Paedophile nursery worker Vanessa George discussed abusing and killing a baby with her Svengali accomplice while abusing children in her care, a court heard yesterday.
The mother of two, 40, was talking online to Colin Blanchard, who was yesterday jailed for persuading a string of middle-aged women he met on Facebook to abuse children for his sexual pleasure.
As the full extent of Blanchard s depravity was laid bare, a court was told that the pair were part of one of the most sickening paedophile rings this country has ever seen .
Warped and wicked Blanchard, a twice-married father-of-two, had a Svengali-like influence over four women including George, who filmed and photographed themselves carrying out their appalling actions.
George, who had already been jailed, has refused to identify her victims to police.
The Honourable Mr Justice Royce told Blanchard yesterday: It is beyond the ken of decent people how any of you could stoop so disgustingly low as you did.
He described Blanchard s emails and text messages to George as deeply disturbing , saying they were sickening to read and reveal attitudes of breathtaking depravity .
The judge cited one example in which you [Blanchard] discuss with Vanessa George raping a baby until it dies .
Blanchard, 40, was said by the judge to be the hub of this peadophile wheel which had caused widespread revulsion and disbelief . He was handed an indeterminate prison sentence and told he would serve a minimum of nine years.
Two of the women George and Angela Allen received indeterminate sentences in December 2009.
Yesterday the two other members of the paedophile ring Tracy Lyons and Tracey Dawber were also sentenced.
Bristol Crown Court heard that Blanchard had already been cautioned for possessing a large number of pornographic images of children.
In 2002 he was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for five years.
His most recent crimes were discovered when his occasional business partner used his computer.
Blanchard had forgotten to log out of his personal email account.
On opening some of the emails, Noman Ahmed found graphic and disturbing images of children, and immediately alerted police.
Officers in Manchester then used Blanchard s computer and phone to trace George, who abused children at Little Ted s nursery in Plymouth.
They also found Allen, 40, a former prostitute, Lyons, 41, a mother-of-nine, and Dawber, a 44-year-old grandmother and care worker.
Dawber was the only one to have met Blanchard face to face.
George, Allen and Lyons all pleaded guilty to a string of charges of sexual assault and making and possessing child pornography. Dawber, from Southport, Merseyside, was found guilty of sexual assault charges in October after a re-trial.
Blanchard, of Rochdale, pleaded guilty to taking indecent photo-graphs of children, distribution of an indecent image and sexual assault of a child under the age of
13. He had previously admitted 19 other sex abuse charges. Greville Davis, mitigating for Blanchard, said his client had been sexually abused and raped as a child and bore psychiatric scars .
Stephen Smyth, representing Lyons, described his client as a dim woman .
Dawber was jailed for four years for sexually abusing a five-month-old child while Blanchard took pictures.
Lyons, of Portsmouth, who gave birth to her youngest child while in custody, was given a seven-year sentence, four of which she will spend in prison and three on licence.
Each was disqualified from working with children for life.
Detective Constable Andy Pilling, of Greater Manchester Police, said: Blanchard is the common link between all these women.
H owever, no one should be under the misapprehension that they were somehow forced into abusing children they willingly took part. - Daily Mail