'We couldn't believe it, he was just a normal neighbour' A woman who was sent sent lurid messages online had no idea it was her neighbour until she saw police raiding his house. The woman, who wants to remain anonymous, said her nightmare began back in 2021, when she noticed some unusual activity on her Instagram account . She told the Liverpool ECHO how she started to get a number of new followers on her account, with unusual names such as 'Puppy Lover' and 'Hair and Beauty', but didn't think much of it.
However soon after she started to receive inappropriate and intrusive messages from her 'new followers'. The 19-year-old said: "I started receiving pictures of myself taken from my social media, offering me £25 for a picture with my feet out in a sexual position, or £50 for a Facetime call." She was disturbed by the messages and said she told her sister about them, but at the time kept it from her mum and her teachers.
She said the messages continued for months, coming in dribs and drabs - an unpleasant, unwelcome intrusion, but she said she desperately tried to put it to the back of her mind. However, one evening when she opened up her Instagram account she had been sent an explicit video of a man performing a sex act, while holding a picture of herself as a child. The teenager said she immediately told her mum and dad who contacted Merseyside Police , who began investigating.
And it wasn't until the family saw their neighbour's house being raided that the horrific realis.