Global paedophile ring smashed

The kingpin of the vile internet chatroom - where perverts queued up to download images of children being raped - was handed a jail sentence which could see him stay behind bars for the rest of his life.

Suffolk-based brewer Timothy David Martin Cox was handed an indeterminate sentence at Ipswich Crown Court after one of the biggest ever crackdowns on online child abusers.

The minimum jail term set by the judge was just one year and seven months but he will only be released when he is no longer a danger to the public.

Cox hosted the website known as "Kids the Light of Our Lives", and masqueraded behind the online identity "Son of God". Judge Peter Thompson said some of the shocking images showed very young children being subjected to "sadistic" abuse.

In one case a girl aged about five was shown being raped, and in another a girl aged about three was being abused with a knife. Obsessive paedophile Cox was found to have nearly 76,000 images of children on his computer plus 1,100 videos which would have taken 316 hours to watch back-to-back.

There was also evidence that the 28-year-old bachelor had supplied nearly 11,500 images to other paedophiles. Cox sent an average of 200 images a day from his bedroom at the family farm at Buxhall, near Stowmarket. He lived with his parents, sister and 26-year-old girlfriend, working in the family's microbrewery Cox & Holbrook, which brewed real ales with names such as Uncle Stan and Goodcock's Winner.

Prosecutor Simon Spence said Cox led a double life, adding: "Some of these films are of users of the chat room actually abusing their own children and filming themselves, then posting it in the chatroom."

Ceop's Ian Robertson said outside court: "The amount of data that came out was massive." Immediately after arresting Cox last September, undercover officers continued running the website to snare other users.

They placed a message that he had gone for his tea and would be back in 30 minutes to stop other members of the paedophile site becoming suspicious. Then they ran the chatroom under Cox's online identities for 10 days to gather evidence on 700 other members of the ring around the world. Mr Robertson said about 200 of the suspects are based in the UK, and 31 children in all have been rescued from abuse.