A paedophile scout leader who raped a 10-year-old boy and shared thousands of sick child porn images over the internet has been jailed for 16 years.
Twisted Ian Pain, 48, was arrested in June last year by police who found a staggering 3,845 photographs of children being sexually abused on his computer.
Shockingly, the pervert told officers he “was only looking” and that he “hadn’t hurt anybody” when they uncovered his sickening collection of images.
Computers, mobile phones and other items were seized from Pain’s home in Wolverhampton, West Mids., where he still lived with his parents.
Detectives found Pain – who also refereed children’s football matches – had 68 level five images, the most extreme in an international evidential scale used by police.
Cops also found that 1,305 photographs and films had also been distributed via chat rooms and file sharing websites regularly hijacked by paedophiles.
Almost all of the vile images were of boys aged between seven and 16-years-old.
Pain originally thanked police for arresting him – for helping him escape his urge to look at images of child abuse – while still denying abusing anybody himself.
But six months later a 10-year-old boy told a friend he had been sexually abused by the scout master over a two year period.
Pain was suspended from his leader’s role at the Scouts, refereeing junior football matches and serving as an outwards bounds instructor as the investigation continued.
And on Tuesday the depraved paedophile was caged for 16 years at Wolverhampton Crown Court after finally admitting his “horrendous” crimes.
He was also sentenced to eight years for inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, four years for the distribution of indecent images of children and three years for possessing indecent images of children, all to be served concurrently.
Pain was also ordered to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for life and banned from working, living or communicating with children forever.
Detective Constable Allan Sharp, from West Midlands Police, who led the investigation, said after the hearing: “When questioned Pain described the dark and sickening online world in which he operated.
“He said that people like him who were viewing indecent images of children were encouraged to share photographs and films depicting abuse.
“If not, they would be removed from ‘friend lists’ and eventually kicked out of the virtual group.
“Many of the sites he used were originally set up to allow people to share music and film.
“Over the years many of these have been hijacked by people like Pain.
“The crimes the boy described were truly horrendous. One can only imagine the immense burden the child had to bear alone and how that has negatively affected him.
“Up until the last minute, Ian Pain had denied abusing any child.
“It was only when he realised the consequences of maintaining his web of lies that he finally entered a guilty plea.
“I am satisfied with the lengthy sentence handed down by the courts.
“It reflects the seriousness of his offending and flies in the face of those people like Pain who believe that they are not harming children who feature in these images.
“To capture these acts real children have been subject to sickening abuse and emotionally damaged.”
Andy Barker, from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), added: “The sentence of Ian Pain to 16 years imprisonment for this horrendous crime also highlights the risk posed to children by those who view indecent images of children.
“We know there are links between viewing such images and the contact abuse of children, which is why we continue to work alongside our police and industry colleagues to provide an increasingly hostile online environment for those who seek out child abuse images.”
