eBay Child Porn Smuggler Jailed

A child porn smuggler who used eBay to find paedophile customers has been sentenced to five years in prison and two on licence.

Churchgoer Giles Forbes, 42, spent months using so-called "low level material" to contact perverts interested in under-aged abuse.

Dozens responded to his adverts, only to be offered much more explicit images from a collection of stills, DVDs and videos so vast it nearly filled his home in North Kensington, west London.

The collection featured children as young as seven being abused by adults, London's Blackfriars Crown Court heard.

Forbes admitted three counts of distributing child pornography and one of "possession for show" between October 15 2005 and March 2006.

Sentencing him to a total of seven years, Judge Aiden Marron QC said the material "covered all categories and the volume is not insubstantial".

Tom Wilkins, prosecuting, told an earlier hearing that some of the images depicted apparently older youngsters who had been "drugged, tied up and raped".

He said: "This case is really at the most sadistic end of material the court sees of this nature.

"In fact his home was choc-a-block from floor to ceiling with child pornography."

He told the court that police visited his home after an investigation into eBay suggested Forbes had been using the website to sell child porn.

After denying he was the man they wanted, a "violent" struggle ensued. In the end, it took three officers to overpower and handcuff him.

Apart from the child porn, a search of Forbes' home found two decommissioned sub machine guns - an Uzi and Stirling - a blank firing handgun, ammunition and a crossbow and arrows.

The judge also made a series of lifetime orders banning Forbes from contact with under 16-year-olds.

Sky News