Philippines child rapist David Shepherd jailed for life

David Shepherd travelled to the Philippines to carry out abuse

A prolific paedophile who filmed himself raping children in the Philippines has been jailed for life.

David Shepherd, of Bridport, Dorset, admitted a number of offences earlier this month but denied raping four children, including an eight-year-old.

During three trials at Dorchester Crown Court, the 60-year-old was convicted of numerous offences including child rape and paying for sex with children.

Shepherd was jailed for 28 years and told he must serve at least 14 years.

The former pub landlord was found guilty of facilitating child sex offences, raping children, paying for child sex, making indecent videos of children and holding 20,211 indecent films and images of children.

The judge described him as an "arrogant, manipulative and devious man" with a "deeply engrained interest in children whose ages were in single figures".

'Harrowing images'

Shepherd had travelled to the Philippines to abuse children in "the most vile manner", Dorset Police said.

He also directed live sex shows involving children as young as 17-months-old using internet messaging services, and recorded himself committing serious sexual offences, including rape, against young children.

Following his arrest in November last year, he was found with a large collection of videos he had produced as well as tens of thousands of indecent images and videos of children on his computer and hard drives.

The case was split into three trials. The first dealt with offences in the Philippines; the second related to possession of images; and the third involved offences over the internet.

Following guilty verdicts at the first trial, Shepherd pleaded guilty to the remaining charges.

Det Con David Baker, of Dorset Police's paedophile and online investigation team (Polit), said: "Such was Shepherd's arrogance [that] he pleaded not guilty, despite the overwhelming visual evidence against him.

"This evidence showed harrowing images of very young children being abused and degraded in the most vile manner."

Charges against David Shepherd

Trial one, 3 August:

• Four charges of inciting a child under 13 in sexual activity

• Two charges of taking indecent photographs of a child

• Assault of a child under 13 by penetration

• Four charges of raping a child under 13

Trial two, 4 August:

• Charged with holding 841 moving indecent images of children

• Charged with holding 19,369 still indecent images of children

Trial three, 8 August:

• Nine charges of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence

• Two charges of making indecent photographs of a child