August 2020

Paedophile dad shares images of his naked daughters in child abuse chatroom online

A paedophile taxi driver from Exeter who distributed pictures of his partially naked young daughters onto sinister online chatrooms ran by perverts has avoided a prison sentence

The 38-year-old man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, photographed both his nine and 14-year-old daughters when they were sleeping, pulling back the bedclothes to show their underwear or naked private parts.

He also exchanged images of the younger girl’s knickers, swimwear and clothing onto two chat sites and asked for indecent images of children in return.

The police were able to catch the pervert, from Devon, because officers infiltrated the chat groups on two media platforms and saw the images he had sent from his phone.

They alerted child protection teams at Devon and Cornwall police who were able to find the man by tracing a play park in Exeter where some of the less explicit images were taken.

Police checked all those in the area until they found the one in the pictures. The images were time and date marked with enabled detective to find CCTV from the exact time and see the father and his daughter.

They raided his home and were able to compare furnishings and wallpaper with the background in the photographs.

The man was jailed for 15 months, suspended for two years at Exeter Crown Court, after he admitted production, possession and making and distributing of indecent images of children.

The man was put on the sex offenders’ register and made subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for ten years. The prevention order forbids any unsupervised contact with girl and enables the police to monitor his use of the internet.

He was also put on a sex offenders treatment course.

During sentencing, the judge said: “The very serious aggravating factor in this case is that the victims were your own children. There was an extremely serious breach of trust by a father to his children.

“You told the police you were protecting your family but you were doing precisely the opposite. You were exploiting your children and not protecting them at all.”

Miss Felicity Payne, prosecuting, said undercover officers at the National Crime Agency detected a man who was discussing child abuse and exchanging images in two chatrooms in November 2019.

He used aliases including Devonmad2021 on the Wicca and Discord sites but at that stage police could not trace the mobile phone which was sending the images.

They asked for help from police in Devon and he was traced because a trampoline park in the background of some of his images was identified.

Miss Payne said: “His identification can be put down to good old-fashioned police work, investigating the images and finding the location of a trampoline park where they were taken.

“The CCTV was viewed and he was identified from the date and time when his photographs were taken. Police went to his hoe address and seized his Samsung phone.

“The inside of the property was compared to other photographs and matched those distributed online in terms of the wallpaper and other characteristics.

“Officers were also able to compare the young girl with the images, even though her head had been cropped out in and it was confirmed it was his own nine-year-old daughter. Items of clothing also confirmed he had taken the images.”

There were a total of 90 images on his phone, including 32 of his daughters. He had shared seven of these online including one showing her private parts which was taken when she was sleeping.

Mr Will Parkhill, said his client had lost his marriage, his family, his home and his taxi driving job as a result of his actions