Philip O’Shea: Catfish monster’s bid for early release | #childpredator | #onlinepredator | #sextrafficing

Sunday Life can reveal Philip O’Shea is now appealing his eight-year sentence despite admitting almost 60 vile crimes including blackmail, harassment, threats to kill and disclosing sexual photographs in a case that shocked many in terms of its scale.

No date has yet been set for the hearing, but detectives broke the news to the predator’s victims over the last week — and they’re fuming.

Sunday Life broke this story after some of those courageous women came forward to talk about their ordeals and how the 32-year-old charmed them online using fake profiles before things quickly turned dark and sinister.

In June he was sentenced to eight years, half to be spent in jail, the rest on licence. At the time victims felt O’Shea should have got longer for what he did — and now this development.

One mum from Co Londonderry who was driven to the depths of despair and forced to send the sicko two sex videos said: “This has hit me big time. I can’t believe it. I said to police, ‘I’ll be lighting every candle under the sun, praying that he gets longer’.

“I have no idea what he is trying to do. For one thing, he has 29 victims and he is appealing his sentence. Seriously?

“The first word that came to me was ‘What?’. It’s just ridiculous. It tells me he hasn’t learned a thing, that he has played us women and he is now playing the justice system because he knows he can.

“I am angry, furious, annoyed and shocked. I’ve got so many emotions going through me at the minute.”

At his sentencing hearing, the court was told O’Shea, who is originally from the Republic but moved to Bushmills at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, had an “elevated sex drive” which he found frustrated by lockdown rules and his alcohol intake resulted in him acting on negative impulses.

The judge pointed out his victims faced the same stresses and strains during those lockdown periods, with O’Shea’s being crimes carried out between September 15, 2020, and February 2, 2022.

Another victim, a mother-of-five from Armagh, met someone who called himself Philip Devine online — we now know it was in fact O’Shea — who harassed her for months.

Like the others, she received a call about the appeal just a few days ago.

“I was sitting with my family having dinner and I thought, ‘Not again’. I thought this chapter was over. What is the point in appealing when you pleaded guilty? Take your sentence. Take what you were given. Eight years was nothing compared to what he did to us. Why put us through all of this again?

“We finally thought we had our justice. I think I’m more cross now than I have been the whole time because I thought it was over.

“It brings back so much. Now you have this overwhelming fear of, ‘Is he going to get out even sooner?’. The fear of the unknown is crazy.”

O’Shea, who will be extradited to the Republic to face similar charges when he is released, was cruel beyond belief.

Once he lured his victims in, he revealed his true, evil self.

He threatened to kill one victim’s daughter and “her daughter’s unborn baby”, and told another, “Your son will die first”.

O’Shea shared intimidate images and sexual chats with victims’ parents, their children, ex-partners and friends.

For added pressure, and for his own twisted pleasure, he did this with a “countdown’’.

He messaged another using the fake name Revs, writing: “Petrol bombs are beautiful surprises.”

Out of the 29 victims, one was a man, and O’Shea disclosed images of his ex-wife to try and get “a rise out of him”.

One terrified young mum from Co Fermanagh who was threatened with a bullet in the head from the New IRA if she didn’t do as O’Shea demanded was informed of his appeal last week.

“He is pure evil,’’ she told Sunday Life. “It tells me that he really doesn’t care and shows no remorse for his actions, even those he said in court he was sorry for. I wish more people would come forward to police to keep this evil, sickening narcissist behind bars for as long as he deserves.”