Informer who spied on activists found guilty of plot to rape children

A man who schemed to rape children as young as six was revealed at his trial to have been a police informer who spied on environmental activists.

- Rob Evans

Nick Gratwick, 68, was found guilty yesterday of 38 “abhorrent” paedophile offences, including plans over the past two years to pay to rape or sexually assault children in the UK and abroad.

The trial at Guildford crown court in Surrey heard the contents of graphic conversations on encrypted applications that were described by the National Crime Agency (NCA) as “some of the worst seen by specialist child abuse investigators”.

Gratwick discussed harming children for sexual pleasure, arranged to pay a Romanian mother to allow him to rape her daughter, and advised others on how to drug children to abuse them. The radio engineer from Mitcham, south London, was also found guilty of possessing more than 1,300 photographs and videos of children being abused.

The trial also exposed Gratwick’s previous role as a police informer who had infiltrated prominent environmental and animal rights protests for six years in the 1990s and 2000s.