Guardian News and Media/London
Seven members of a paedophile gang were involved in the rape and abuse of babies, toddlers and children in attacks that were streamed on the Internet and seen on every continent.
The sex ring - described as having “tentacles that go round the world” - preyed on the families of the children they targeted, in one case grooming a mother and father before their baby was born.
Members would frequently travel long distances to carry out the attacks together or watch the abuse over the Internet, often using the dark web, if only one of them had access to a victim.
Online chat revealed that members of the gang, who lived across the UK, would offer advice and guidance to others on drugging their young victims.
Seven men, aged between 30 and 51 and including three convicted sex offenders, were brought to justice following an investigation led by the National Crime Agency.
The details can be reported in full for the first time after the trial of two of them, John Denham, 49, and Matthew Stansfield, 34, concluded at Bristol crown court with their convictions. Denham was found guilty of conspiracy to sexually assault a child under 13. Stansfield was convicted of two charges of conspiracy to rape a child under 13. The others - Robin Hollyson, 30; Christopher Knight, 35; Adam Toms, 33; David Harsley, 51, and Matthew Lisk, 32 - pleaded guilty earlier to the charges they faced.
Hollyson, who was previously known as Robin Fallick, Stansfield and Harsley are convicted sex offenders while Denham, who changed his name from Benjamin Harrop, was a respected youth football coach.
In total they faced more than 30 charges, including the rape of a child, conspiracy to rape a child, sexual activity with a child and administering a substance with intent against three victims - a baby, a toddler and a pre-school-age child. Investigators, who spoke before the verdicts, believe there are other victims.
The gang hid behind a veil of respectability with careers and families to habitually target children under the age of five in Yorkshire, and the south-east and south-west of England.
Robert Davies, prosecuting, told the jury in the trial of Denham and Stansfield: “This prosecution will take you into a world you wished did not exist. The evidence exposes the shocking interest a group of men had in sexually abusing babies, toddlers or pre-school children.
Police described the men as “monsters in disguise”, working together to commit some of the most “vile and depraved” child sex offences the authorities have ever seen.
The NCA, which led the investigation, said the men met after discussing their sexual interests in young children on legitimate social media and adult sex sites. The gang was described as “incredibly skilled” at grooming victims’ families, even striking up relationships with pregnant women to abuse their babies.
The men, who did not know each other outside of their involvement in the abuse, led outwardly respectable lives and concealed their activities from the outside world until they were unmasked.
Graham Gardner, deputy director of investigations at the NCA, said: “They don’t stand out as monsters, but they are monsters in disguise. We rarely see criminal behaviour involving the sexual abuse of children to this degree. This is serious organised crime at its worst. The depravity of these men appeared to know no bounds and is without doubt as vile as we have seen.”
The NCA launched its investigation, codenamed Operation Voicer, last September after Toms contacted police and admitted he had abused a child. Their inquiries led to the unmasking of the ring operating across the UK, which had links to other paedophiles across the world.
