Woman paid almost £3,000 to sexually abuse young girl online is jailed for six years

Christine Callaghan, 33, used Skype to send the harrowing footage to a fellow child sex offender.

Callaghan, of Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, admitted distributing category A (the most serious) live streamed videos, distributing a category B indecent live streamed video; and two counts of causing or inciting a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

On top of the jail term, she was also handed a sexual harm prevention order and put on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

She was caught following a National Crime Agency investigation into the actions of Jodie Little, 30, originally from Huddersfield, who was jailed for 12 years and four months in August this year for sexually abusing children online.

In July 2018, the NCA became aware of Little sexually abusing children under the online names ‘Devil Bitch 666’ and ‘DomTabooSlut’ on an adult services website from her home in northern Cyprus.

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She was returned to the UK and admitted nine offences.

She was convicted of eight of them using Section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 – legislation designed to prosecute British nationals in the UK for crimes committed abroad.

The investigation generated new leads, and led the NCA to a customer of Little's, automotive engineer Dean Petley, 30, of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.

Online chat found on Little’s devices showed Petley had asked her to perform sex acts in front of young children and that he paid her £750 from January 2017 to February 2018 to see her sexually abuse two victims.

Little sent Petley 10 electronic files, one of which showed her sexually abusing a very young girl and talking graphically about the child being raped.

He admitted 11 charges and was jailed in November for eight years.

Petley was rearrested in May this year after further evidence - linking him to Callaghan - was found on an encrypted hard drive at his home.

It contained screenshots of conversations with Callaghan over two years and full facial images of her abusing the victim with a small window of Petley watching it.

Callaghan discussed with Petley what she would do for money and he instructed her how to abuse the victim.

The hard drive also contained a video of Callaghan abusing the young girl; and screenshots showed that on at least 10 different dates over three years, between 2016 and 2018, she performed sexual activity in front of the victim. Petley had paid her £2,285 to carry out the abuse.

Matt Hall, NCA operations manager, said: “These were horrendous crimes that Callaghan carried out for money. Her and Petley’s prosecutions were possible because of our determination to ensure Jodie Little faced justice.

“Little might have been abroad but distance is not a barrier for the NCA in pursuing UK child sex offenders wherever they are.

“These crimes are an example of what the NCA is seeing more and more, with increasingly worsening cyber-enabled child sexual offending.

“The NCA knows that the scale and severity of offending against children are worsening. We and UK police arrest around 500 child sex offenders a month and safeguard about 700 children a month.

“There is no greater priority for us than protecting children.”

Child Protection Charity The Lucy Faithfull Foundation runs the Stop It Now! helpline which offers confidential advice to anyone concerned about their own or someone else’s behaviour towards children. If you are concerned a crime has been committed against a child contact your local police. For advice on child safety visit Thinkuknow.co.uk