Paedophile deputy headteacher live-streamed child sex abuse while high on cocaine and meth
'The fact he helped fuel this industry while working as a teacher only adds to the grotesque and aggravated nature of the offence,' prosecutor says
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
A deputy headteacher who live-streamed child sex abuse videos while high on cocaine and crystal meth, has been jailed for more than two years.
Paul Newbury regularly used the Zoom videoconferencing platform to view, discuss and share the most serious images of young children being sexually abused with other paedophiles – telling one man he was interested in "all ages".
Undercover officers infiltrated the chat rooms in October 2017 and filmed the 50-year-old sitting naked on his sofa, smoking drugs as he watched a live video of a girl aged about eight being abused, prosecutors told Southwark Crown Court.
Newbury was also a member of several closed paedophile groups on the secure messaging app Telegram, where he discussed and exchanged child abuse material with hundreds of other members worldwide, they added.
He invited fellow paedophiles to join obscene groups with names such as “Love Boys”, using the alias “north London”. National Crime Agency investigators (NCA) later linked to his home in north London.
Newbury admitted collecting 2,000 child sexual abuse images and videos, ranging from category A (the most severe) to category C, and possessing class A drugs.
His crimes took place while he was working as an associate headteacher, similar to a deputy headteacher, at Acland Burghley School in Camden, north London.
There is no evidence to suggest he was in sexual contact with any children and no evidence to link his offending to the secondary school, which sacked him in March 2018.
Newbury admitted four counts of making indecent images of children, one of distributing indecent photographs of children, two counts of possessing class A drugs, possession of a prohibited image, showing an indecent photograph of a child and possession of an extreme pornographic image at a hearing in March.
He was jailed for two years and four months on Thursday.
He will also have to sign the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and given a sexual harm prevention order.
“Some of these videos featured very young and vulnerable children in visible distress, which Newbury then shared widely for the twisted gratification of himself and others," Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor Russell Tyner said the sentencing. “The fact he helped fuel this industry while working as a teacher only adds to the grotesque and aggravated nature of the offence.”
National Crime Agency (NCA) operations manager Graham Ellis said the scale and severity of this type of offending against children was worsening.
He added: “Newbury and men like him who make and distribute horrific images of children are fuelling online child sexual abuse. Though his offending was not connected to his school, he is guilty of a tremendous betrayal of trust.”