Paedophile who made AI images jailed for 18 years.

A man has been jailed for 18 years after creating AI-generated images of child sexual abuse in an “utterly chilling” landmark case.

- ANDY GREGORY

Hugh Nelson, a 27-year-old from Bolton with a master’s degree in graphics, pleaded guilty to 11 offences in August at Bolton Crown Court, including three counts each of distributing and making indecent images.

The former student accepted requests from individuals via online chatrooms for “bespoke” explicit images depicting children being harmed both sexually and physically, and used pictures of real children to create some of the computergenerated images, the court heard.

Nelson frequently discussed child sexual abuse with other chatroom users and on three separate occasions encouraged the rape of children aged under 13. His father sat in the public gallery alongside Nelson’s mother, who wept as their son – who appeared via video link from HMP Forest Bank – was jailed.

Passing sentence yesterday, Judge Martin Walsh said: “There appears to have been no limit to the depth of depravity exhibited in the images that you were prepared to create and to distribute to others. The nature and content of the communications which you entered into is utterly chilling.”

He ordered Nelson to also serve six years on licence after he is released from jail and he must sign the sex offender register for life. The Probation Service has concluded that Nelson posed the highest category of risk of danger to the public.