‘menaces’ | 

Couple appear in court charged over alleged social media blackmail

The complainant was told to pay cash with McKinney allegedly “threatening to share images”

Yesterday at 11:54

A Coleraine couple appeared in court today accused of blackmail.

Standing side by side in the dock of the town’s Magistrates Court, 33-year-olds Craig Walker and Sarah Elizabeth McKinney spoke only to confirm they understood the single charge against them.

The couple, both from Rosemary Place in Coleraine, are accused of a single count of blackmail in that on 16 January this year, they made an unwarranted demand of £500 with menaces.”

A police constable said she believed she could connect the pair to the charge and she told District Judge Peter King that according to the police case, the complainant contacted police on 25 January to report the alleged blackmail.

Describing it as “a CID matter,” she outlined how the alleged victim had “reached out by Facebook and made contact with McKinney.”

The officer claimed there had been “interaction between them” but the complainant was then told to pay cash with McKinney allegedly “threatening to share images that she had been sent through social media.”

Defence lawyers Alan Stewart and Garrett Greene suggested putting the case back for a significant period given that both defendants are on bail but DJ King told them that “depressingly, 12 weeks today is Christmas Day so we’ll take it to the New year.”

Freeing both alleged extortionists on their own back of £500 with conditions to live at home and have no contact with their alleged victim, the judge put the case back to 22 January.