‘Devil incarnate’ Bennell set to die in prison
A PAEDOPHILE lecturer who blackmailed vulnerable victims with “warped and sadistic” demands was yesterday jailed for 32 years.
Cambridge university graduate Matthew Falder, 29, admitted 137 offences, including voyeurism, encouraging child rape and sharing images showing the abuse of a new-born.
The twisted predator manipulated victims “behind a computer screen” by duping them into providing nude images and personal details.
He shared the depraved images on the “Dark Web” – a secret part of the internet – for other sick users.
Falder approached 300 people worldwide and the court heard of horrific incidents involving 46 victims, male and female, including teenagers.
Humiliating
His primary motivation was for power and control, inflicting suffering and humiliation, said a senior police officer.
Falder coerced male and female victims into producing “increasingly severe selfgenerated indecent images of themselves”. One girl was ordered to eat dog food.
Falder duped people, who were advertising for babysitting or dog-walking jobs on online message boards, into providing nude images by posing as a female artist who wanted to use them.
The geophysics lecturer at Birmingham university was caught by an international SEX fiend football coach Barry Bennell is likely to die in prison after was branded “the devil incarnate” by a judge yesterday.
Bennell, 64, who was jailed for 30 years, may have abused more than 100 boys, a court heard.
He was ordered to attend court, having previously appeared via video-link throughout the five-week trial.
He has cancer and is fed through a tube.
The paedophile was charged with attacks on 12 victims as young as eight.
Eighty-six more men have come forward to say they were abused by him as boys.
Judge Clement Goldstone said he was repulsed by the delight former Crewe Alexandra coach Bennell took in grooming his victims.
He said: “Your behaviour towards these boys in grooming and seducing them before subjecting them to degrading and humiliating abuse was sheer evil.”
The judge told Liverpool Crown Court that Bennell had appeared to his victims as a god, adding: “In reality, you were the devil incarnate.
“You stole their childhoods and innocence to satisfy your perversion. Each has suffered and now, more than 30 to 35 inquiry led by Crime Agency.
He was arrested in June last year after four traumatised victims, who had been tricked into sending humiliating images, threatened or attempted to kill themselves.
Birmingham Crown Court was told Falder’s “tale of everincreasing depravity”. Judge the National years after you ruined these boys’ lives, continues to suffer.”
Bennell shook his head as he was sentenced but onlookers in the public gallery broke into applause.
One victim Gary Cliffe, now a serving policeman, waived his anonymity and confronted Bennell in the dock, asking: “Barry. Why?” The detective constable with Staffordshire Police said in a victim impact statement: “I have had over 30 years to consider, reflect and make sense of what he did to me. Yet I still find it hard to effectively put into words the hell and mental suffering I have endured during this period.” Steve Walters, another victim, said that Bennell had not shown “one ounce of remorse, not one shred of decency”. He added: “He is calculated, devious and scheming. He was then and he is now but he has finally been held to account for his horrific crimes against children.”
Bennell, who was also a Manchester City scout, was convicted of 50 sex attacks dating back to the 1980s by a jury last week. The court heard how abuse had led to victims suffering problems including suicidal thoughts, alcoholism and depression.
Bennell has already served three jail terms, totalling 15 years, for similar offences involving 16 other child victims. In this latest case, Bennell committed “industrial scale” levels of abuse against vulnerable boys in his care.
The jury heard he revelled in his “power hold” over them as they dreamed of becoming professional footballers.
Another statement, read out by prosecutor Nicholas Johnson, told how one victim turned to drugs as a “means of escape”. Player Chris Unsworth said: “Bennell abused, manipulated and groomed me and destroyed my childhood.” Victim Jason Dunford also told of his ordeal.