UK pedophile abused poor Malaysian children while volunteering as English teacher
One of Britain's worst pedophiles faces a life sentence after admitting a string of sex attacks on children as young as six months, and sharing pictures and video of the abuse on the internet.
Richard Huckle, 30, who was raised in a middle-class Christian family, faced a total of 91 charges including against 23 children for offences between 2006 and 2014, a London court heard.
Many of these were conducted in Kuala Lumpur, where he targeted an impoverished Christian community in Malaysia posing as a photographer and English teacher to groom his victims, aged between six months and 12 years.
Mr Huckle kept a diary of his attacks on children, listing 191 children on his “scorecard”, many of which he abused while volunteering in Malaysia.
He treated his crimes like a game and gloated online about not being caught.
He was also in the process of publishing a pedophile guide on how to abuse children from poor Asian families without being detected, entitled Pedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide, The Times UK reported.
Mr Huckle, a freelance photographer, took pictures and video footage of himself abusing the children, which he uploaded to the dark web - a hard to access part of the Internet often used for illegal activity.
He also set up a crowdfunding website which he used to earn money from the child sex abuse.
Investigators found more than 20,000 indecent images on his computer, but they were unable to access six password protected heavily encrypted files on his computer, believed to be holding more evidence of child sexual abuse.
Graphic details of dozens of sexual offences by Mr Huckle emerged for the first time Wednesday as his sentencing hearing started in London.
Prosecutor Brian O'Neill said the abuse often included taking photographs of children and putting them online.
"Those images of child abuse will inevitably have been shared with other pedophiles and therefore been the subject of uncontrolled worldwide distribution," Mr O'Neill added.
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The judge read out a disturbing post Mr Huckle shared to a forum on darknet 18 months before his arrest, in which he wrote he enjoyed living in South Asia because 'the kids are adorable and their families are easy to get along with' so 'you can easily play along and do what you want, within limits, with their kids', The Times reported.
“It’s quite amazing to have stuck with the same child lover for so many years and I hope, from the images you have seen [you’ve enjoyed watching her grow,” one of his forum posts stated.
“It’s not often in child porn you can compare the bodies of a 5yo and a 12yo that are the same girl.”
Mr Huckle was arrested at London Gatwick airport in December 2014 as he came home to Britain from Malaysia for Christmas.
He initially denied all 91 charges but later admitted 71 of them during a string of further hearings.
The charges include 14 counts of rape and 31 of sexual assault.
Judge Peter Rook said he was considering a life sentence in the case, which he said was one of "exceptional gravity".
Huckle, of Ashford in southeast England, was appearing at London's Central Criminal Court, also known as the Old Bailey, for a sentencing hearing expected to conclude on Friday.
Reporting of the case was restricted until now because investigators wanted to make sure victims were safe from other online sexual predators.
