A British headteacher who groomed at least 131 children worldwide using social media while working at a school in Iraq has been jailed, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said.
Nicholas Clayton, 38, from The Wirral, used Facebook Messenger to contact children as young as 10, asking for photos and attempting to sexually abuse them.
Clayton was caught after asking a 13-year-old boy from Cambodia for photos of his naked upper torso and arranging to pay for the child to travel to Malaysia so they could meet.Investigators then found Clayton had been messaging hundreds of boys from across the globe, spanning the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Iraq, Morocco, Turkey and others over a period of just three months.
In the wake of the case the NSPCC voiced concerns that Meta, which owns Facebook, plans to introduce end-to-end encryption on its messaging platform. New Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan has previously said there are no plans to water down the proposals for new internet safety laws, which Mr Burrows welcomed as "really encouraging".
"Protecting children from sex offenders is a priority for the NCA, and we continue to pursue criminals in the UK and internationally to ensure abusers like Clayton are held to account."