Pedophile Hugh Nelson, who made AI child abuse images from real images sent to him, was jailed for 18 years in 'utterly appalling' landmark case

A pedophile who made thousands of pounds by creating child abuse images and images of real children using artificial intelligence has been jailed for 18 years in a landmark case.

Hugh Nelson used a 3D character generator to transform ordinary, non-explicit images of children into images of child abuse before selling them on an internet forum used by artists.

People who knew the children in the real world were sending 27-year-old photos of them.

Nelson, of Bolton, would later charge the pedophile network £80 for a new “character”. After that, it was £10 per image to animate them in different, distinct positions.

Nelson admits he made around £5,000 from selling these images over an 18-month period.

The court heard that in some cases Nelson encouraged his clients to rape and sexually assault children.

In a police interview, the pedophile told cops: “Most of my characters were recruited by their fathers, uncles and family friends.”

CPS specialist prosecutor Jeanette Smith said: “This is one of the first cases of its kind to show a link between people like Nelson using technology to create computer-generated images and real-life crimes.” behind this.”

Recently, many pedophiles have been sent to prison for drug use. artificial intelligence Creating images of child abuse.

But in the Nelson case, police were able to link the images he produced to real children for the first time.

Nelson, who had no previous convictions, was arrested at his parents’ home in Egerton, Bolton, in June last year and told police he had a sexual interest in girls, mostly around the age of 12.

All of the children whose photographs were sent were abroad, in France, Italy and the United States.

Police officers in these countries were notified of Nelson’s crime and further arrests were made.

Although this is the first time a person has been sued for creating such child abuse images, authorities are preparing for many more cases.

At the Internet Watch Foundation in Cambridge, dozens of analysts scour the internet every day, tracking down images of child abuse and removing them from the internet.

They found that there were more child abuse images made using artificial intelligence in the last six months than last year.

Dan Sexton, the charity’s chief technical officer, said: “It’s always been a challenge.

“(But) we’ve never had to deal with the possibility that someone could download software onto their computer and create an endless number of new images.

“They’re using as much as they can until the hard drives are full. This is a new type of damage that we’re not prepared for.”

One of the charity’s analysts – referred to only as Jeff at work to protect his identity – said he was concerned about how convincing the AI images had become.

“We’re now reaching the point where even a trained analyst would have a hard time figuring out whether this is real or not,” he said.

In August Nelson pleaded guilty to 11 offenses at Bolton Crown Court; These included three counts of inciting the rape of a child under the age of 13, one count of attempting to incite a boy under the age of 16 to engage in sexual activity, and three counts of distribution. and making obscene images and possessing prohibited images.

At an earlier hearing in July 2023, he also pleaded guilty to charges of distributing indecent fake photographs of children and publishing an obscene article.

Detective Constable Carly Baines, of Manchester Police, said the case was “extremely appalling”.

He added: “After a comprehensive scan of many of his devices by digital forensics experts, we realized his behavior went well beyond what he clearly saw as a ‘business opportunity’.

“Not only was he creating and selling these images, he was also engaging in lewd, sexually explicit online chats about children, going so far as to encourage people interested in his online content to commit communications crimes such as rape against children they knew or were related to.”

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