Former children’s holiday camp manager groomed over 70 teenage boys online by pretending to be a 16-year-old girl

The National Crime Agency investigated Cameron Osman, 44, of Southampton, who used the online alias ‘Lizzielemon’ to identify his victims on Instagram and platforms MyLol and Love Crush before moving them on to Google Hangouts, Discord and Skype throughout 2020 and 2021. His victims came from across the UK and included boys from Portsmouth and Southampton in Hampshire.

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He engaged them in sexualised chat revolving around a fantasy online world with Osman pretending to be a teenage girl. He never identified himself, instead telling victims his camera was broken.

Osman would tell his victims that ‘Lizzielemon’ was from Bristol or Birmingham, that he had a fetish for dominating boys in school uniform and sports kit, and for conducting teacher/student role plays.

The NCA tracked Osman down to a friend’s address in Crowborough, East Sussex, in September 2021 and arrested him. He had resigned from his job at a holiday camp activity centre in Hailsham a few days earlier.

His laptop and mobile phone were seized and Osman was found to have contacted 76 boys in the UK aged between 12 and 16 during the offending period. All have been safeguarded.

Officers found no evidence of Osman grooming children at the activity centre. Investigators in the United States also uncovered chat logs showing sexualised communication by Osman with underage boys in 27 countries. He also searched online for underage boys in Columbia, where he was planning to visit.

He was released on bail as the investigation continued, but proceeded to offend again, leading to his arrest on March 27 this year after a further victim was identified. Osman pretended to be a younger man on this occasion and shared photos of himself.

The defendant appeared at St Albans Crown Court where he pleaded guilty to 36 separate charges, including attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, causing a child to engage in sexual activity, sexual communication with a child, and making two category C indecent images of children.

NCA operations manager Danielle Pownall said: ‘Cameron Osman callously preyed on vulnerable teenage boys, masquerading as a teenage girl for his own sexual gratification. I have no doubt, if we had not stopped Osman he would have gone on to commit more severe offending. We will continue to work with our partners across the world to combat the perpetrators of online child sexual abuse.’

Osman is due to be sentenced at the same court on June 30.

The NCA’s education programme supports people to have safer online experiences. For support go to thinkuknow.co.uk.

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An NSPCC spokeswoman said: ‘It is vital that all those impacted are supported to help them recover. Unregulated social media is fuelling an unprecedented scale of online child sexual abuse. So it is vital tech companies play their role in preventing and detecting offending like that of Osman by taking active steps to ensure their products and services do not contribute to child sexual abuse.

‘The government must also take the opportunity when finalising the Online Safety Bill to ensure senior managers are held liable for failing to tackle child sexual abuse permeating their sites.’

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