August 2023

Paedophile Battersea London teacher jailed for 12 years

A teacher from south east London who paid £65,000 to commission the sexual abuse of children as young as 7 has been jailed for 12 years.

Matthew Smith, 35, used the dark web to commission child abuse, encouraging men to lure children away from their family homes then send him footage of sexual abuse.   

Smith was previously deputy head at Thomas’s in Battersea, the £20,000 a year school which Prince George and Princess Charlotte attended.   

The teacher has pleaded guilty to 17 charges including encouraging the rape of a child under 13, causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, and arranging the sexual abuse of a child. 

When his home on Chesterfield Grove in East Dulwich was raided in November 2022 Smith told officers: “Clearly I have an addiction, probably in this area. I’m ashamed of who I am. I would do anything to be normal, anything.” 

Over 120,000 child sexual abuse images were found on Smith’s computers along with messages to men in India in which he encouraged them to rape and abuse children, prosecutor Martin Hooper said.  

One of the men he had commissioned to abuse children was someone he had groomed from a young age, the court heard.  

Smith offered to pay for the school fees of any young children the men could lure into their web of abuse.  

Between 2007 and 2014 Smith spent time working in orphanages and NGOs in India. 

Smith’s offending took place while he was living and working in Nepal. 

There is no evidence that Smith perpetrated any abuse against children in the UK or in Nepal.   

After Smith moved back to the UK and took up a teaching position, he posted an online advert looking to secure a flat share. 

In the advert he said he was a primary school teacher and could assist with childcare. He was arrested before he could be taken up on his offer. 

Investigators found evidence of potential offending by Smith while he was working in India and information has been shared with Indian police.

June 2023

Teacher paid £65,000 to commission the abuse of children in India

A former deputy head teacher of a primary school has pleaded guilty to paying and instructing teenagers in India to abuse younger children.

Matthew Smith, 34, from East Dulwich, was arrested by the National Crime Agency in November 2022, after investigators identified that he was sharing abuse material on the dark web.

Smith was online at the time of his arrest, speaking to a teenage boy living in India and asking him to send sexual images of a younger child, in return for money.

He also had dark web sites and forums open on his computer which were dedicated to child sexual abuse.

He was charged the following day with five offences, including causing the sexual exploitation of a child under 13, and remanded in custody.

NCA investigators interrogated chat logs and financial transactions and were able to establish that Smith had paid that same teenager, and another also based in India, £65,398 to abuse children over a five-year period.

Smith was living in Nepal and working at a school for the majority of this time. Prior to this, he spent various periods working in orphanages and NGOs across India between 2007-2014.

He moved back to the UK in July 2022 and began working at the primary school in London in September, where he was a deputy head teacher and head of pastoral care.

The chat logs showed that Smith would instruct the young men to perform sexual acts on boys and would send them images and videos as examples of ones he would like to receive in return.

He also gave one of them advice on how befriend children and build their trust with a view to abusing them.

Investigators found evidence of potential offending by Smith against children while he was working in India and information has been shared with relevant law enforcement partners.

There is no evidence to suggest he committed offences against children based in Nepal or the UK.

Officers recovered over 120,000 indecent images of children (IIOC) which Smith had saved on a laptop, SD card and on his phone.

Smith pleaded guilty to the initial offences in November 2022.

Last month, he was charged with a further 17 counts, including encouraging the rape of a child under 13, causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, and arranging the sexual abuse of a child.

He appeared at Southwark Crown Court today [20 June] where he pleaded guilty to the additional charges. He’ll be sentenced at the same court on 4 August 2023.