Activity centre manager in web paedophile ring jailed

Jonathan Garner-Harris, 37, a deputy director of the Marrick Priory centre in Marrick, near Richmond, North Yorkshire, was the ninth member of an international paedophile network to be dealt with by the courts.

He was investigated by Durham Police and pleaded guilty at Durham Crown Court to 20 offences.

His case was transferred to Portsmouth Crown Court where he was sentenced by Judge Roger Hetherington who heard a six-week trial involving other members of the ring which abused two young children.

Garner-Harris was jailed for four years concurrently for three charges of inciting a child sex offence and four months concurrently for each of 17 counts relating to indecent photos of children.

Ringleader Robert Hathaway, 37, of Tyseley Road, Portsmouth, Hampshire, was previously given an indeterminate sentence of 12 years along with his partner Melissa Noon, 30, who was jailed for four years.

The trial heard that the ring used a nudist website as a cover for their perversions.

The court was told that Garner-Harris, who appeared by video-link, was involved in internet chat with Hathaway during which he encouraged the Portsmouth-based offender to abuse the two young children.

Kerry Maylin, prosecuting, told the court that Garner-Harris pretended to be a woman and invented a daughter, aged between 12 and 14, in order to be accepted by other members of the nudist website who were based in the UK, Australia and America.

She said he had used computers at his parents’ home in Chester-le-Street, but also at Marrick Priory where he worked to carry out the explicit chat and to look at the indecent images.

She said that during interviews with police Garner-Harris said he had been acting out a “fantasy” and had not intended to hurt anyone and had shown remorse for his actions.

Amanda Rippon, defending, added: “He is a man who has devastated his good character.

“He was extremely well thought of, not only in his community but in his church.”

Sentencing Garner-Harris, Judge Hetherington said: “I accept that Robert Hathaway needed no specific encouragement from you to commit these sort of offences but your part in fuelling his offending in these chats was, along with others, an important contribution towards the abuse of these two young children.”

The Attorney General has applied to the Court of Appeal for permission to refer the sentences of Hathaway, Noon and a third defendant, Simon Hilton, as he believes their sentences may have been “unduly lenient”. Hilton, 29, of Wolsey Road, north London, was imprisoned for four years.