Highland man Gary Campbell directed live stream sex attacks on children in Philippines

A former retained firefighter who directed sex attacks and rapes of young girls in the Philippines from his home in the Highlands has been jailed.

Gary Campbell paid for the abuse to be carried out by adults as he watched and recorded it in “real-time” via a live stream to his address.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that some of the victims in the footage could have been as young as four.

The 59-year-old admitted 13 charges of sexual assault, causing female children to become providers of sexual services and rape between June 2012 and August 2014 while living at Culag Gardens, Lochinver, in Sutherland.

Advocate depute Margaret Barron told the court a search was carried out at his then home with forensic computer analysts present to carry out a preliminary examination of devices seized.

“A number of devices were seized from the living room, bedroom and hallway, which on later examination were found to contain child sexual abuse material,” she said.

Videos recorded during Skype video calls were found and in some of them Campbell’s face was visible on a small window on a computer screen as the abuse was live streamed to him. He could also be seen and heard to type messages on a laptop.

The advocate depute said a Skype account with the name “gary24pucket” and the full name “Gary Campbell” was also found. She said records of payments to adults in the Philippines were also recovered.

She said: “In videos and chat logs, the accused provides directions to those acting in the Philippines to assault the children named in the charges in the manner described.”

The advocate depute said it indicated that Campbell was not only watching the assaults being committed on children in “real-time” but he was directing those adults in the Philippines to assault them and they responded to his directions.

She said that most of the offending Campbell has now admitted was committed on an art and part basis “with the accused present at his home address and the art and part actor referred to in each charge in the Philippines”.

Campbell sent payments of between £10.12 and £30.33 to watch children be molested on camera.

The court heard that the first-time offender Campbell, of Windsor Court, Perth, had worked as a water treatment operative and was a retained firefighter.

The judge, Lord Beckett, remanded Campbell, who had been on bail, in custody for the preparation of a background report ahead of sentencing next month.

He said a jail sentence was inevitable and told him: “The court takes a very serious view of what are very serious crimes.”

Campbell was placed on the sex offenders’ register.