Chatroom paedophile who said he had 'a preference for children aged 0+' jailed

A UK man who left messages on an illicit paedophile chatroom saying that he had "a preference for children aged 0+" has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Raymond Taylor, 45, of Reading, pleaded guilty to 11 counts of making, and eight of distributing, indecent images of children. He streamed recorded images to the chat room and discussed his abuse fantasies with users, the NCA said Friday (26 January).

Devices found during searches of Taylor's house included a phone hidden in the drainpipe outside his window, three external hard drives and four computers.

The devices held a total of 529 indecent images of children, some of them in the most serious category used to grade such images. Computers Taylor had used for his job at a home security firm were among those which held the images, NCA investigators found.

He was made subject to a sexual harm prevention order and placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Experts found that he was a chatroom associate of 46-year-old Jon Page, a London man who was recently imprisoned for three-and-a-half years over indecent images of children and bestiality.

Taylor and Page streamed real-time footage to the chatroom of themselves engaged in sexual activity at the same time as Page streamed recordings of indecent images of children under the screen name "2UKpeds." Page used the name "wolfpupjohn" online.

"Offenders who swap indecent images online prolong the abuse of the children in the pictures," commented Martin Ludlow, NCA operations manager. "Unfortunately with the rise of digital technology, sharing and broadcasting indecent images of children in real time has never been easier, whether on the dark web or more conventional forms of social media.

"The NCA and its partners in law enforcement are wholly committed to tackling this threat and at all times the safety of children is our priority.

"We and our partners in policing are trained and equipped with specialist capabilities with which to detect these offenders and bring them to justice."