A former Chamber of Commerce president has been jailed for 18 years for spending thousands of pounds on live-streaming “thoroughly deprived” sexual abuse of children as young as 10 in the Philippines.

Peter Tomlinson, of Cowes, Isle of Wight, pleaded guilty at Newport Crown Court to 20 counts of child sexual abuse for which he paid a total of £10,000 during a four-year period.

The court heard that the 63-year-old businessman and former president of the Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce made 127 transactions to accounts in the Philippines between May 2015 and April 2017 to pay for the live-streamed abuse.

And the investigators found that he had also repeatedly paid one woman for the abuse of two young girls, one aged 10, between May 2018 and February 2019.

Sentencing Tomlinson, Judge David Melville QC, described the defendant as “highly dangerous towards young children” and said: “This was thoroughly deprived conduct.”

Daily Echo:

He added: “The idea a mother could be persuaded to do this to her children is appalling to right-thinking people and was doubtless brought on by the destitution of the people you were transferring what was in your life very modest sums of money but to them of course it was considerable sums of money.”

He order Tomlinson to serve a five-year extended period of licence on the completion of his prison sentence.

Kerry Maylin, prosecuting, told the court that Tomlinson used the nickname Buzz but also provided his real name during the online interactions with a trafficker who was detained and her two daughters taken into care.

She said: “Mr Tomlinson requested these types of video and provided instruction on the type of abuse he wanted.”

Ms Maylin said when he was arrested he told police: “It was my escape from reality. No-one in my family is at harm, my life is over.”

Elisabeth Bussey-Jones, defending, said her client had attempted to take his own life and was remorseful for his actions.

She said: “He was not just a person of good character, he was a person of considerable standing and respect within the community.”

A National Crime Agency spokesman said: “Investigators unearthed proof of thousands of messages between Tomlinson and the Filipino facilitator – who has been arrested and the children safeguarded.

“They exchanged 4,166 lines of chat on Skype – 358 indicated to be video calls and 3,809 text messages.

“During those calls Tomlinson repeatedly asked for ‘harder’ abuse footage, spelling out what he wanted to see and then complaining about what he received.”