A man who distributed extreme child pornography has been jailed after detectives from Met’s Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Unit in Cadem carried out an investigation.
Ethan Payne, 19, of Tollington Road, N7, appeared on 2 May at Snarebrook Crown Court.
Payne was charged with three counts of possession of an indecent image of a child, two counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image portraying an act of intercourse, and oral sex with a dead/live animal.
He was also charged with four counts of Distributing an indecent photograph of a child, one count of being an offender 18 or over, causing and inciting a boy under 13 to engage in sexual activity and one count of – encouraging/assisting in the commission of either way offence believing it will be committed – Serious Crime Act 2007.
The court sentenced Payne, a student in Microbiology and a part-time worker at a bakery, to four years imprisonment with an extension period of three years.
He was also issued with ten-year Sexual Harm Prevention order and will remain on the sex offenders’ register for life.
On 15 November 2022, Payne had previously pleaded guilty to 10 of 11 charges at the same court. The police later dropped one charge of possession of an extreme pornographic image, considered to be a duplicate offence.
Police Constable Lydia Kelly investigating, said: “This has been a difficult case for everyone involved. The material we recovered during this investigation is some of the most extreme and disturbing that our unit has ever seen.”
The police attention was first drawn to Payne’s activity in 2022 after it received three separate referrals for uploads of indecent images of children on Snapchat, Instagram and Discord.
Police linked the upload to Ethan Payne, and it was believed to be uploaded from 2021 to 2022.
Detectives obtained a warrant on 12 October 2022 and arrested Payne at his home address on suspicion of distributing indecent images of children.
Officers seized his mobile phone and laptop during the search and described the materials on the device as disturbing, in the extreme showing Payne as a dangerous sex offender, obsessed with necrophilia, paedophilia, animal abuse, murder and torture.
Officers found images in categories A to C, with A being the most extreme on the laptop and mobile phone combined.
Police also said there were 430 Category A; 247 Category B; 125 Category C, and 157 extreme pornographic images.
The investigation also uncovered sinister exchanges online where Payne interacted with other offenders sharing experiences, fantasies and extreme pornography. When telling other offenders what he was looking for, he repeatedly stated, ‘No teens – only babies’ and spoke about having sexually abused dogs.
Payne had been careful to hide his offending using a sophisticated application that encrypted his exchanges and automatically deleted the evidence on a regular basis.
However, significant material and data were still found on the devices that evidenced offences committed between 24 September 2021 and 24 July 2022.
In a police interview, Payne initially denied any sexual attraction to children, but this was hugely undermined by the various chat logs where he had described in detail the horrific acts he wanted to commit against infants and animals, some of which were further evidenced by video footage.
PC Kelly added: “There is no doubt that Payne is a danger to children and to animals. He is focused in his depravity on the most vulnerable and the sharing of his material online has fuelled other paedophiles. It is right that he has been jailed; his abhorrent behaviour has no place in society.”
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