Jury retires in case of Lowestoft man who 'urged woman to abuse child and recorded it'
Anthony Burns, 39, allegedly encouraged a woman he met online to abuse a child while he watched on a WhatsApp video call and screen recorded it.
A jury has retired to consider its verdicts in the case of a man accused of encouraging a woman he met on an online dating site to abuse a child, and recording it for his own gratification.
Birmingham Crown Court heard that "controlling and manipulative sexual predator" Anthony Burns, 39, allegedly encouraged a woman he met online to abuse a child while he watched on a WhatsApp video call and screen recorded it.
The prosecution said Burns, originally from Lowestoft in Suffolk, carried out a "sustained campaign of predatory online sexual behaviour", in which he would "direct and control (women) to perform sexual acts online" on the promise of payment, which he never gave, and then record it and store it in the cloud.
In one such incident in August 2020, a woman from the US named in court only as DE for legal reasons, performed sexual acts on herself on a video call with Burns before sexually abusing a seven-year-old girl who was also in the room at the time.
Lisa Wilding KC said it was the prosecution's case that Burns had been the one directing the woman, who has been jailed for her part in the incident, to carry out the acts on the child when he noticed she was in the room, although the video screen recording in question did not have any sound.
Burns did not enter the witness box at Birmingham Crown Court on Tuesday, and no further evidence was offered in his defence.
He is charged with two counts of causing a girl under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity.
The jury, who had heard Burns had previous convictions in 2010 and 2013 relating to indecent images of children, retired on Tuesday to consider their verdicts after judge Sarah Buckingham summed up the facts of the case.
In her closing statement Ms Wilding said it was "nonsense" to suggest the woman had decided to sexually abuse the child on camera simply because she wanted to, and said the jury could draw an inference that more money to do so was offered to her by Burns.
She said: "What are the chances that a woman would sexually abuse a child for no apparent reason and without any encouragement by the defendant, a man with a proven record and interest in sexual activity with children?
"Everything DE did from the moment that recording started was at his control, for his benefit."
The jury were urged by Hugh Forgan, defence barrister for Burns, to set aside their feelings about the defendant and focus only on the evidence they had heard in relation to the two offences he is charged with.
In his closing statement, he said: "I am not going to suggest you like Mr Burns or sympathise with him. Try this case not on guesswork or whether you like or hate him.
"Guesswork has no place in a criminal trial. However uncomfortable this has made you feel, however little you think of Mr Burns, if you are not sure he is guilty, your verdicts must be not guilty.
"You must be sure. That he possibly did this does not equate to a guilty verdict. Probably is not enough."
Mr Forgan said that while it was accepted that Burns had been directing DE in the first half of the video, in which she carried out sex acts on herself, there was no evidence he had directed the woman to sexually abuse the child.
He said: "What sort of woman would do this to a child? I'm afraid DE is the kind of woman.
"She is not an ordinary woman, an ordinary woman would not go within a million miles of what DE did that day.
"The answers lie with DE, who is not a witness in this. All we can say is she is a terrible woman who did terrible things to a child.
"She abused a child with a smile on her face. There is no evidence as to why she did what she did.
"There is no suggestion of sending any photos or messages asking her to do what she did to the child.
"There is no evidence of discussion that these acts would cost any further money. It simply isn't there."
Mr Forgan said it was "utterly reprehensible" that Burns had watched the video and made a recording, but that his client had already pleaded guilty to the offence of taking indecent images of a child in connection with this aspect.