LONDON: An Indian NHS psychiatrist has been jailed for six years for helping run a child sex-abuse website and a British teacher with past India stints convicted of paying and instructing teenagers in India to assault kids and send him images of such encounters, the two separate cases reaching their days of reckoning last week.
Dr Kabir Garg, 33, who completed his MBBS from Lucknow’s King George’s Medical University and worked at the National Institute of Mental health and Neurosciences (Nimhans) in Bengaluru earlier, was sentenced on June 23 at Woolwich Crown Court. He is on the Sex Offenders Register for life.
Arrested in November 2022, Garg had pleaded guilty this January to eight charges, including facilitating the sexual exploitation of children, and making and distributing indecent images
The same month that Garg was arrested, the National Crime Agency (NCA) had picked up Matthew Smith, 34, a former British deputy head teacher from East Dulwich. Smith pleaded guilty on June 20 at Southwark Crown Court and will be sentenced on August 4.
The NCA identified Garg, who lives in Lewisham, as one of the moderators of the site The Annex, which had 90,000 members worldwide and saw hundreds of links to child abuse material shared daily. Garg was among the site’s 30-odd administrators.
As moderator, Garg was responsible for enforcing site rules and providing advice on how to share images of child sexual abuse. When officers arrested the psychiatrist at his one-bed flat last November, he was reportedly logged into his moderator account.
The NCA uncovered over 7,000 indecent images and videos and numerous medical journal articles, which he had acquired as a psychiatrist. One of them was titled “A Study on Child Abuse India”.
“Garg’s crimes are especially shocking given his understanding of the psychological impact of sexual abuse on children,” Bethany Raine, specialist prosecutor, said.
Smith, too, was online when arrested, speaking to a teenage boy in India and asking him to send sexual images of a child in return for money. He had child-sex abuse websites open on his computer. His devices yielded over 1.2 lakh indecent images, officers said.
NCA investigators established that Smith had paid two teenagers in India £65k (approximately Rs 68 lakh) to abuse children in India over a five-year period when he was based in Nepal.
Between 2007 and 2014, Smith worked in orphanages and NGOs across India. Investigators also found evidence that Smith had potential offending material on children in this period.
Claire Brinton, specialist prosecutor, said: “Smith offered payments for indecent images, which resulted in horrifying abuse of children in India.”
Dr Kabir Garg, 33, who completed his MBBS from Lucknow’s King George’s Medical University and worked at the National Institute of Mental health and Neurosciences (Nimhans) in Bengaluru earlier, was sentenced on June 23 at Woolwich Crown Court. He is on the Sex Offenders Register for life.
Arrested in November 2022, Garg had pleaded guilty this January to eight charges, including facilitating the sexual exploitation of children, and making and distributing indecent images
The same month that Garg was arrested, the National Crime Agency (NCA) had picked up Matthew Smith, 34, a former British deputy head teacher from East Dulwich. Smith pleaded guilty on June 20 at Southwark Crown Court and will be sentenced on August 4.
The NCA identified Garg, who lives in Lewisham, as one of the moderators of the site The Annex, which had 90,000 members worldwide and saw hundreds of links to child abuse material shared daily. Garg was among the site’s 30-odd administrators.
As moderator, Garg was responsible for enforcing site rules and providing advice on how to share images of child sexual abuse. When officers arrested the psychiatrist at his one-bed flat last November, he was reportedly logged into his moderator account.
The NCA uncovered over 7,000 indecent images and videos and numerous medical journal articles, which he had acquired as a psychiatrist. One of them was titled “A Study on Child Abuse India”.
“Garg’s crimes are especially shocking given his understanding of the psychological impact of sexual abuse on children,” Bethany Raine, specialist prosecutor, said.
Smith, too, was online when arrested, speaking to a teenage boy in India and asking him to send sexual images of a child in return for money. He had child-sex abuse websites open on his computer. His devices yielded over 1.2 lakh indecent images, officers said.
NCA investigators established that Smith had paid two teenagers in India £65k (approximately Rs 68 lakh) to abuse children in India over a five-year period when he was based in Nepal.
Between 2007 and 2014, Smith worked in orphanages and NGOs across India. Investigators also found evidence that Smith had potential offending material on children in this period.
Claire Brinton, specialist prosecutor, said: “Smith offered payments for indecent images, which resulted in horrifying abuse of children in India.”
