Paedophiles jailed for web plot

2007-02-06 09:08

London - Three British men who conspired over the internet to rape two young sisters were on Monday jailed for a combined total of 27 years in the first instance of a conviction for such a serious offence based solely on internet exchanges.

The trio, who met for the first time after they were arrested, posed a "serious risk of physical and psychological harm to children", presiding Judge Geoffrey Rivlin said as he was passing sentence on them in a London court.

Police only found out about their plans when David Beaven, a 42-year-old greeting card salesman, got cold feet about their plot and walked into a police station in Bournemouth, southern England, and told them what was going on.

Beaven was sentenced to an indeterminate time in jail with a minimum term of 11 years, while 41-year-old film make-up artist Alan Hedgcock and unemployed Robert Mayers, 42, got similar sentences with a minimum of eight years each.

While passing sentence, Rivlin also said that the chatroom logs of the trio's discussions were of the "most lurid and disgusting kind".

"You were drooling over the prospect to take these children into the woods and rape them. These logs were further spiced, if that is the right word, by the swapping of pornographic images of young children," he said.

"All three of you were found to be in possession of very many photographs of children, some of them ... very shocking."

- AFP