Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
 

News:

SMF - Just Installed!


Author Topic: Paedophile Richard Huckle [Certified Disgusting]  (Read 6617 times)

Offline greentara

  • Administrator
  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1782
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • My detailed profile
Paedophile Richard Huckle [Certified Disgusting]
« on: October 15, 2019, 10:00:10 PM »
Richard Huckle

14 May 1986
Ashford, Kent, UK
Died    13 October 2019 (aged 33)
HMP Full Sutton, East Riding of Yorkshire, UK
Cause of death    Stab wounds
Criminal charge    Convicted of 71 counts of serious sexual assault against children ranging from 6 months to 12 years old. The charges include:

  •     14 counts of rape of a child under the age of 12
  •     5 counts of digital penetration of a child under the age of 12
  •     31 counts of sexual assault against a child under the age of 12
  •     6 counts of grooming a child
  •     13 counts of taking/making indecent images of children related to the 20,000 images on his laptop
  •     1 count of advertising indecent images of children
  •     1 count of arranging or facilitating child sex offences.

A further 20 offences lay on file.[1]
Criminal penalty    22 life sentences with a minimum term of 25 years.[2]
Criminal status    Died in prison

Richard William Huckle (14 May 1986 – 13 October 2019) was a convicted British serial sex offender. He was arrested by Britain's National Crime Agency after a tip-off from Australian Police and convicted of 71 counts of serious sexual assaults against children while posing as a teacher, photographer and devout Christian in Malaysia.[3]

Huckle has been described as one of Britain's worst ever paedophiles, despite being only 28 years old at the time of his arrest.[4][5][6] On 6 June 2016, he was given 22 life sentences with a minimum prison term of 25 years before being eligible to apply for parole.[2]

On 13 October 2019, Huckle was stabbed to death in his cell at HMP Full Sutton.[7]
Contents

    1 Early life
    2 Time in Malaysia
    3 Sexual offences
        3.1 Initial arrest
        3.2 Background of arrest
        3.3 Family confession and re-arrest
        3.4 Remand and trial
        3.5 Extraterritorial jurisdiction
    4 Sentencing
    5 Aftermath and criticism
    6 Death
    7 References
    8 External links

Early life

Huckle was born into a middle-class family in Ashford, Kent, on 14 May 1986.[citation needed] He was educated at the Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone, where he was described as "a bit of a loner, but nothing out of the ordinary" by friends.[citation needed] At the age of 16, he took part in a month-long expedition to visit a school in Namibia[8] before leaving the Harvey Grammar School to study at the nearby South Kent College.[9]

Huckle was a regular worshipper at Ashford Baptist Church, where he was described as a quiet man.[10] He was also a member of a church in London, which he continued to attend up until the time of his re-arrest in January 2015.[11]
Time in Malaysia

After leaving education, Huckle spent a gap year in Malaysia from 2005 to 2006.[12] He returned regularly, helping out at local churches and among local communities, before moving there permanently in 2010.[citation needed]

Huckle enrolled onto a short CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) course with the British Council[13] before starting work as a freelance photographer working in local communities around Kuala Lumpur. He also enrolled onto an IT course with a local university, hoping to further his career and status within the community.[14]

In addition to Malaysia, where all of the crimes he was convicted of occurred, and Cambodia, which was also mentioned in the trial, Huckle travelled extensively around south-east Asia to countries including Singapore, Laos and India.[citation needed] It has been revealed that, while in India, he persuaded a pastor to invite him to an orphanage in Bangalore to take photos and make videos with the children, posing as a teacher in order to gain trust.[15]


Sexual offences
Initial arrest

On 19 December 2014, Huckle was arrested by officers from Britain's National Crime Agency at London's Gatwick Airport and questioned on suspicion of a number of serious offences against children.[16]. His arrest followed an earlier tip-off from Task Force Argos, a highly specialised branch of Australia's Queensland Police Service responsible for the investigation of on-line child exploitation and abuse. Huckle initially refused to answer officers' questions and was bailed under the condition that he stay at his parents' house, while his camera, laptop and computer hard drives were seized.[citation needed]
Background of arrest

Police officers from Task Force Argos had been aware of a network of paedophiles operating on a dark web network called The Love Zone (TLZ) for some time. They noticed one member who always made posts using the unusual greeting "hiyas" and had a distinctive freckle on one of his fingers.[16] Officers explored the Internet and social media, and eventually found a Facebook page matching the profile of the individual they were looking for, including the greeting and freckle. The profile was fake but photos of a vehicle led police to Shannon McCoole, a care worker from Adelaide. A warrant was issued for the arrest of McCoole. Upon entering his house, police discovered that McCoole, who was subsequently sentenced to 35 years in prison,[17] was online and running his dark website at the time.[16]

Police assumed the identity of McCoole and ran his site, which has since been closed down, in an unusual move in order to catch other paedophiles. In running the site, police rescued 85 children from ongoing abuse and arrested hundreds.[18] One member that stood out was Huckle, due to the number of children he had abused and the attitude of his posts. After discovering his real identity, and exploring the open Internet, they discovered that he was due to return to the United Kingdom shortly to spend Christmas with his family and then immediately alerted the National Crime Agency, who arrested him when he arrived in the UK.[19]
Family confession and re-arrest
   
This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful.
Find sources: "Richard Huckle" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Huckle had been granted bail under the conditions that he live at his parents' address whilst investigations were ongoing. Huckle had no criminal record and was in no positions of responsibility concerning minors. The police therefore after interviewing him released him temporarily, as it would take time to analyse and retrieve evidence from seized computer equipment. In his initial police interview, Huckle made no comment throughout. When out on bail, he was confronted by his parents about the allegations, to which he claimed his innocence. Huckle later admitted to the allegations, at which point his parents refused to allow him to remain in the house and he returned to police custody.[20]


Remand and trial

After leaving his parents' house Huckle was re-arrested and charged with 91 counts including creation and possession of child pornography, rape of a child under the age of 12, digital penetration, child abuse, and facilitating the commission of child sexual offences by creating a paedophile manual. He was denied bail by the police and remanded to court where his latest application for bail was also denied, Huckle was now in prison custody, initially at HMP Lewes before, due to the severity of the charges, being transferred to HMP Belmarsh in London to await trial.[21]

At an initial hearing at the Old Bailey, in January 2016, Huckle pleaded not guilty to all 91 charges,[22] which took over an hour to read in court, and prosecutors started to prepare three separate trials as they did not believe a jury should be subjected to all of the graphic evidence that would be presented in a single trial.[23] In April, during a preliminary trial hearing, Huckle pleaded guilty to 71 of the 91 charges he was facing after a request to watch all of the evidence against him in court.[4] As a result of his confession, prosecutors decided not to pursue a prosecution against the remaining 20 charges, and asked that they lie on file, in order to spare a jury the horror of having to watch graphic images and videos of child abuse since the 71 charges which Huckle admitted to would be sufficient for a lengthy sentence.[citation needed]

During the hearings, the full scale of Huckle's crimes became apparent for the first time. Prosecutors, led by Brian O'Neill QC,[5] showed evidence of a long line of horrific crimes that started during Huckle's gap year in 2006 and continued for eight to nine years until he was apprehended in 2014. They included rape of children under the age of 12, possession and distribution of child pornography, creation of child pornography, child abuse, creating a paedophile manual entitled "Paedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide", digital penetration of a child under the age of 12, and raising money for his activities via a crowd-funding website.[24] His victims ranged in age from 6 months to 12 years old; one was abused while wearing a nappy, and another was abused for a number of years between the ages of 5 and 12. Huckle belonged to a website called The Love Zone on the dark web, which is obscured from general discovery and only accessible by anonymised means. On the site, he shared photos of his crimes with other members.[25] He boasted about his crimes to other paedophiles, posting such comments as "Hit the jackpot, a three-year-old girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care" and "impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle-class kids".[26] In total, prosecutors unveiled 29 victims and over 20,000 photos, but believe there could be up to 200 victims all over Southeast Asia and thousands more photos in encrypted areas of Huckle's laptop, which authorities have so far[when?] been unable to access.[27]

The hearings revealed some of the stratagems Huckle employed to procure victims, such as taking children out on day trips from orphanages and escorting them home from their own birthday party. Huckle had even talked about marrying one of his young victims so that he could set up a foster home and abuse "a cycle of children" who would pass through his home and turn paedophilia into a full-time job.[27] Huckle also created a ledger of his abuses and where he scored the scale of abuse each victim suffered.[20] It was from this ledger that the estimated number of children abused, 200, was derrived, although so far authorities have only discovered photographic evidence of the abuse of 29 children due to Huckle refusing to give officers the passwords for encrypted areas of his hard drives.


Extraterritorial jurisdiction

Huckle was prosecuted under Section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which allows British nationals to be tried and convicted in the United Kingdom for child sex crimes committed while overseas in an effort to prevent child sex tourism,[28] a stratagem known as extraterritorial jurisdiction and a move welcomed by child protection charities.[4][29]

It is a rarely used section of the Act: while no official tally is kept, it is believed[by whom?] that Huckle is only the seventh person to be prosecuted under the measure, and that his crimes are the most serious to be prosecuted under it.[11][30]
Sentencing

Huckle's sentencing hearing began at the Old Bailey on 1 June 2016 and lasted until 3 June 2016, with the sentence itself being passed on 6 June 2016. At the start of the hearing, the judge stated that Huckle should expect to go to prison for a very long time, as he was considering multiple life sentences due to the gravity of the offences committed.[31]

During the sentencing hearing, Huckle's lawyer, Philip Sapsford QC, read a statement from Huckle where he blamed his crimes on his immaturity:[6]

    I really understand and acknowledge the true scale of damage it caused to the Malaysian community. I had hoped to escape this mundane life of solitude in the UK yet was overwhelmed by the attention I received in Malaysia. I completely misjudged the affections I received from these children. My low self-esteem and lack of confidence with women was no excuse for me to use these children as an outlet. I am open and eager to rehabilitate from this offending behaviour. I don't want to become a martyr to sex tourism in Malaysia. This was all my doing as a consequence of my immaturity and I'm truly remorseful.
    — Richard Huckle, A statement read on his behalf by his defence team.[6][32]

Sapsford continued by asking the judge to take into consideration his client's young age, his claims of remorse, and the fact that he has no previous convictions. He also quoted from a psychiatric report that said Huckle had limited sexual experience with women and suffered depression as a teenager. He also stated that, despite the mitigating circumstances, this is the most extensive case of child sex crimes that he has ever been involved in.[6]

It was also noted during the hearing, in a statement made by the prosecution, how convictions were only sought against crimes for which there was complete photographic evidence. It was noted how Huckle's ledger contained details of 200 children that had been abused but that they have been unable to access certain encrypted sections of his hard drive in order to obtain evidence.[6]

At the Old Bailey on 6 June 2016, Judge Peter Rook QC sentenced Huckle to life imprisonment on 22 counts with a minimum prison term of 25 years before being eligible to apply for parole.[30] Before passing down the sentence, the judge stated that Huckle carried out a campaign of rape and was driven by his own sexual gratification:[2][33]

    You have pleaded guilty to as many as 71 sexual offences. It is very rare indeed that a judge has to sentence sexual offending by one person on such a scale as this. In my view, you may well harbour feelings of regret but there is no feeling of genuine remorse in this case.
    — Judge Peter Rook QC, 6 June 2016

Aftermath and criticism

The National Crime Agency received criticism from the Malaysian Government, as well as a number of child protection charities in Malaysia, for their handling of the case. Officers from the NCA travelled to Malaysia to engage local charities, who performed child protection workshops in the community where Huckle lived, but they were kept in the dark about the gravity of his crimes. The Malaysian Government stated that they would like further details of the victims so they can offer counselling.[34] On 4 June 2016, the Attorney General of Malaysia, Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali, stated that he was in the process of contacting his counterpart in the UK, and the British High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, in order to obtain information about the case, which would help his investigation into the crimes and his efforts to help Huckle's victims.[35]

The National Crime Agency responded to the comments from the Malaysian authorities, stating that they revealed enough details to be able to help the charities but were unable to provide full details until the prosecution was completed. For the same reason, severe media restrictions were put in place, which prevented anybody from reporting the story until the British Government had taken steps to ensure that all of Huckle's material had been taken down and that steps had been taken to protect his victims from other predators.[36] On 6 June 2016, however, the National Crime Agency referred itself to the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, due to the fact that they were aware of Huckle's continued attendance at two churches in the UK up until the time of his re-arrest in January 2015 but did not contact them until sentencing had already begun. The IPCC will look into whether the NCA had acted appropriately and whether more could have been done to determine whether Huckle abused any children in the UK through his relationship with the churches.[30][37][needs update]

The British Council issued a statement saying that they had reviewed their dealings with Huckle:

    Richard Huckle completed a Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) course in 2008 which provides training to individuals to teach adult learners. Following the course, we have no records to indicate he was ever engaged as a teacher in Malaysia with us, either for adult students or children.
    — British Council Press Office, a statement issued 1 June 2016[13]

They also stated that procedures would be reviewed, but that pre-employment checks are the responsibility of future employers not their education provider.[13][needs update]

After the gravity of Huckle's crimes became known, the Malaysian Government set up a telephone hotline for people to call if they have any information about Huckle or if they were abused themselves.[38] The Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, added that he was angered and saddened by Huckle's sexual violation of Malaysian children and called for all parties involved to ensure that children are not exposed to situations where irresponsible people can take advantage of them.[39] In August 2016, in response to the criticism following the Huckle case, Najib Razak announced that a special task force had been set up to investigate how Malaysia's child protection laws could be redrafted to take into account the new ways that child sexual predators such as Huckle were preying on Malaysian children,[40] with the aim of having a new version ready by the end of the year.[needs update]

Following the discovery of Huckle's crimes, the Malaysian Government came under fire from child protection charities for their lack of laws against child abuse and child pornography. James Nayagam, chairman of Suriana Welfare Society for Children, was particularly critical of his government's relaxed nature in dealing with such crimes:[41]

    Malaysia should make child pornography and child sexual abuse a severe crime with heavy penalties. We should also issue a severe warning at the point of entering the country about our strong stance. Huckle got away with it. He knew the relaxed atmosphere in this country. We Asians fall head over heels with foreigners. He had people fall into his trap. But regardless of where people come from, we must have that check and balance.
    — James Nayagam, A newspaper article [41]

In the article, Nayagam continued by pointing out that Section 292 of the Penal Code only deals with sale and distribution of obscene material.[41]

While the media in the UK were largely supportive of Huckle's sentencing, the Malaysian press widely stated that the punishment was not severe enough, with statements such as "a thousand years is not enough", "We are horrified that the sex fiend [Huckle] will be eligible to appear before a parole board after 23 years", and "this monster could be out in 24 years" appearing in the days after his sentence was announced.[42][43]
Death

On 13 October 2019, Huckle was found stabbed to death in his cell at Full Sutton prison, aged 33.[7][44]


References

"Prolific paedophile Richard Huckle facing life in prison for raping and abusing dozens of children". Evening Standard. 1 June 2016.
"Prolific Paedophile Gets 22 Life Sentences". Sky News. 6 June 2016.
"Richard Huckle filmed himself abusing children and shared videos and pictures with fellow paedophiles on the Dark Web". Sky News. 1 June 2016.
"Britain's worst paedophile Richard Huckle who targeted poverty-stricken children faces life in prison after admitting scores of offences". Daily Telegraph. 1 June 2016.
"Brian O'Neill QC prosecutes 'Britain's worst ever paedophile'- London Barristers Chambers". 2harecourt.com. 3 June 2016. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
"Paedophile Huckle Blames Abuse On 'Immaturity'". Sky News. 3 June 2016.
"Paedophile Richard Huckle 'murdered' in prison". The Guardian. 14 October 2019. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
"Huckle Tried To Cash In On Child Abuse Pics". Sky News. 1 June 2016.
"Grammar school boy who became Britain's worst paedophile". Daily Mail. 1 June 2016.
"Richard Huckle's church minister reveals all on paedophile". Folkestone Herald (KM Group). 2 June 2016.
"Richard Huckle : Portrait of a paedophile". Sky News. 1 June 2016.
"Richard Huckle one of UK's worst ever paedophiles". Dover Express (KM Group). 2 June 2016.
"Statement on the Richard Huckle Case". British Council. 1 June 2016.
"Paedophile who bragged about horrific sex crimes on 'dark web' facing life". Belfast Telegraph. 1 June 2016.
"'Can I visit your orphanage to meet the children... and bring my camera?' Chilling emails of Britain's worst paedophile to worm his way into an Indian kids' home". Daily Mail. 3 June 2016.
"How child abuser Richard Huckle was caught". BBC. 1 June 2016.
"Childcare worker who raped children in his care and filmed it for a global paedophile web ring says his urges were NOT his fault". Daily Mail. 28 February 2016.
Safi, M. (13 July 2016). "The takeover: how police ended up running a paedophile site". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
"How 'Britain's worst paedophile' Richard Huckle was caught". Metro (British Newspaper). 2 June 2016.
"Paedophile Richard Huckle facing life in jail". Kent Online (KM Group). 1 June 2016.
"Paedophile's Parents Begged Police To Take Him". Sky News. 1 June 2016.
"Paedophile's Parents Begged Police To Take Him". ITV. 1 June 2016.
"Prolific Paedophile Raped Babies And Toddlers". Sky News. 1 June 2016.
"Richard Huckle: Paedophile faces multiple life sentences for abusing 'up to 200 children' in Malaysia". The Independent. 1 June 2016.
"Britain's worst paedophile faces 22 life sentences for abusing 200 children in Malaysia". International Business Times. 1 June 2016.
"Richard Huckle, 'Britain's worst pedophile', facing life in jail". Nine News. 2 June 2016.
"Richard Huckle's parents 'threw him out when he admitted child abuse'". The Guardian. 1 June 2016.
"Sexual Offences Act 2003". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 2016-06-09.
"Wake-up call needed over abuse of children abroad, ECPAT UK warns - ECPAT UK - Protecting Children Everywhere". Ecpat.org.uk. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
"Sky news live broadcast after sentencing of Richard Huckle (uploaded to YouTube by a 3rd party)". Sky News. 6 June 2016.
"Paedophile Richard Huckle, Who Targeted Poor Malaysian Children, Faces Life In Prison". Huffington Post. 1 June 2016.
"Richard Huckle 'deeply remorseful' for child sex abuse, court told". The Guardian. 3 June 2016.
"Richard Huckle given 22 life sentences for abusing Malaysian children". The Guardian. 6 June 2016.
"Women's ministry to probe Huckle case, sets up info hotline". Malay Mail. 2 June 2016.
"In bid for information, AG to contact British counterpart on Richard Huckle". Malay Mail. 4 June 2016.
"UK paedophile admits string of sex attacks on Malaysian children". news.com.au. 2 June 2016.
"Britain's worst paedophile Richard Huckle jailed for life for abusing up to 200 children in Malaysia". Daily Mirror. 6 June 2016.
"Hotline set up for info on British paedophile Richard Huckle". The Star (Malaysia). 2 June 2016.
"Najib: Heed lessons from Richard Huckle case". The Star (Malaysia). 8 June 2016.
"PMO sets up task force to review child protection laws". Malay Mail. 25 August 2016.
"Have laws on child porn or another Richard Huckle". The Star (Malaysia). 3 June 2016.
"Malaysians say harsher sentence needed for Britain's 'worst paedophile' Richard Huckle". Daily Telegraph. 7 June 2016.
"'1,000 years not enough' for jailed pedophile Richard Huckle – Malaysian media". RT (TV Network). 7 June 2016.
"Paedophile Richard Huckle stabbed to death at Full Sutton Prison". BBC News. 14 October 2019. Retrieved 15 October 2019.


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Huckle

Offline greentara

  • Administrator
  • Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 1782
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • My detailed profile
Re: Paedophile Richard Huckle [Certified Disgusting]
« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2019, 10:02:00 PM »
One of Britain’s worst paedophiles found ‘stabbed to death’ in prison cell
Ross McGuinness | Yahoo News UK | 14 October 2019

One of the UK’s most prolific paedophiles has been stabbed to death in his prison cell.

Richard Huckle, who abused up to 200 children in Malaysia, was attacked in his cell at Full Sutton Prison in York.

The Sun reported that he had been stabbed to death with a makeshift blade.

He was given 22 life sentences in 2016 after admitting 71 charges of sexual abuse of children aged between six months and 12 years.

His offences were carried out between 2006 and 2014.

The freelance photographer awarded himself "Pedopoints" for different acts of abuse against 191 youngsters, and sold images of his depravity on the dark web.

In online posts, Huckle, 33, from Ashford, Kent, bragged that it was easier to target impoverished children in Malaysia than those from wealthy Western backgrounds.

Commenting on one of his victims, he boasted: "I'd hit the jackpot, a 3yo girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care."

At the time of his arrest, he was writing a guide to teach fellow paedophiles how to abuse children and avoid detection.

Huckle was stopped at Gatwick Airport en route to spend Christmas with his family in 2014 after Australian authorities tipped off the UK's National Crime Agency.

Officers seized Huckle's encrypted laptop and managed to uncover more than 20,000 indecent pictures and videos although there were other files they were unable to crack.

Officers seized his encrypted laptop and managed to uncover more than 20,000 indecent pictures and videos although there were other files they were unable to crack.

A spokeswoman for Humberside Police said: “An investigation has been launched following an incident at HMP Full Sutton on Sunday October 13.

“We were called shortly after 12.30pm reporting that a man had died at the prison.

“Humberside Police are working closely with the Prison Service to investigate the death of an inmate and at this time we are treating the death as suspicious.”

A Prison Service spokesman confirmed that Richard Huckle had died but would not comment further while the police investigation was ongoing.

Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/britains-worst-paedophiles-richard-huckle-stabbed-death-prison-cell-104045355.html

Offline ainat

  • Administrator
  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 142
  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Paedophile Richard Huckle [Certified Disgusting]
« Reply #2 on: November 28, 2020, 11:49:36 PM »
Richard Huckle murder: Killer of paedophile who preyed on Malaysian children sentenced to life in prison
25 Nov 2020

LONDON: The man who raped, tortured and killed Richard Huckle, described as “Britain’s worst ever paedophile”, has been given a life sentence, and will have to serve at least 34 years in prison, British media reported on Tuesday (Nov 24).

Paul Fitzgerald - a fellow inmate at a high security prison near York in the United Kingdom - beat, stabbed and strangled Huckle to death on Oct 13, 2019.

Huckle, 33, had been convicted of sexually abusing children in Malaysia, and was serving 22 concurrent life sentences for his crimes.

Fitzgerald, now 30, suffers from medical conditions such as psychopathy, anti-social personality disorder and gender identity disorder, and was himself in prison for sexual assault, the BBC reported. He has a history of violent and sexual offences dating back to when he was 13 years old.

Fitzgerald called his attack on Huckle “poetic justice” for the crimes the latter committed against children.

According to British tabloid Metro, Fitzgerald said: “This is a man who rapes and abuses children for fun. He could have killed them as well. I’m inclined to think he did worse than just raping them.”

BRUTAL ATTACK

Details of Fitzgerald’s brutal 78-minute attack on Huckle emerged during the trial.

Fitzgerald first tied Huckle up before raping him, assaulting him with a variety of weapons, including a kitchen utensil and a pen, and strangling him with an electrical cable sheath, Metro reported. Fitzgerald had said he also wanted to eat parts of Huckle’s body.

Prosecutor Alistair MacDonald said: “The insertion of an object into his anus, and possibly into his brain as well, was, say the prosecution, a form of punishment associated with the offending which had led Mr Huckle to prison.”

“This was a carefully planned and executed attack, in the course of which Mr Huckle had been subjected to a prolonged attack also designed to humiliate and degrade him.”

Fitzgerald denied the murder charge, claiming that his mental health issues had prevented him from exercising self-control, though he expressed his enjoyment of the attack.

During sentencing at the Hull Crown Court, judge Justice Lavender told Fitzgerald he had “taken the law into his own hands” and said: “You are a psychopath and you derive pleasure from fantasising about raping, torturing, killing and even eating others. On this occasion you derived pleasure from acting out your fantasies.”

The trial lasted four days and it took jurors about an hour to reach the guilty verdict on Monday.

Fitzgerald reportedly laughed as he was sentenced.

“PROSELYTISING PAEDOPHILIA”

Between 2006 and 2014, Huckle posed as a freelance photographer, English teacher and volunteer working with Christian communities to gain access mostly to impoverished communities in Kuala Lumpur.

His victims were between six months and 12 years old.

At his trial in 2016, Huckle pleaded guilty to 71 offences involving 22 children, but it is thought there were many more child victims across Southeast Asia.

An Australian detective unit eventually discovered his activities in an encrypted room on the "dark web", where members exchanged child sex abuse images and tips.

Huckle was arrested at London's Gatwick Airport in December 2014 as he returned home from Malaysia to spend Christmas with his parents.

He was carrying a heavily encrypted computer and camera that contained more than 20,000 images of child sex abuse - over 1,000 of which showed him committing offences including rape.

The laptop also contained a ledger in which he detailed the abuse of 191 victims, but officers were unable to press charges on all cases as there was no photographic evidence.

Huckle also wrote a manual called Paedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide.

During Huckle's 2016 trial in London, judge Peter Rook said that the manuscript was a "truly evil document proselytising paedophilia", and that Huckle had intended to publish it for profit.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/richard-huckle-killer-paedophile-paul-fiztgerald-malaysia-13634884