A man has been jailed for distributing extreme child pornography following an investigation by detectives from the Met’s Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Unit in Camden.
Ethan Payne, 19 [2.10.03] of Tollington Road, N7 appeared on Tuesday 2 May at Snaresbrook Crown court charged with the following:
- Three counts of possession of indecent image of a child
- Two counts of possession of extreme pornographic image / images portraying an act of intercourse / oral sex with a dead / alive animal
- Four counts of distributing an indecent photograph / pseudo-photograph of a child
- One count of being an offender 18 or over causing / inciting a boy under 13 to engage in sexual activity.
- One count of encouraging/ assisting in the commission of an either way offence believing it will be committed – Serious Crime Act 2007.
Payne, who is a student in Microbiology and works part-time in a bakery, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment with an extension period of three years. He has also been issued with a ten year Sexual Harm Prevention order and will remain on the sex offenders register for life.
He had previously pleaded guilty to 10 of 11 charges at the same court on 15 November 2022. One charge of possession of an extreme pornographic image was later dropped as it was considered to be a duplicate offence.
Police Constable Lydia Kelly investigating said: “This has been a difficult case for everyone involved. The material we recovered during this investigation is some of the most extreme and disturbing that our unit has ever seen.”
In 2022 police received three separate referrals for uploads of indecent images of children on Snapchat, Instagram and Discord.
The material was uploaded from 2021 to 2022 and were linked to Ethan Payne.
Detectives obtained a warrant and on 12 October 2022 arrested Payne at his home address on suspicion of distributing indecent images of children.
His laptop and mobile phone were seized during the search of his home. The material on the devices was disturbing in the extreme showing Payne to be a dangerous sex offender obsessed with necrophilia, paedophilia, animal abuse, murder and torture.
On the laptop and mobile phone combined, officers found images in categories A to C, with A being the most extreme. There were 430 Category A; 247 Category B; 125 Category C and 157 extreme pornography images.
The investigation also uncovered sinister exchanges online where Payne interacted with other offenders sharing experiences, fantasies and extreme pornography. When telling other offenders what he was looking for, he repeatedly stated ‘No teens – only babies’ and spoke about having sexually abused dogs.
Payne had been careful to hide his offending using a sophisticated application that encrypted his exchanges and automatically deleted the evidence on a regular basis.
However, significant material and data was still found on the devices which evidenced offences committed between 24 September 2021 and 24 July 2022.
In his police interview, Payne initially denied any sexual attraction to children, but this was hugely undermined by the various chat logs where he had described in detail the horrific acts he wanted to commit against infants and animals, some of which were further evidenced with video footage.
PC Kelly added: “There is no doubt that Payne is a danger to children and to animals. He is focused in his depravity on the most vulnerable and the sharing of his material online has fuelled other paedophiles. It is right that he has been jailed, his abhorrent behaviour has no place in society.”