A depraved paedophile who paid impoverished parents in the Philippines for livestream sexual child abuse has been jailed for 26 years.

Patrick Howlett, of Ash between Canterbury and Sandwich, sent more than £55,000 to individuals in return for photos, videos and live streams of boys and girls as young as 18 months, a court had heard.

At a sentencing hearing on Friday (July 18), Judge Simon Taylor KC said the 58-year-old had arranged and facilitated child sexual abuse on “an industrial scale”.

Canterbury Crown Court heard how Howlett paid for children to be horrifically assaulted on at least 43 occasions between 2015 and 2021.

“[These offences] reveal a breathtaking lack of regard for the sanctity of childhood and a dehumanised and all-consuming approach to satisfying your sexual desires,” the judge said.

“A particular insidious feature of your offending is that by causing that parent or family member to sexually abuse the children, your facilitation involved the wholesale corruption of the relationship between the child victim and their parent or family member.

“It was too easy for you to sit on your computer, in the comfort of your own home and ruin lives.”

National Crime Agency (NCA) officers launched a probe into Howlett when intelligence indicated he made multiple payments to known facilitators of child sexual abuse in the country.

Howlett was found to have been in regular contact with a woman who sexually abused her children at his request and direction.

She would take photographs or record videos to send to Howlett in exchange for thousands of pounds in payments.

A single victim was continually assaulted for years, generating 1,277 images depicting the horrors taking place.

All these images were found on Howlett's devices and he also shared them in a conversation with another offender.

Howlett paid £11,777.48 to the single facilitator, who abused her child together with two siblings.

But Judge Taylor described how the paedophile’s actions were not limited to securing his sexual gratification.

“You also passed on money provided by other paedophiles as payment for the same material.

“By doing so, you further perpetuated the ‘market’ for this sordid abuse.”

At a pretrial preparation hearing, Howlett accepted nine counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing prohibited images of children.

On the first day of his trial, he pleaded guilty to arranging the distribution of indecent images of children, encouraging the causing of a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, and six counts of arranging the sexual exploitation of a child.

He also admitted two counts of encouraging the distribution of indecent images of children.

He subsequently tried to vacate his plea to half of the charges, but his application was denied.

Howlett appeared in the dock on Wednesday wearing a dark blue polo shirt and remained silent while the facts of the case were laid down.

During the investigation, NCA officers found Howlett had also been speaking to other facilitators.

In a conversation with one, he requested videos of a nine-year-old girl, stating he is unable to watch livestream abuse as he is at work.

He also contacted offenders using online messaging platforms and shared other abuse images through Dropbox.

In one discussion, Howlett said he was looking for images containing both boys and girls, sending money through the communication app to receive images of abuse.

Between 2014 and 2021, Howlett paid £55,918 to facilitators in the Philippines to sexually abuse children, making 796 separate transactions.

He was arrested by NCA officers on 1 July 2021 and investigators reviewed his electronic devices.

A total of 14,311 illegal images were recovered from Howlett's devices.

More than 5,000 of those images were assessed by NCA investigators to have been created for and sent to Howlett as a result of the abuse he instigated and controlled.

Investigators found the images had been created from 2003 up until Howlett's arrest.

In mitigation, the court heard Howlett, of Athelstan Place, had no previous convictions, and had himself been subject to abuse as a child.

But the judge did not find Howlett’s own experience of child abuse was relevant mitigation of his crime.

“The fact is you reached your 50’s and achieved highly at work and had a family of your own before you began to offend.

“I am not going to engage in cod-psychology and just guess this abuse is relevant to the offences you committed - that would be an insult to the great majority of abuse survivors who do not go on to offend.”

Howlett was dealt an extended sentence of 30 years, consisting of a custodial term of 26 years and an extension period of four years.

“You will serve two-thirds of the custodial period in prison before the parole board will consider whether it is safe to release you.

“Once released, you will serve on license any part of the custodial period which remains, and will then be subject to an extended licence period for a further three years."

NCA investigators worked with law enforcement in the Philippines throughout the case, where the facilitators are under investigation.

The NCA and Filipino authorities identified 19 children during this investigation who were subjected to sexual abuse as a result of Howlett's offending.

They have now been safeguarded in the Philippines, the NCA says.

Adam Priestley, head of investigations at the NCA, said: "Patrick Howlett is a dangerous paedophile who has offended for many years, systematically identifying and exploiting vulnerable children in the Philippines and paying thousands of pounds for them to be sexually abused by those who should be protecting them.

"The NCA will continue to pursue men like Howlett who pose a significant sexual risk to children and fuel the continued abuse of these children as a way for their families to make money, as well as pursue justice for victims of abhorrent crimes like this.

"Our work with law enforcement in the Philippines will continue to ensure criminals sexually abusing children are brought to justice, irrespective of where they or their victims are, and to identify facilitators in the Philippines so children being subjected to these traumatic crimes can be identified and protected.

Sexual abuse of children, whatever the motivation, will not be tolerated."

Julia McSorley, specialist prosecutor for the CPS' Organised Child Sexual Abuse Unit, said: "Patrick Howlett is a prolific paedophile who paid thousands of pounds to encourage others to abuse vulnerable children in the Philippines to satisfy his own desires. Those children were the victims of horrific sexual abuse at his instigation.

"Despite Howlett's attempts to disguise his offending and his claims to be involved in charitable work, painstaking investigation from the NCA, in collaboration with the Organised Child Sexual Abuse Unit in the CPS, built a picture of his crimes that was very difficult to deny. When presented with the weight of the evidence at the start of his trial, Howlett accepted his guilt.

"The fact that he encouraged individuals to abuse their own family members is particularly disturbing.

Thankfully, those children involved have been safeguarded and removed from the homes where this abuse took place.

"I hope this conviction sends a clear message that the CPS, working with law enforcement in the UK and abroad, will relentlessly pursue justice and prosecute those who sexually exploit children, wherever that abuse has taken place."