Leggett was jailed for seven years

Darren Leggett created two websites to distribute child porn

A paedophile who admitted to more than 30 child sex offences, including four of child rape, could be free in just seven years.

Darren Leggett, 32, of Mount Avenue, Yalding, near Maidstone, was convicted of 31 counts of child sex offences, including rape, taking, possessing and distributing sexual abuse images of children and arranging a child for sex.

Unemployed Leggett created two websites for distributing sexual images of children.

He abused his victims, who were as young as six-years-old, over a six year period.

He will serve a minimum of seven years and prove he is no longer a danger before he can be considered for release.

The court heard how his crimes came to light when the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) received an anonymous tip off from a member of the public who had discovered one of the websites.

The IWF is a UK hotline for the public to report online criminal content, specifically images and videos of child sexual abuse.

Whilst assessing the content on the website, an IWF analyst saw a chat area with recent posts.

The posts included contact details appearing to belong to the website owner, who had been talking on the site.

From the nature of the conversations it appeared that children were in danger.

The IWF also discovered an advert linking to Leggett’s second website.

They passed their findings onto the Child Exploitation Online Protection (CEOP) centre who were able to identify Leggett.

Kent Police then set up an operation, during which Leggett arranged to pay for sexual abuse of a child.

This led to a warrant being carried out at his home address on February 10 where he was arrested.

Police seized his computer and memory sticks, which indicated the extent of his offending.

Officers found 36 films he had made in which he committed a string of sexual abuse offences against three young children.

Appearing at Maidstone Crown Court today, Leggett was deemed such a danger to children by Judge Statman that only an indeterminate sentence was sufficient.

Judge Statman said: “This is an extremely well handled and sensitively conducted operation and a classic piece of detective work.”

Detective Sergeant Dave Shipley, senior investigating officer for the case for Kent Police, said: “Leggett used children as objects for his depraved desires, as commodities which he was content to trade and share with others, with no thought for the impact his actions would have on his victims.

“Through the joined-up working of the agencies involved, a dangerous man has been brought to justice for his crimes. As a result, we have been able to identify the victims and take steps to ensure they are protected from any further harm. This case is an excellent example of sharing of information between those who police the internet and those who police the community. It also indicates the extent to which we are prepared to work with others to track down and prosecute those involved in the systematic abuse of children.”

Emma Lowther, IWF director of communications, said: “It is with thanks to the person who anonymously made a report to the Internet Watch Foundation that our hotline could assess the serious nature of the websites and work with police colleagues who identified the man behind them.

“These websites were out of the ordinary with serious depraved desires to trade, sell, and rent children. Thanks to the close partnership working, within a week of the report being received, a dangerous offender and distributor of child sexual abuse images was arrested and in less than four months has been imprisoned.

“There is no better result than knowing our work has helped rescue three children from further suffering, shut down criminal websites and convict the offender running them.”

Jim Warnock, head of operational delivery at the CEOP centre said: “Today’s sentence highlights just how important the excellent working relationships between officers at the CEOP Centre, the IWF and Kent Police are.

“Using initial information provided by the IWF, developing that and working to identify the offender and providing a package of intelligence to Kent Police, officers at CEOP have helped to ensure that another extremely dangerous child sexual offender is now behind bars.

“Darren Leggett showed no thought for the impact his actions had on the children he abused, or their families. Anyone who thinks they can cause harm to our most vulnerable should take note of this case and understand that law enforcement agencies, and the partners we work with, will do everything in our power to hold them to account”.