Britain's worst paedophile who attacked hundreds of children in south-east Asia and used the 'dark web' to crowd-fund his abuse is facing 22 life sentences.
Richard Huckle, 30, targeted a poverty-stricken Christian community in Malaysia, where he posed as a photographer and English teacher to win the trust of his victims' parents.
The former grammar school boy, who came from a middle class family in Kent, took pictures and videos of himself raping and abusing young children and even a baby wearing a nappy.
Huckle bragged of the attacks in online blogs and penned a sick 60-page 'handbook' titled 'Pedophiles & Poverty: Child Lover Guide'.
During his nine years of offending, he forced victims to pose with horrific slogans advertising his foul images, which he sold for Bitcoins on a notorious paedophile website on the dark web - the encrypted version of the internet.
As part of an international network, Huckle awarded himself 'PedoPoints' for carrying out the attacks and used a paedophile crowdfunding website to finance the abuse.
The case can be reported for the first time today after Judge Peter Rook QC lifted reporting restrictions at the start of a three-day sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey.
Huckle, originally from Ashford, faces up to 22 life sentences after admitting to 71 charges, including rape, sexual assault, and sexual activity with a child.
It took more than an hour for the charges to be put to Huckle at an earlier hearing, in what is believed to be the worst case of its kind.
He appeared in the dock today wearing a black shirt, with his long hair tied back into a ponytail and sporting a goatee beard.
The charges relate to the horrific sexual abuse of 23 girls and boys aged between six months and 12 years. Some 22 of the victims are from Malaysia while one is Cambodian.
Huckle first visited Malaysia on a gap year teaching placement in 2005.
He then took indecent images of a three-year-old child while staying with a Cambodian family the following year.
He returned to Malaysia in 2006, where he abused and took photographs of two sisters, aged four and six.
In 2007 he came back to stay with their family where he took up a teaching post in their village and continued to abuse the girls until his arrest.
On his trips back to England he worshipped in Christian churches in London and Kent, which he used as a stepping stone to further the abuse abroad.
Huckle moved to Malaysia permanently in 2010 and enrolled at the Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan University to study IT and later work as a freelance photographer.
He offered to take photographs for children’s birthday parties and even used his cover as an amateur photographer to snap the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2012 during their visit to a park in Kuala Lumpur, where he was later to take scores of his victims.
Huckle gained the trust of a poor Christian community in Kuala Lumpur through his English tuition where he was able to use his perceived status as a rich westerner to groom victims and their families with impunity.
Five of the children he abused were living in a children's home.
Huckle even boasted that he'd 'hit the jackpot' by grooming a three-year-old girl to be 'as loyal to me as my dog'.
On the dark web, Huckle documented every step of his child abuse and hoped to make paedophilia a paying profession.
He posted hundreds of images on one of the world's biggest child porn websites, which had more than 9,000 members before it was shut down.
He turned to online paedophiles to crowdfund the abuse, allowing those who paid him in Bitcoins access to videos of him raping his victims.
Huckle wrote: 'Impoverished kids are definitely much, much easier to seduce than middle class Western kids. I still plan on publishing a guide on the subject sometime.'
He added: 'Would love to make a small income off selling child porn.'
Huckle set up a disturbing system of awarding himself points for different abuse. Between November 2013 and November 2014, he amassed a score of 1,305.
His campaign of abuse was finally brought to an end when Australian police tipped off the authorities in the UK.
Huckle was arrested at Gatwick Airport on 19 December 2014 when he returned to the country to visit his family for Christmas.
