A sexual predator who commissioned the abuse of children in America from his County Durham home has been jailed.
Craig Chittenden, from Willington, was caught after Durham Constabulary officers were alerted to his activities by FBI special agents in Dallas, Texas.
The FBI had found that he had been exchanging messages with their suspect who had been abusing her children while he watched.
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Officers arrived at his home in March 2020 to carry out a search warrant and Chittenden disclosed that he had ‘accessed some images’ and that police would ‘find them on his phone’.
Subsequently, multiple digital devices were seized from the address and forensically examined which revealed Chittenden had been making contact with like-minded individuals in America and inciting sexual acts on young children.
Chittenden claimed that he had no interest in children but admitted being sexually aroused by the 1,000 indecent images found on his devices.
The 33-year-old was charged in October last year with making indecent images, possession of extreme pornographic images, distribution of indecent images, facilitating the commission of a child sex offence and inciting sexual exploitation of a child.
He received a 12-year custodial sentence at Durham Crown Court on Friday.
The judge commented how emotionless and detached Chittenden was at sentencing and told him he was a "dangerous offender".
Digital online investigator DC Georgina Lewis said: “The Digital Investigations team work incredibly hard to protect young people from harm and bring perpetrators of child sexual exploitation to justice and I hope today’s result demonstrates that.
“Chittenden is a sexual predator who tried to hide his crimes online and encourage like-minded individuals in the USA to carry out sex acts on children.
“This was a complex investigation but thanks to the collaborative investigative efforts between Texas Police and ourselves he was left with no option but to plead guilty.”
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