Nursery paedophile gang members face jail
The final members of a paedophile gang who sexually assaulted young children and shared the images will be jailed today.
IT consultant Colin Blanchard, 40, led what prosecutors described as "one of the most sickening paedophile rings this country has seen".
In the married father-of-one's gang were four women - Vanessa George, 40, Tracy Lyons, 41, Tracy Dawber, 44, and Angela Allen, 40.
The gang was smashed when a work colleague of Blanchard found child sex abuse images on his computer in June 2009 and called police.
The net closed in on the rest of the gang and detectives identified nursery worker George, mother-of-nine Lyons, community care worker Dawber and ex-prostitute Allen as being the other members.
Blanchard met the women over the internet and convinced them to sexually assault young children and send him the perverted images.
George abused young children at Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth, as did Allen and Lyons, who both assaulted youngsters to please Blanchard.
Unlike the other women, Dawber actually met Blanchard and was in a year-long relationship with him. She sexually assaulted a child and allowed Blanchard to take pictures of the abuse on his mobile phone.
George was obsessed with Blanchard, telling him she was his "paedo whore mum" and sending him eight pictures a week.
Blanchard, George, Allen and Lyons pleaded guilty to a string of charges of sexual assault and making and possessing child pornography.
The final member of the ring to be convicted was Dawber, who was found guilty in October after a re-trial.
Mother-of-two George, of Douglass Road, Efford, Plymouth, Devon, and single mother Allen, from of Nine Acre Gardens, Bulwell, Nottingham, were given indeterminate prison sentences in December 2009.
Blanchard, of Yea Fold, Rochdale, Greater Manchester; Lyons, of North End, Portsmouth, Hants; and Dawber, from Bedford Road, Southport, Merseyside, will be sentenced at Bristol Crown Court by Mr Justice Royce today.
Ann Reddrop, the Crown Prosecution Service lawyer who dealt with all the cases, said: "Colin Blanchard turned out to be an evil man who controlled four women in one of the most sickening paedophile rings this country has seen.
"He encouraged these women to take and share ever more horrific images of the sexual abuse of children. As if that was not bad enough, he encouraged them to physically abuse children to produce those pictures."
