Andrew Whiddett: Disgraced army colonel jailed after instructing women on how to abuse their children over webcam

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A former British army officer who instructed women on how to abuse their children so he could watch via webcam has been jailed.

Andrew Whiddett, a retired lieutenant colonel, was sentenced to 38 months in prison at Croydon Crown Court.

After his wife died of cancer in 2013 the “lonely” 70-year-old began dating online, the court was told.

But he spiralled into online child abuse and from 2015 paid thousands of pounds to a woman in the Philippines for live-streamed sexual attacks on a child, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Whiddett used Skype to contact “known Filipino child sex abuse facilitators”, the NCA said in April, and planned to assault a child during a visit to the Asian nation in 2016.

Sentencing Whiddett on Wednesday, Judge Nicholas Ainley said: “The defendant had shown an interest in dating Asian woman.

“There is nothing wrong or reprehensible about that but some way or other that perfectly legitimate interest in meeting women changed into a need to have some form of sexual relationship with people who were only children.

“And that occurred with two different children with whom I’m concerned.”

Whiddett, of Portsmouth, left the armed forces in 1997 to work in security services in the Middle East. His lawyer said he had “given up his life” for his country, and was made an MBE in 1988.

“There’s a long list and the testimonials that date back to 1988 demonstrate the sacrifice, personal sacrifice, to his own life that this man made for his country,” Siobhan Grey added.

Following the death of his wife of 40 years Whiddett was “was at a loss, adrift”, she said. “He let it be known that he was fine but he wasn’t. And he was lonely. And he started to a great extent online dating and he got sucked into that.”

He was jailed for one count of intent to cause a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, one count of causing or inciting a child under the age of 16 to engage in sexual activity, one count of arranging or facilitating a sexual offence against a child and three counts of possessing indecent images of children.

He pleaded guilty in April.