U.K. 'worst pedophile' admits to 71 counts of sex abuse of Malaysian kids
The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, otherwise known as Old Bailey, is conducting the sentencing hearing of a sex offender who had admitted to 71 of 91 charges of child sexual abuse filed against him.
"You have pleaded guilty to 71 counts," said Judge Peter Rook QC at an earlier hearing, as quoted by the Mirror. "As you know these amount to sexual offending of the utmost gravity and as a result I am considering life sentences in your case."
According to the BBC, 30-year-old Richard Huckle, a freeland photographer from Ashford in Kent, admitted to having sexually abused children, from six months to 12 years, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 2006 to 2014. The 91 charges filed are in relation to 23 children, mostly from poor communties in the Southeast Asian country.
Huckle first visited Malaysia during a teaching gap year when he was 18 or 19. He pretended to be a Christian and groomed children while engaging in voluntary work. He was arrested by the National Crime Agency at the Gatwick Airport in December 2014, but he was released on bail on the condition that he stay at his parents' home. It was then he admitted to his mother that he had sex with kids from three to 13 years old.
"His mother was both extremely upset and extremely angry. She and his father called the police and asked them to take their son away," said prosecutor Brian O'Neill QC, according to the BBC. "Both have made witness statements in support of this prosecution."
Huckle had boasted of his crimes in "Love Zone," a pedophile site in the dark web, which is encrypted and protected by software and passwords. There, he reportedly said that "impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle-class Western kids." He might have abused up to 200 kids in all, with 191 children listed on Huckle's "Paedopoints" ledger.
Authorities have discovered more than 20,000 indecent images in his computer, along with videos showing Huckle abusing kids, both boys and girls. There is also an encrypted manuscript for "Paedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide," a pedophile manual he wrote that he was reportedly going to publish in the dark web, as well as notes that detail sex acts, including rape. According to The Guardian, there are still six-password-protected files that authorities have not been able to access, which could mean that more images of sexual abuse of children are still hidden.
"There is no doubt that the quantity and quality of the offending of this particular individual would have increased had he not been arrested," said Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre head of operations Tony Cook, reported the Mirror. "He is only 30 years of age, so we can only imagine what sort of offending he had in front of him."
Huckle pleaded guilty to 31 counts of sexual assault, 14 counts of rape, among numerous other offenses. The sentencing hearing started on Wednesday and is expected to conclude on Friday.