Woman admits sexually abusing young girl in livestreamed online videos for three years

Christine Callaghan followed instructions from man as to how to abuse her victim while he watched online

Christine Callaghan, 33 from Bexhill-on-Sea in East Sussex, was paid £2,285 by Dean Petley, 30, to carry out the abuse on Skype (National Crime Agency)

A woman has admitted to sexually abusing a young girl in livestreamed videos for three years, as UK police warn they are seeing an increase in cyber-enabled offences against children.

Christine Callaghan, 33 from Bexhill-on-Sea in East Sussex, was paid £2,285 by Dean Petley, 30, to carry out the abuse on Skype. She admitted four charges at Isleworth Crown Court on Friday.

Petley, an automotive engineer from Leamington Spa, admitted 11 charges last month and was jailed at the same hearing for eight years.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said an encrypted hard drive found at Petley’s home contained screenshots of conversations with Ms Callaghan over a two-year period and full facial images of her abusing the girl with a small window of Petley watching it.

Officers discovered evidence of Callaghan discussing what she would do for money and of Petley instructing her how to abuse the victim.

The hard drive also contained a video almost 10 minutes long of Callaghan abusing the young girl. 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 and also sexually abused her.

Five indecent images of children were also found on the drive.

The NCA discovered the pair’s offending through an investigation into Jodie Little, 30, who was jailed for 12 years and four months in August for sexually abusing children online.

In July last year the NCA became aware of Little sexually abusing children under the online names ‘Devil Bitch 666’ and ‘DomTabooSlut’ on an adult services website from her home in northern Cyprus.

She admitted nine offences, and was convicted of eight using Section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 – legislation designed to prosecute British nationals in the UK for crimes committed abroad.

The investigation into Little led to the discovery of Petley’s offending, and in October last year, he was arrested after being identified as one of her customers.

Callaghan will be sentenced at a date to be confirmed.

It comes after it emerged that the number of child sex abuse offences linked to the internet had doubled in four years, with figures showing paedophiles are now using the internet to commit dozens of sex crimes against children every day.

The NSPCC revealed in June that police were recording a growing number of offences where social media, apps and online gaming were being used to contact and groom young victims, with child sex abuse offences linked to the internet up from just over 4,000 in 2015-16 to 8,224 in 2018-19.

Jason Booth, NCA operations manager, said distance was "not a barrier" for the NCA in pursuing UK child sex offenders "wherever they are", adding: "The investigation into Little has unravelled other leads that our policing partners are working on.

“These were horrendous crimes, but they’re 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.”

If you are concerned about their own or someone else’s behaviour towards children you can contact the Stop It Now! helpline which offers confidential advice