Child sex gang jailed

Four men were sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court, after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing, for a total of 17 offences on three vulnerable boys from Tyneside.

They were committed in Spain, Kent, London and the Northumbria area between December 2004 and December 2007, in what Judge John Evans described as "altogether horrendous story".

Middlesbrough-born Peter Melling, 58, who had been living in Spain, and Paul Anthony Bures, 53, from Kent, were both jailed indefinitely. Melling, convicted of eight counts of sexual activity with a child, was told he must serve at least five years before he could apply for parole.

Bures must serve two years and three months before applying for parole, after admitting sexual activity with a child, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and possessing indecent images of children.

Derek Marshall, 52, of Melbourne Street, Carlisle, was also jailed for five years for four counts of arranging or facilitating the commission of child sex offences. His son Graeme Marshall, 24, from North Tyneside, was given a three-year probation order for two counts of the same offence.

The court heard how the Marshalls had been befriending young boys - one as young as 13 - and introducing them to Melling for a number of years. Melling would gain the boys' trust by buying gifts and taking them on trips to retail parks and football matches. The Marshalls would persuade the boys' parents they would look after their sons on holidays with Melling at various locations in and out of the UK.

The holidays, usually paid for by Melling, including visits to his villa in Torrevieja, Spain, where he would sexually abuse them. Melling also took some of the victims to his friend Paul Bures' home in Kent where they were abused and the offences filmed and put on Melling's and Bures' computers.

Sordid MSN messages between Melling and Bures about their victims were also read out in court.

Amanda Rippon, prosecuting, told the court: "This case revolves primarily around Peter Melling and his association with the other defendants and his systematic grooming and sexual abuse of a group of teenage boys."