Former Army major and teacher's wife exposed as members of child abuse ring

They subjected two 12-year-olds to an afternoon of abuse which left the youngsters devastated.

School governor Archibald Wood, 60, appeared to be a pillar of the community in the Devon town of Tavistock.

On the other side of the country, Kent businesswoman Monica McCanch, 55, cut an equally respectable figure as the divorced wife of a grammar school teacher.

But behind closed doors the two were involved in an Internet plot to abuse two young children.

They responded to a chatroom posting by Steven Horton, 44, who was looking for paedophiles who wanted to 'educate' a boy and girl.

Details of their appalling crimes emerged yesterday after they pleaded guilty to 41 child abuse offences with another 17 to be taken into consideration. Horton's offences included child rape.

The trio met at a house in Fleet, Hampshire, and subjected the young boy and girl to an ordeal lasting several hours.

The abuse - thought to be one of the first cases where children have been offered on the Internet in this way - came to light only when Horton's girlfriend discovered e-mails referring to child abuse on his computer.

She contacted Kent Police, who raided Horton's home in Sittingbourne, Kent.

They found child abuse pictures on his computer and also traced him to chatrooms where he had offered the children up for abuse. The elechadtronic trail led to McCanch and Wood.

Police also found that Horton, a manager for an electrical distribution company, had arranged a second abuse session. But the man he was due to meet at a holiday camp in Rye, East Sussex, never arrived.

Horton still abused the girl, while the boy pretended to be ill and hid in a toilet for an hour.

Horton was arrested in October 2006, while Wood and McCanch were held the following month.

Police found that all three hidden the abuse from their respective partners, who were all shattered by the discovery.

Twice-married Wood, who has grown-up children, was chairman of the board of governors at Tavistock Community College and a governor at St Rumon's Infants School.

As part of his role he had been trained in child protection issues.

An active member of the Liberal Democrats in Tavistock, he was heavily involved in volunteer work.

But fellow governor Roger Matthew said Wood was an unpopular 'abrasive' man.

Horton, another former military man, is also divorced and lived with a girlfriend.

McCanch, of Ash, Kent, is understood to have been a family friend of Wood.

She is thought to be divorced from her husband Norman McCanch - a renowned naturalist who teaches biology and chemistry at a Kent grammar school.

The trio were due to be sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court yesterday, but the hearing was postponed until September 13 because cells below the court were flooded.

Michelle Elliott of the children's charity Kidscape called the case "an incredibly worrying development", allowing people who may not have acted alone on their perverted fantasies to get together with other paedophiles and become far more dangerous.

She said: "The Internet, for all its good, is becoming a powerful tool in the hands of these diabolical sick people.

"I hope they are given indeterminate sentences. Clearly they will be a danger to children for the rest of their lives."

A third man arrested during the investigation is due in court on September 7.