Britain’s worst pedophile arrested in sting by Queensland squad
A MAN dubbed “Britain’s worst pedophile” was arrested after a world-first sting by Queensland child protection squad Task Force Argos.
Crime & Justice
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A MAN dubbed “Britain’s worst pedophile” was arrested after a world-first sting by Queensland child protection squad Task Force Argos.
Richard Huckle was last night sentenced in the UK lfor raping and sexually assaulting 23 children from impoverished families in Malaysia and Cambodia over nine years.
He was given 22 life sentences, and will serve at least 25 years.
Huckle’s victims were between six months and 12 years old, and it is believed he abused 200 children before his arrest at Britain’s Gatwick Airport in 2014.
His arrest is the latest to stem from an Argos investigation into infamous South Australian pedophile Shannon McCoole, The Courier-Mail can reveal.
McCoole was a Families SA carer who abused children as young as six months old while running a 45,000-member global pedophile network.
After McCoole was arrested, Queensland detectives secretly took over his online identity while they picked off the network’s upper echelon.
The network’s name has been suppressed in Australia but has been called “the KidClub” in previous media reports.
Posing as McCoole, the Queensland detectives had open access to his network.
Huckle, 30, a freelance photographer from Kent, was using a pseudonym but Argos was able to identify him.
Queensland police then alerted Britain’s National Crime Agency to Huckle’s crimes, identity and plans to return to the UK for Christmas.
Huckle had written a depraved 60-page manual, Paedophiles and Poverty: Child Lover’s Guide, and wrote online and in notes on his encrypted laptop about his access to children.
“I’d hit the jackpot, a 3yo girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care,” he wrote.
More than 20,000 horrific images of abuse were found on his computer, and he had written about wanting to become a foster parent.
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