A Sussex man who worked as an assistant moderator for a site specializing in child sexual abuse on the dark web has been sentenced to five years and four months in prison.
Martin Yates, 48, from Eastbourne, was a staff member at a site called ‘The Annex’. He was identified by the National Crime Agency as part of an investigation into those who ran the agency.
The annex, which is no longer active, has around 90,000 members around the world who share and discuss the most extreme types of abuse, including “heartcore” and sexual abuse of infants and young children. I was using it for.
Yates held the position of assistant moderator from January to September 2020, immediately reporting to head moderator Nathan Bake, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison last week.
The annex was run by an American man who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in January. London psychiatrist Kabir Garg was even worse off, and last summer he was sentenced to six years in prison.
Like Bake, Yates also played a key role in keeping the site running smoothly. He was responsible for enforcing the rules by promoting or removing other users, providing access to private and exclusive sections of the site, and advising on security measures. He also passed on the training he received for the role to others.
But Mr. Yates was not so cautious about his own safety. His username on the site was ‘yates704′, and in chat logs recovered by the NCA he also mentioned other users’ first names, their ages and that they lived in Eastbourne.
“yates704” was also found on “HACKFORUMS.NET,” a distinct website forum dedicated to discussions about hacker culture and cybersecurity.
Investigators discovered 6,000 private messages between “yates704” and other users of The Annex. Conversations ranged from role-playing fantasies about child sexual abuse to more formal conversations, such as managing the site and advice on how to post indecent images of children and techniques to evade law enforcement.
NCA officers used these details and an email address associated with him to identify Yates, and he was arrested at his home in Eastbourne in July 2022.
When interviewed, Yates fully acknowledged being the administrator of the moderator account, being a staff member at Annex, and sharing the child abuse material as part of that role.
He was charged with six charges at Hastings Magistrates Court in November last year and pleaded guilty. One of the charges was for arranging or aiding the sexual abuse of a child, four for making and distributing indecent images of a child, and one for possession of prohibited images of a child. .
Yates was sentenced to five years and four months in prison at Lewes Crown Court today, placed on the sex offenders register for life and given a lifetime sexual harm prevention order.
Jen Cruikshank, a senior investigator at the National Crime Agency, said: “The Annex would not be able to run without people like Martin Yates.” He played a pivotal role in keeping it afloat and allowing users around the world to continue accessing its horrific content without ever seeing it from law enforcement.
“Such sites directly and openly encourage users to commit sexual crimes against children, and those who operate or access such sites should not assume that they are protected by anonymity. I’m thinking about it.
“However, the NCA has the determination and technical capabilities to target those who pose a sexual risk to children and who use the dark web to hide.
“We will continue to work closely with our international partners to ensure criminals like Yates are identified and brought to justice.”
NCA worked with a number of international partners to target this group of moderators.
February 19, 2024