22 life sentences for English paedophile

Richard Huckle, who pled guilty to the abuse of up to 200 children, has been handed 22 life sentences with a minimum term of 25 years.

The freelance photographer, from Ashford in Kent, England, admitted an unprecedented number of offences against children aged between six months and 12 years from 2006 to 2014.

He shared a stream of pictures and videos of his rapes and assaults on children with other paedophiles worldwide on the dark web.

He even tried to make a business out of his horrific crimes by crowd-funding the release of the images. He was working on a guide to help paedophiles abuse children and get away with it when he was arrested.

Twenty-three children from poor Christian communities in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur were identified in 71 charges, although a “Pedopoints ledger” Huckle compiled indicated the real number of victims was much higher.

Huckle stood in prayer as he was sentenced by Judge Peter Rook QC. As he was being led away, a woman in the public gallery at the Old Bailey shouted, “1,000 deaths is too good for you.”

Huckle first visited Malaysia on a teaching gap year when he was 19 and later used an English teaching qualification and his professed Christianity to gain access to dozens of victims in poor communities there.

Investigators managed to recover more than 20,000 indecent images of children from Huckle's computer, even though he refused to give them any passwords.

But they were unable to access some encrypted files, which are believed to contain "numerous" depraved images, as well as the names of a large number of unknown potential victims.

As well as the draft of Huckle's paedophile manual, they found his "Pedopoints ledger" in which he awarded himself marks for acts of depravity with children.