A Bolton court sentences pedophile to 18 years for using AI to create child abuse images

A 27-year-old Bolton pedophile known as Hugh Nelson, who created child sexual abuse images using AI has been slapped with an 18-year jail term.

Nelson, a graphic design student from Bolton reportedly used AI technology in “the worst possible way” creating images of real children into “depraved” indecent pictures. He pleaded guilty to 16 child sexual abuse offenses.

The Bolton pedophile sold child abuse images online to other perverts

The unscrupulous student also shared and sold the images online to other perverts for a period of over 18 months. During this “trade” window he pocketed about £5,000.

According to the BBC, Nelson told Bolton Crown Court that he also encouraged the rape of children in online chatrooms.

Greater Manchester Police Detective Chief Inspector, Jen Tattersall, described Nelson as “an extremely dangerous man who thought he could get away with what he was doing by using modern technology”.

Apart from being sentenced to 18 years in jail, including six years on licence, Nelson was also placed on the sex offenders register.

According to the BBC report, his parents followed proceedings in the court’s public gallery while he appeared via a video link from HMP Forest Bank, where he pleaded guilty to several counts of making, possessing and distributing indecent pictures of children.

Additionally, he also admitted to three counts of encouraging the rape of a child under the age of 13 as well as to a count of attempting to cause a child below 16 to engage in sexual activity and one of publishing an obscene article.

‟There appears to have been no limit to the depth of depravity exhibited in the images that you were prepared to create and to distribute to others.”

– Judge Martin Walsh

“The nature and content of the communications which you entered into is utterly chilling,” he added as he passed the sentence.

The Crown Prosecution Service warned and reminded the public that the law applies equally to real indecent images and AI-generated images of children.

Nelson played “middleman” for exchange of child sexual abuse images

The court also heard that people made request to him to create explicit pictures of children being harmed, sexually of physically. He would then use a computer programme, Daz 3D AI Studio, to create those images and sell them in an encrypted “chatroom for pedophiles.”

Derek Ray-Hill of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) described this as horrifying and that technology was being abused to enable “previously unthought of violations of innocent children.”

“We are discovering more and more synthetic and AI images of child sexual abuse and they can be disturbingly life-like,” he said.

‟That Nelson profited from making this material to order after clients sent him images to manipulate is on another horrifying level.”     

– Ray-Hill

Ray-Hill reiterated that possession or creation of such images was a criminal offense and that Nelson’s case should “drive home the message.”

Nelson’s offenses came to light when he started speaking to an undercover police officer in May last year. He told the police officer that he took commission from customers from as far as France, Italy, and the US.

He was arrested a month later at his home in Egerton and his devices were also impounded and checked. He told officers that criminal activities got worse when he connected with other pedophiles online.

According to prosecutor David Toal, Nelson also revealed he had over 60 characters in total between the ages of six months to middle-aged. He charged £80 to create a new character.

The Nelson case reportedly became “the first to really test” the law on digitally manipulated indecent images. The Greater Manchester Police collaborated with specialists at the CPS and National Crime Agency in their prosecution.