Man headed world paedophile ring

The judge said he had "an inability to show remorse"

A man with 200,000 computer images and thousands of videos showing child sex abuse has been jailed indefinitely.

Christopher Stubbings, 55, from Crawley Lane, Kings Bromley, Staffordshire, was one of the ringleaders of a worldwide abuse ring, Stafford Crown Court heard.

He was ordered to serve a minimum of 12-and-a-half years in jail.

Stubbings had admitted eight offences including indecent assaults on a child under 16 and the commissioning of child abuse videos.

The offences also included distribution of child abuse images and possession of child abuse images.

'Deplorable and depraved'

He was arrested by Staffordshire Police following a two-year investigation involving the FBI and police in Australia.

The court heard when he was interviewed by Staffordshire Police, Stubbings said: "You know what men are like. Some choose to collect stamps. I choose to collect images of children."

Stubbings was at the very heart of this child abuse group

Crown Prosecution Service

The judge, Mrs Justice Macur, said he had "an inability to show remorse, contrition or empathy."

She added the images were "deplorable and depraved - these children were abused, all of them debased, all of them humiliated".

In a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said he was a co-founder of a worldwide paedophile group consisting of about 60 members and within that group he was second in command and acted as its treasurer.

It added one of his primary roles was to secure funding by direct pleas from him to the group's members.

The CPS said: "Stubbings was at the very heart of this child abuse group, which used very sophisticated internet encryption techniques to try and avoid detection."

Det Insp Ronnie Walker, from Staffordshire Police, said afterwards that Stubbings had not shown "any remorse whatsoever".

Asked about the sentence, Det Insp Walker added: "It truly reflects his level of offending and the seriousness of the nature and the quantity and the levels of depravity shown within those images that we've recovered."