One of Britain's 'most dangerous paedophiles' jailed for abusing girls after being caught in police sting

A 'dangerous and predatory' paedophile who arranged the livestream abuse of a nine-year-old girl in the Philippines has been jailed for 22 years.Paul Hopkins, 50, 'directed' the girl's mother to perform sexual acts with her young daughter, who appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance.He commissioned and paid 40 US dollars (around £30) for the vile act and invited a British mother who had a ten-year-old daughter he wanted to abuse to watch the live feed with him, but it was actually an undercover police officer.The IT consultant used his technical expertise to hide his location but was caught due to an 'incredible piece of policing'.When police tracked him down and arrested him at his home in Romsey, Hampshire, in March last year they seized devices and found he had also carried out previous sexual abuse on a child as young as two and had recorded and distributed those images.Bournemouth Crown Court heard he wrote his username on a piece of paper and placed it on the child's torso to identify the abuse images as his and 'bragged' about it in dark web forums.The abuse of the child in the Philippines happened on multiple occasions, with Hopkins paying the mother 40 US dollars for each half hour he was online with them.Rabin Govindarajah, prosecuting, described it as 'one of the most serious cases of child abuse that have come before the courts in recent times'. Paul Hopkins has been jailed at Bournemouth Crown CourtAfter an investigation by the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit (SWROCU), Hopkins admitted 25 child sex offences, including rape of a child and arranging/facilitating the sexual exploitation of a child.He was jailed for 22 years, with an extended licence of eight years, made subject to a sexual harm prevention order and ordered to pay £2,000 prosecution costs.Mr Govindarajah said: 'He made it clear he had a number of sexual fantasies in relation to children, in particular mother and daughter.'He talked graphically about what he would want to do. He made it quite clear how he felt about young children.'His behaviour then elevated, he became more comfortable and he made a proposition of watching the live online abuse of a very young girl in the Philippines.'He made the arrangements, payment and asked the officer to watch the abuse while it was going on.'He wasn't located in a traditional manner. He is an IT consultant, someone who is technically extremely proficient. He was using multiple VPNs, alias emails, it was quite difficult to locate him.'A number of devices were found, physical storage and online storage, terrabytes and terrabytes of information that had to be carefully analysed by police.'John Dove, defending, said Hopkins had no previous offences and made prompt guilty pleas.He said he was a victim of sexual abuse as a child himself and started offending during a 'difficult time' in his life when he was under a lot of work stress.Mr Dove described him as 'hard-working and industrious' with high profile contracts in software architecture before developing his own software company in 2024.He said: 'Mr Hopkins is aware of the very extreme nature of his offending and the long-lasting impact it will have for all those involved. He asks me to express his extreme remorse for his offending and his regret for the impact.'He told the court in the 16 months Hopkins had been on remand in prison he had got a job making t-shirts and become a Buddhist, as well as reading books on child sex offences to better understand the consequences of his actions.Judge Jonathan Fuller said police had identified four men Hopkins had sent images to and said their 'disturbing' conversations revealed 'deeply embedded paedophile tendencies'.He said they were an 'unpleasant read' with all the men expressing a 'grotesque pleasure' in the abuse of young children.Judge Fuller said: 'You used differing messaging platforms and more than one identity as you moved from platform to platform . You were detection averse and internet sophisticated.'In your conversations with the undercover officer you invited her to join the group and take part. The police were then able to witness first hand what you were doing. Even for the hardened police officer it must have been upsetting.'I want to thank the officers for their hard work in detecting and capturing this very predatory man who is a danger. Their work is to be commended to the chief constable.'DI Dave Wells from the Online Investigations Team at SWROCU described Hopkins as 'the most dangerous sex offender my team has investigated'.