A paedophile who commissioned child abuse in America from his UK home has been locked up.
Craig Chittenden was detained after FBI special agents in Dallas, Texas alerted Durham Constabulary officers about his online behaviour.
Police attended his Willington home in March 2020 to carry out a search warrant, with the offender admitting he had ‘accessed some images’ that could be ‘found on his phone’, Chronicle Live reports.
Several devices were seized from the property and examined by the forensics team, revealing that that 33-year-old had been in contact with other predators in the US and inciting sexual acts on young children.
Chittenden claimed that he had no interest in children but admitted being sexually aroused by the 1,000 indecent images found on his devices.
He was charged in October last year with making indecent images, possession of extreme pornographic images, distribution of indecent images, facilitating the commission of a child sex offence and inciting sexual exploitation of a child.
He received a 12-year custodial sentence at Durham Crown Court on Friday.
The judge commented how emotionless and detached Chittenden was at sentencing and told him he was a "dangerous offender".
Digital online investigator DC Georgina Lewis said: “The Digital Investigations team work incredibly hard to protect young people from harm and bring perpetrators of child sexual exploitation to justice and I hope today’s result demonstrates that.
“Chittenden is a sexual predator who tried to hide his crimes online and encourage like-minded individuals in the USA to carry out sex acts on children.
“This was a complex investigation but thanks to the collaborative investigative efforts between Texas Police and ourselves he was left with no option but to plead guilty.”
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