King's Lynn man jailed for 96 child sex abuse offences
The former roofer set up fake online accounts to target young boys
Last updated 10th Feb 2021
A paedophile from King's Lynn who posed as girls online to get young boys to send him indecent images of themselves has been jailed for 25 years at Ipswich Crown Court.
David Wilson - who's 36 and from Kirstead - set up a series of fake social media profiles and will also serve a further eight years on extended licence when his prison term ends.
He was convicted of 96 offences against 52 boys aged between four and 14 having previous pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.
But police believe he approached more than 5,000 children around the world.
The judge described Wilson as a "serial paedophile'' and an "extremely dangerous individual''.
He told him:
"You carried out a lengthy and premeditated campaign of sadistic and manipulative abuse of young boys using social media.
"Any decent human being will be astonished at the level of depravity involved.''
Wilson would not have been brought to justice without evidence from Facebook, according to the NCA.
Rob Jones, the agency's director of threat leadership, said the social media giant's proposed move to an end-to-end encryption privacy model "poses an existential threat to child protection'' online.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said:
"This sickening case is a chilling reminder of how crucial it is that tech companies play their part in combating child sexual abuse.
"It is vital that Facebook do not press ahead without amending their current end-to-end-encryption plans, otherwise sick criminals like David Wilson could still be abusing children with impunity.''
A Facebook spokesman said:
"Child exploitation and grooming have no place on our platforms.''
Susie Hargreaves, chief executive of the Internet Watch Foundation, a UK charity involved in finding and removing images and videos of child sexual abuse from the internet, said:
"This kind of offending is becoming a marked threat to children and, sadly, we are seeing more and more material being shared online which children have been tricked, bullied, coerced, or blackmailed into making themselves.
"We know there are whole communities of predators out there, and that they are looking to contact children and abuse them from afar, often in the apparent safety of their own bedrooms.
"Parents need to have frank discussions with their children, and let them know they can go to them if they see anything or are approached by someone online.''
Andy Burrows, NSPCC Head of Child Safety Online Policy, said:
"Wilson's prolonged campaign of sexual abuse was exposed following a large-scale investigation by the NCA. If it wasn't for the evidence provided by Facebook this would not have been possible and many more children could have been exploited.
"Despite this case highlighting the importance of tech companies being able to detect and disrupt abuse on their sites, Facebook still wants to proceed with end-to-end encryption which could prevent its moderators from uncovering prolific abuse.
"This is why the Government must bring forward a comprehensive Online Safety Bill that ensures platforms face consequences if they press ahead with poor design choices that put children risk of entirely avoidable harm."