Cyber Child abuser Sentenced To Imprisonment

36 year old resident of Ilkeston in Derbyshire, Adrian Ringland, admitted impelling young girls to forward him naked photos after affecting their PCs with a Trojan. Impersonating as a teenager in chatrooms, he earned the confidence of youngsters and embedded malware onto their computers. He disguised the Trojan as his photo, which when opened, would give him complete access to their PCs and he would extort the teenagers into mailing naked photos.
He exhibited his hold over the girls' PCs by opening and shutting the disk drive remotely or switching off the computer screen, whilst blackmailing them.

Threatening to expose the girls to their chums and relatives through the e-mail details he had pilfered from their computers, he demanded more explicit pictures.

Ringland was found guilty to twenty complaints related to Internet child exploitation, two counts of impropriety with a child, four charges of blackmail, four accusations of hacking and ten crimes of producing obscene pictures of minors. Ringland's preys included a Canadian schoolgirl aged 14 and three British schoolgirls - two 14 year old and one-aged 13.

"This is a lawsuit concerning exploitation, victimization and sexual gratification," said the prosecuting attorney Lisa Wilding. "It is a shocking story that will tell you the terrors that prowl inside the net."

She alleged: "To prove his control over the compromised PCs, he would cause weird things to occur. For instance, the disk drive tray would open and shut by itself and the monitor would switch on and off."

"The frightening thought is that this is going to recur shortly - these kids won't be the ultimate ones to be exploited through the net utilizing spyware," averred Graham Cluley, Sophos' senior technology consultant.

Ringland's actions drew the attention of the police after his Canadian target complained about his offensive activities. "Despite his apprehension and bail for his first Internet crimes he kept on grooming a youngster aged 13 and later forged an intimacy with her," stated Crown Prosecution Service's Jenny Hopkins.

Related article: Cyber Saboteurs Target Australian Broadband Users

» SPAMfighter News - 11/16/2006