A sick paedophile who paid women in the Philippines money to watch their children being abused on livestreams has been jailed.
Peter Swan, 62, made the approaches between 2015 and 2023 using social media and dating apps. He offered the women money in return for either a live stream or video of children carrying out sexual acts.
In Skype messages, Swan spoke about meeting up with them and their children. Swan was caught when he uploaded an indecent image of a child to the internet, prompting police to carry out a search warrant in Orton Malborne, Peterborough, in February 2023.
Dell and Sony laptops and a Samsung phone were seized and found to contain almost 3,000 indecent images of children. Swan was voluntarily interviewed and bailed with conditions but was arrested again in November 2023 after the Skype messages emerged.
However, he continued to view indecent images online as well as using Skype to talk to women and Telegram to pay for indecent images and live streams and videos of children being abused. On Wednesday December 18, at Peterborough Crown Court, Swan, was jailed for 16 years.
Judge Sean Enright said Swan carried out “a sustained campaign against children in a third-world country”, the likes of which he had not seen before in court.
PC Alex Cochrane, of Cambridgeshire Constabulary, said: “Swan shamefully offered vulnerable women money in return to watch children being sexually abused for his own perverted gratification.
“Protecting vulnerable people is a force priority and children will undoubtedly be safer with Swan behind bars.”
Swan pleaded guilty to three counts of arranging/facilitating the sexual exploitation of a child under 13 and one count of arranging/facilitating the sexual exploitation of a child between 13 and 17. He also admitted six counts of making indecent images of children and received no separate penalty for these offences.
Judge Sean Enright said the sentences were rightly consecutive because “each child is a separate catastrophe.”