Paedophile posed as girl online to lure boys into filming sex acts

An Essex paedophile who posed as a teenage girl online to dupe young boys into performing sex acts on their pets and younger siblings has been jailed for eight years.

Connor Allen-Howe (21), was caught after the Colorado Police Department in the US contacted Essex Police.

A 13-year-old boy in the US had been encouraged to film a sex act with his pet dog on Skype, and was in return sent images of a naked female - the person Allen-Howe had pretended to be.

Allen-Howe admitted 31 sexual offences and was sentenced to eight years in prison at Chelmsford Crown Court on Tuesday, the CPS said.

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There were 22 victims in countries around the world, including the UK, US, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Iceland, Ireland and Wales.

Two of the victims were just 12 years old and the majority were aged under 16, the CPS said.

"This case is a shocking warning of the dangers that exist online, not only of how easy it is for a stranger to make contact with young boys, but also to persuade them to carry out sexual acts on camera," said Michelle Brown, for the CPS.

“In some instances, these acts were committed on children younger than themselves, or involved pet dogs.

Sexualised world

“Mr Allen-Howe is responsible for luring these young victims into a sexualised world where perverted behaviour was encouraged and recorded for his gratification.

“Online abuse such as this is extremely serious and, as the sentence imposed demonstrates, it carries a significant sentence.”

Allen-Howe, of Gardeners Road, Halstead, Essex, began offending in 2012 at the age of 16. The offending ended in June 2015.

He posed as a teenage girl aged 16 or 17, made random contact with young boys online and encouraged them to chat with him on Skype.

Five Skype accounts

He had created five separate Skype accounts and had collated and stored images of a girl in different stages of undress and performing various sexual acts in readiness for sharing, in return for indecent images and video footage.

Det Sgt Clayton Ford, of Essex Police, said: "If the teenager from Colorado had not come forward to local officers there, then we may not have known about the extent of the offending and many more children may have become victims of sexual exploitation."

He said the case “highlights the dangers our children face in talking to people online that they do not know personally”.

Press Association