A mechanic from Cheshire who created and ran child sexual abuse sites on the dark web has been jailed for 16 years.
Judge Thompson described Nathan Bake, 28, of Runcorn, Cheshire, as a dangerous offender and additionally imposed a four-year period on licence in the community to be served after the prison sentence.
Chester crown court heard that “solitary” Bake was second-in-command of a site on the dark web that allowed millions of child abuse images to be shared worldwide.
The site, called the Annex, had about 90,000 members who used it to share and discuss some of the most extreme kinds of child abuse. This included the sexual abuse of babies and toddlers and so-called “hurtcore”, which involves the affliction of pain, torture and humiliation.
Thompson told Bake: “You are a committed paedophile who represents a very significant risk of causing serious harm to children.”
Bake, who was also placed on the sex offender register for life and given a lifetime sexual harm prevention order, was arrested after an investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
The NCA’s branch commander, Adam Priestley, said of the Annex: “There was nothing on this site that was off limits. Everything was encouraged.”
The site was run by an American man who was sentenced to life in prison in the US in January.
Anna Pope, prosecuting, told the court that the Annex was a “sophisticated and well-structured operation” with 30 members of staff. New users of the Annex would first go to a “gateway” where they would have to gain the trust of the site’s moderators by posting child abuse material, before being granted access to other areas, with names such as Tots ‘R’ Us and No Limits.
Under the username Pink, Bake offered other users of the site advice on not getting caught and encouraged them to share links to child abuse material. In one post, he said: “Come on people, show us what you’ve got for HAPPY HOUR. Show us the boys and girls that turn you on the most.”
The court heard that more than 3.6m indecent images were recovered from devices at Bake’s home after his arrest in November 2022, and children’s tights, underwear and sandals were found in the bottom drawer of his computer desk.
Evidence from his devices also proved Bake was the co-creator of a second child abuse site and was also the head moderator of a directory page, which contained links to other child abuse forums on the dark web.
The mechanic was one of three UK-based moderators of the Annex who were identified by the NCA. The other two were Kabir Garg, a psychiatrist from London, and a 48-year-old man from Eastbourne, who will be sentenced at Lewes crown court next week. Garg was jailed for six years last year.
Bake had previously pleaded guilty to participating in an organised crime group, three counts of facilitating child sexual exploitation, two counts of distributing indecent images of children, three counts of making indecent images of children, possession of a paedophile manual, possession of prohibited images of children and possession of extreme pornography.
Daniel Waywell, a senior investigating officer from the NCA, said: “Bake was one of a select number of individuals that played a vital role in ensuring the Annex continued to run and was able to facilitate child sexual abuse on a global scale.”
