Locations
Shakespeare Road, Colchester, Essex, CO3
Description
Connor Benjamin Allen-Howe targeted boys aged between 12 and 15.
A "devious and manipulative" paedophile from Colchester who used the internet to corrupt and abuse up to 20 children has been told his eight-year jail term was not a day too long.
Connor Benjamin Allen-Howe, 22, of Shakespeare Road, Colchester, was aged between 16 and 18 when he posed as a teenage girl online to persuade a host of boys, aged between 12 and 15, to perform sex acts on camera.
He also sometimes posed as a multi-millionaire offering "gifts" to witness sex acts performed by his under-age victims.
Sick Allen-Howe went even further, persuading some of his victims to become part of his "army of deviants" by sexually abusing their own younger siblings, and even pets, whilst he watched remotely.
They included causing or inciting child prostitution or pornography and making indecent photographs of children.
At London's Appeal Court today, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb heard Allen-Howe plead for a shorter sentence, claiming he was treated too harshly.
The judge, sitting with Lady Justice Hallett and Judge Martin Picton, said Allen-Howe had "catfished" his victims - posing as someone he was not online.
Lawyers for Allen-Howe argued that he had been given a sentence appropriate for an adult and his own tender years ought to have resulted in a shorter term.
But the appeal judge said that "catfishing has the potential to result in serious psychological harm to victims."
"Such behaviour has to be severely punished," she added.
"Twenty victims were abused by, or at the behest of, Allen-Howe," she went on, branding him "devious and manipulative."
"We cannot conclude that, with the breadth and length of the offending in this case, the sentence was wrong in principle.