Britain's leading children's charities yesterday condemned the "leniency" of sentences handed down in the case of seven men convicted of trading thousands of indecent images of children and babies as part of the "Wonderland Club", the world's largest known Internet paedophile ring.
Judge Kenneth Macrae at Kingston Crown Court decided not to impose the maximum sentence of three years for conspiracy to distribute indecent images of children on the Internet, opting instead to sentence the men to prison terms ranging from one year to 30 months. He told the men that they had pandered "to the basest interests of man" and "exploited the vulnerable" but he could not ignore the fact that they had pleaded guilty. A new law that came into force last month allowing the courts to pass sentences of up to 10 years in paedophile cases could not be applied in the case because the men were arrested in 1998.
David Hines (30) from west Sussex, who said he believed he was in "a relationship" with some of the children and Ian Baldock (31) from east Sussex, were sentenced to 30 months. Antoni Skinner, from Gloucester, was sentenced to 18 months and Ahmed Ali (31) from south London, Andrew Barlow (25) from Milton Keynes and Gavin Seagers (29) from Kent, were sentenced to two years. Fredrick Stephens (46) from west London was sentenced to one year in prison. All the men had their names added to the sex offenders' register.
But NCH Action for Children, Barnardo's and other leading charities bitterly criticised the sentences, saying the court had sent the wrong message to sex offenders by failing to pass the current maximum sentence of three years for distributing indecent material. Mr John Carr, Internet adviser to NCH Action for Children, said: "The leniency displayed seems to say that this type of child sex abuse will be tolerated by today's society.
"British police are committing more, and better, resources to tackle Internet crime and the prevention of child sex abuse is now amongst their highest priorities. However, if this isn't reflected in sentencing then child sex abuse will continue to thrive on the Internet."
Dr Michelle Elliot, director of the children's charity, Kidscape, said she was "stupefied" by the court's decision. "You would get a longer sentence for accumulating masses of parking tickets or for burglary," she said.
The Wonderland Club was an international paedophile ring that operated for four years, demanding a horrific entrance fee from its 180 members. Club members believed they were "the cream of paedophiles" and to join members had to provide 10,000 indecent images of children for other paedophiles to view on the Internet. But the horror did not stop there. Members were invited to download images showing the rape of boys and girls and when 107 members were arrested in an international police operation in September 1998 police discovered up to 750,000 indecent pictures and 1,800 computerised videos of children suffering sexual abuse.
All the men in court had used assumed names on the Internet to conceal their identity and Hines was described as the Wonderland Club's senior operator for Europe. He and Baldock had collected more than 50,000 indecent images of children and Baldock had also downloaded an indecent image of a three-month-old baby.
The international investigation to break the ring was the largest in policing history, involving officers from 13 countries tracing 180 paedophiles and 1,236 victims, of whom only 17 have been formally identified. The Wonderland Club was uncovered after the arrest of a man from California who had raped his daughter's 10-year-old school-friend in front of a camera, which relayed the images to subscribers over the Internet.