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Matthew Falder: Chilling photos show squalid lair of 'warped and sadistic' paedophile

Still taken from footage of a search of Matthew Falder's bedroom: PA
Still taken from footage of a search of Matthew Falder's bedroom: PA

Images have emerged of the squalid lair of a “warped and sadistic” paedophile – described as one of Britain’s worst – who preyed on vulnerable victims on the dark web.

Footage shot inside Cambridge University graduate Dr Matthew Falder's flat shows dirty laundry and litter strewn over the floor.

Meanwhile his desk – on which he kept a desktop computer – is cluttered with scissors, glue, golf balls and what appears to be a tub of mushrooms.

The Birmingham University researcher and lecturer was jailed for 32 years on Monday.

Photo of Matthew Falder's flat showing his desk and computer (PA)
Photo of Matthew Falder's flat showing his desk and computer (PA)

Falder admitted 137 offences, including blackmail, voyeurism and encouraging the rape of a child, relating to 46 victims after being caught following an international manhunt led by the National Crime Agency.

He evaded police detection for nearly four years before his arrest in June last year.

The 29-year-old was arrested after three traumatised victims, who were tricked into sending him humiliating images, attempted to end their own lives.

Sentencing Falder for "a tale of ever increasing depravity", Judge Philip Parker QC said: "As for your equally extraordinary sexual offending – no-one who knew you above ground had an inkling of what you were doing below the surface."

Judge Parker branded him "warped and sadistic" and called him an "internet highwayman".

He added: "You wanted to assume total control over your victims.

"Your behaviour was cunning, persistant, manipulative and cruel."

Footage of a custody interview with Matthew Falder, who continually answered no comment to the interviewers questions (PA)
Footage of a custody interview with Matthew Falder, who continually answered no comment to the interviewers questions (PA)

For the victims, he said: "The damage is on-going for these individuals it will never end, knowing the abuse caused by you still exists in other unknown persons' computers."

A previous hearing was told Falder coerced male and female victims into producing "increasingly severe self-generated indecent images of themselves, the focus of these images being to humiliate and degrade".

Falder forced one victim to film herself licking toilet seats, a used tampon and eating dog food, and set up secret cameras in bathrooms to record women and girls naked.

Another was blackmailed into eating his faeces and drinking urine, while the 29-year-old also encouraged the rape of a boy, aged two, by his own father.

He set up hidden cameras in publicly accessible toilets, catching unsuspecting victims on film, and using the footage to blackmail.

Many of the images were then distributed on so-called "hurtcore" websites on the dark web – an extreme subculture of paedophilia – showing material depicting sexual and physical abuse.

Additional reporting by Press Association