A former ice hockey player and TV extra has been jailed for 28 years for the rape and sexual abuse of seven girls. Victims of Philip Hamer clapped the judge and burst into tears in the public gallery at Manchester Crown Court as the defendant was jailed for 41 sexual offences.
Hamer, 34, who had been a professional hockey player and a bit-part actor on TV soaps, had a “wholly distorted view of children as sexual objects”, the court heard.
He was attracted to girls in their early to mid-teens, using social media, including Snapchat and Instagram, to target and make contact with his victims, manipulating and grooming the girls before sexually abusing them.
He was 20 when he groomed his first victim, aged 14, through Facebook in 2010 and went on to groom an 11-year-old, when he was aged 27, through Snapchat.
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