Woman jailed for live-streaming child sexual abuse for nearly three years - Regional

Christine Callaghan, 33, used Skype to send fellow sex offender Dean Petley, 30, the horrifying abuse footage.

In November Callaghan, from Bexhill-on-Sea in East Sussex, admitted distributing category A live streamed videos, distributing a category B indecent live streamed video and two counts of causing or inciting a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

Yesterday she was jailed for six years at Isleworth Crown Court, as well as being given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and her name put on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

The pair were caught after investigating Jodie Little, 30, who was jailed for 12 years and four months in August this year for sexually abusing children online.

In October last year the National Crime Agency arrested Petley, an automotive agency engineer, after identifying him as one of Little’s customers.

He admitted 11 charges and was jailed last month for eight years.

Petley was rearrested in May after further evidence was found on an encrypted hard drive at his home, linking him to Callaghan.

It contained screenshots of conversations with Callaghan over two years and full facial images of her abusing the victim with a small window of Petley watching it.

Callaghan discussed with Petley what she would do for money and he instructed her how to abuse the victim.

The hard drive also contained a video of Callaghan abusing the young girl; and screenshots showed that on at least 10 different dates over three years, 2016 to 2018, she performed penetrative sexual activity in front of the victim.

Matt Hall, NCA operations manager, said: ‘These were horrendous crimes that Callaghan carried out for money.

‘Her and Petley’s prosecutions were possible because of our determination to ensure Jodie Little faced justice.

‘Little might have been abroad but distance is not a barrier for the NCA in pursuing UK child sex offenders wherever they are.

‘These crimes are an example of what the NCA is seeing more and more, with increasingly worsening cyber-enabled child sexual offending.

‘The NCA knows that the scale and severity of offending against children are worsening.

‘We and UK police arrest around 500 child sex offenders a month and safeguard about 700 children a month.

‘There is no greater priority for us than protecting children.’