Former Linby football manager jailed for blackmailing women with sexual images

A 'devious and dishonest conman' who used sexual photographs to blackmail and control a series of women has been jailed.

Lewis Saxby, 32, who used to be the manager of local football club Linby Colliery Welfare, had sexual contact with the victims before threatening to send explicit images to their friends and family if they didn't do what he told them.

Between 2016 and 2020 one of the victims was conned out of nearly £90,000 after Saxby manipulated her into funding an entirely fictional legal case against his former employer.

He claimed that if she stopped paying the 'legal costs' then bailiffs would come to take items away from her home because she was now a guarantor to the court action.

When she tried to stop paying, Saxby threatened to send sexually explicit videos of her to her friends and family.

Shortly after his first visit from Nottinghamshire Police in February 2020 Saxby sent a series pleading messages to his victim urging her to withdraw her statement. He also confided in a friend that he was 'going to jail.'

A subsequent police investigation revealed three further victims. One was identified after detectives seized Saxby's bank records and found an unusually large payment into his account.

Another was identified from incriminating images on his phone.

Between July 2019 and January 2020 he blackmailed one of his victims by threatening to publish explicit photographs of her.

A third woman was blackmailed into paying off an apparent £400 debt under threat that sexual images would be sent to her partner if she refused.

He also attempted unsuccessfully to coerce another woman into sending him sexual images of herself.

During his first police interview Saxby gave no comment answers to all questions posed to him.

Subsequent searches of his electronic devices, however, revealed that in the weeks after his arrest, Saxby made several telling internet searches - including the 'maximum sentence for taking a video of a sexual act', 'how to blackmail legally', and 'how much information the police can find on your phone.'

Despite his evident guilty conscience, Saxby, of Lymington Road, Mansfield, pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him when he first appeared in court in January 2021.

He waited until the first day of his trial in November to finally admit what he had done - pleading guilty to three counts of blackmail, one of fraud, and one of controlling and coercive behaviour.

Appearing at Nottingham Crown Court today (Tuesday 5 April), he was jailed for five-and-a-half years.

He was also handed restraining orders banning him from contacting his victims again.

Work is also ongoing to recover the money he stole from his victims.

Detective Constable Mary Jones, of Nottinghamshire Police, led the investigation. She said: "I am delighted on behalf of all his victims that Saxby has finally been exposed for what he truly is - a devious and dishonest conman who sought to exploit and humiliate a series of wholly innocent women in one of the most appalling ways imaginable.

"The impact his behaviour and the subsequent police investigation has had on them has been extremely damaging and I am grateful to them for the bravery and dignity they have shown throughout this process.

"Saxby thought he could bully and manipulate each of them with impunity, but in Nottinghamshire Police and the wider criminal justice system he finally came up against people he could not control."