Men jailed for coercing girls into self-harm

Two men who coerced two teenage girls to seriously self-harm before mocking them in online chat forums have been jailed.

Charlie Johnson, 24, and Prince Singh, 23, encouraged their victims to carve names into themselves, wanting them to be scarred for life, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

This case marks the first time defendants have been convicted by a jury of assisting or encouraging serious self-harm under the Online Safety Act of 2023.

Johnson, who was also convicted of physically abusing both girls, was jailed for four years, while Singh was sentenced to two years and nine months.

Both men were charged in April with a number of offences relating to the two girls who were 16 and 17 at the time of the offences, which took place throughout 2024 into January 2025.

Sentencing the men, Judge Ruth Downing said they had been drawn together by their mutual interest in encouraging schoolgirls to self-harm.

Judge Downing 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."

The judge also described the pair treating their "deliberate planned acts" as a "game", picking vulnerable victims.

Evidence of indecent images and encouraging self-harm of girls were found on various devices taken from the defendants' bedrooms when they were arrested.

These included references and pictures of other girls who were not the focus of the trial, the court heard.

At the sentencing hearing, the two victims spoke about the extreme and long-lasting impact of the defendants' actions.

One of the girls said Johnson, who was in his 20s when they met, "weaponised" her youth, and said she still had "nightmares of the abuse".

She said: "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, along with three counts of assault by beating.

He admitted two counts of making an indecent image, while Singh admitted counts of making and distributing indecent images of a child along with encouraging serious self-harm of one of the victims.

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