A pedophile who made thousands of pounds by creating child abuse images using AI and real photos of children has been jailed for 18 years in a landmark case.
Hugh Nelson used a 3D character generator to transform non-explicit photos of ordinary children into child abuse images before selling them on internet forums used by artists.
People who knew the real-life children sent in images of them from 27 years ago.
Mr Nelson, from Bolton, will charge the pedophile network £80 for a new ‘character’. It then cost £10 per image to animate the images in different explicit positions.
Nelson admits he made around £5,000 in 18 months selling these images.
In some cases, Nelson went on to encourage his clients to rape and sexually assault children, the court said.
During a police interrogation, the pedophile told officers: “Many of my characters were commissioned by my father, uncle, and family friends.”
Janet Smith, specialist prosecutor at the CPS, said: ‘This is an example of this type of work that shows the link between people like Nelson using technology to create computer-generated images and the real-life crime that follows. It was one of the first cases of It’s behind it. ”
Recently, a number of pedophiles have been sent to prison for using AI to create images of child abuse.
But in Nelson’s case, for the first time, police were able to link the images he generated to actual children.
Nelson had no previous convictions but was arrested at his parents’ home in Egerton, County Bolton, in June last year, where he told police he had a sexual interest in girls, mainly around the age of 12.
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May 4:22: AI used to create child abuse images
The children he sent photos of were all based overseas, including France, Italy and the United States.
Police officers in those countries were tipped off about Nelson’s crimes, leading to more arrests.
This is the first time someone has been charged with creating images of this type of child abuse, but authorities are preparing to create more images.
At the Internet Watch Foundation in Cambridge, dozens of analysts scour the internet every day to find images of child abuse and remove them from the internet.
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AI-generated images of child abuse are increasing at an ‘appalling’ rate
Image: Analyst working on child sexual abuse images shows mock report to Sky News
More child abuse images have been created using AI in the past six months than in all of last year.
Dan Sexton, the charity’s chief technology officer, said: ‘Our job has always been difficult.
”[But] We’ve never had to deal with the possibility that someone could download some software onto their computer and create an infinite amount of new images.
“They will use as much data as they can until the hard drive is full. This is a new type of harm that we are not prepared for.”
Image: Internet Watch Foundation tackles online child sexual abuse material
One of the charity’s analysts, known only as Geoff when on duty to protect his identity, said he was concerned about how convincing the AI images were.
“We’re now getting to the point where even trained analysts are having a hard time figuring out whether it’s real or not,” he said.
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In August, Nelson was found guilty at Bolton Crown Court of 11 offences, including three counts of abetting the rape of a child under 13, one count of attempting to induce a boy under 16 to engage in sexual activity and three counts each of distributing money. acknowledged. One count of creating obscene images and possessing prohibited images.
At his court appearance in July 2023, he also pleaded guilty to four charges of distributing obscene pseudo-photographs of children and one charge of publishing an obscene article.
Detective Constable Carly Baines, of Greater Manchester Police, said the incident was “absolutely frightening”.
It added: “However, after an extensive trawl of his many devices by digital forensics experts, it is clear that his actions clearly went far beyond what he considered a ‘business opportunity.’ It became,” he added.
“Not only did he create and sell these images, but he also engaged in sexual and vulgar chats about children online, encouraging people interested in his online content to engage in sexual harassment against children he knew and had relationships with. They even encouraged contact crimes such as rape.
