Ex-fireman jailed for rape and sexual assault after he paid adults to abuse young girls online

A former firefighter who directed sex attacks on vulnerable children while he watched has been jailed for 12 years.

Paedophile Gary Campbell paid for adults in the Philippines to abuse girls as young as four while he recorded it in ‘real time’ over the internet from his home in Scotland.

The 59-year-old admitted 13 charges involving the sexual abuse of children aged 13 and under, including the rape of two girls aged eight and nine.

In a legal first, prosecutors were able to prove Campbell’s direct involvement in the abuse more than 6,000 miles away after cybercrime investigators traced online payments he made to foreign accounts. He was said to have paid as little as £10 for some of the attacks.

An international investigation helped prove the paedophile was as responsible for the attacks as the perpetrators in the Philippines, known in law as ‘art and part’ guilt. He was convicted under legislation protecting children anywhere in the world from sexual abuse by British nationals.

Jailing Campbell at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday, judge Lord Beckett said: ‘You used the advantage of the comparative wealth of our society in order to pay people to corrupt children.’

He was also given a three-year sentence extension, during which he will be subject to close supervision. He will be on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.

Campbell – who also worked as a water treatment operative for Scottish Water – pleaded guilty to the charges at the High Court in Edinburgh last month.

The court heard that police raided his home in May 2021 after information was received that he had made payments on 13 occasions to a woman in the Philippines who was later arrested for producing, possessing and distributing indecent images of children and for live-streaming child abuse.

Advocate depute Margaret Barron told how videos and chat logs recovered from his electronic equipment indicated Campbell was watching the children being attacked in ‘real time’ and directing the assaults.

A number of devices seized from his home were found to contain child sexual abuse material.

The crimes were committed between June 2012 and August 2014 while Campbell was living in the village of Lochinver, Sutherland. He later moved to Perth.

Defence solicitor advocate Shahid Latif said Campbell was a first offender who had seen a psychotherapist and undertaken work to deal with the factors that led to the offending. 

He told the court: ‘There is no doubt he is thoroughly ashamed and disgusted by his behaviour.’

Speaking after the case, Fraser Gibson, procurator fiscal for High Court sexual offences, said the girls assaulted and raped were ‘vulnerable young children suffering dreadful abuse and exploitation’.

Detective Chief Inspector Michael Smith, of Specialist Crime Division Public Protection, described Campbell’s offending as ‘utterly appalling’.

An NSPCC Scotland spokesman said: ‘This is a deeply disturbing case which shows the devastating harm that child sexual abusers can cause online.’ 

The charity also called for companies to tackle the way their platforms contribute to such abuse.