Sex worker and pimp boyfriend jailed for extortion of €9,000 from client in ‘tag team’ plot

• 2h ago

A sex worker and her pimp boyfriend who blackmailed almost £8,000 (€9,000) from a man she had sex with in a “tag team” extortion plot, have been sentenced to a total of eight years and two months.

Sentencing Jason Hamill (31) to four years and four months and his girlfriend Lorna White (27) to three years and 10 months at Craigavon Crown Court on Tuesday, Judge Patrick Lynch KC said it was not a stereotypical paramilitary blackmail.

Rather, said the judge, they had used threats of police involvement and exposure to extort £7,900 from their victim.

Having heard the pair were on prison release licence from an almost identical offence, the judge said that “far from having learned their lesson… this was a carefully planned operation and they almost acted like a tag team because when Miss White finished pushing him, Mr Hamill took over.”

At an earlier hearing, Hamill, from Main Street in Newtownhamilton, and White, from Main Street in Newtownbutler, both confessed their guilt to a charge of blackmail.

The offence occurred between February 5, and April 2 last year, when they demanded £7,900 from the male victim.

Opening the facts of the case on Tuesday, prosecuting counsel Ian Tannahill outlined how the victim contacted White about an advert she had placed and arranged to meet her for sex.

That was in the first week of February last year, but coming to the end of March, “she threatened to report him for sexual assault”, claiming that she had attempted suicide.

She told the victim she would go to the police if she did not “get something”, the court heard, and while the victim offered her £200, White demanded £2,000.

“There was a degree of negotiation and the victim agreed to pay £200 that day and a further £2,000 the following day,” said the lawyer, adding that White told him “don’t mess with me because I don’t take any s***”.

A few days later a new number began contacting the victim because, as he put it, the victim had been “f****** her about, be careful, she’s very dangerous”.

“In parallel to this chain of events, the co-accused Hamill had also been in touch with the victim… saying that he had a full case file on the complainant,” said Mr Tannahill.

Hamill also threatened that he would go to the police, claiming he had followed the victim and White when they met for sex.

The men arranged to meet and when they did so at Hillsborough Forest Park, Hamill agreed to take £700 from the victim and in exchange, he would “delete a purported file he had in his phone”.

He would later claim, however, he had given that cash to Women’s Aid and he now needed further cash to delete the file he allegedly had.

The men met again on March 28, and “£2,000 was handed over”.

Police investigations led police to the defendants and the victim identified them both as the perpetrators.

Hamill’s phone was found to have been used to place the advert and his bank card was used to pay for it, said Mr Tannahill.

Revealing that Hamill has a significant record for thefts, fraud and controlling prostitution, he told the court that both defendants had a previous conviction for blackmail and indeed, had been on licence at the time of these offences.

Highlighting that blackmail is always regarded as serious because it “strikes at the soul” of the victim, Mr Tannahill submitted that “the suggestion of keeping files on someone in Northern Ireland might well have a greater degree of menace of itself than elsewhere in the UK.”

“It was a determined effort to prey on the complainant’s weakness,” he said.

“The defendants chose not just to apply pressure by the suggestion of police involvement but in using the fact to that it would lead to exposure and wrongful allegations of sexual offending.”

He added that White created extra “stress and pressure by suggesting she was contemplating suicide”.

In July 2019, the couple were handed four-year sentences after they admitted extorting more than £3,000 from one of White’s ‘customers’.

In that case they had entered guilty pleas to six counts of blackmail against a man White had sex with after he paid her £100, making repeated demands between July 1, 2017, and May 10, 2018, for payments of £100, two of £1,000 and one of £3,000.

In a separate indictment, Hamill also confessed to controlling White’s prostitution for gain.

The court heard how the victim had met with White in July 2018 and had sex with her in a car and in a flat in Tandragee, paying her £100.

Following those trysts however, he was contacted by the couple “on a number of occasions” when they told him he had been photographed and recorded having sex with White.

He was told to pay them £500 or they would send the video to his fiancée and this later went up to £1,000 as the threats and demands escalated.

On Tuesday, Hamill’s defence counsel Damien Halleron said the defendant’s gambling addiction was at the centre of all his offending over the years but “for the first time in his life, he has told the truth” to probation and wants to properly tackle his addiction.

Seamus Lannon, acting for White, conceded the extortion plot had been a “joint enterprise” between the defendants, who continue to be a couple, but it was as a result of that relationship and her offending that “she’s estranged from her family and this offending will further distance her from her family”.

Imposing the jail sentences, which are to be served half in prison and half on licence, Judge Lynch said it was clear that White had been a “willing participant” in the offences and while there was “no distinction” between their roles in it, Hamill was getting a longer sentence because of his previous convictions.