Counter-Strike clan leader accused of paedophilia

By Ellie Gibson Published 8 March, 2006

And arrested by Canadian police.

A 52 year old Canadian man has been arrested by police following allegations that he exploited his role as a Counter-Strike clan manager to solicit nude pictures of minors.

According to GotFrag.com, George "Spike" Finley of London, Ontario allegedly recruited boys aged between 10 and 13 to his clan, the Green Berets, telling them to lie about their ages to other gamers and the clan's leader, James O'Connor.

Finley is accused of asking the boys for nude pictures of themselves via the Ventrilo voice chat program. The boys allege that they were offered computer hardware, cash and clan leadership roles in return, and claim that on refusing Finley's requests, they were dropped from the clan.

"Those children would come to me with crazy accusations such as ‘Spike offered me $5000 for naked pictures,'" O’Connor told GamerTag.

“We knew George was poor, so this seemed far fetched. George went on to tell us that this person was just making up the meanest things possible to get back at him for being removed from the team. This whole thing about George possibly being a paedophile who likes children of the same sex seemed almost inconceivable. I didn't believe it at first.”

The boys began to record their conversations with Finley, and passed the recordings on to O'Connor. Finley was then dropped from the clan and reported to police.

According to the London Free Press, Finley has a prior conviction for sexually abusing a 13 year old boy in 1998, for which he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Last June, he was given a four month custodial sentence for possession of child pornography. He has now been arrested and charged with breach of probation for contacting a child through a chatroom or online meeting place.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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