and distributing indecent images of a child and encouraging serious self-harm of one of the victims.
