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Briton Gets Eight Years Jail for Underage Sex in Cambodia
A Briton who sexually abused girls as young as seven while on a "business trip" to Cambodia was sentenced to eight years in prison by a British court on Monday.
It was the first time that new legislation, which allows people to be prosecuted in Britain for offences committed overseas, has been used to secure a conviction.
Mark Towner, a 52-year-old with two children, was arrested when his wife, who had found two pornographic images downloaded from the Internet on his computer, alerted police.
Sentencing Towner at Maidstone Crown Court in southeast England, judge Warwick Mackinnon said he was guilty of "grave, horrendous and horrific offences," performed for his "own perverted gratification." "You are a danger to young children and the court must send out a message of determination against people who perform acts on one so young."
The court was told that Towner travelled to Cambodia last May where he hired two seven-year-old girls for sex. He took pictures of himself performing lewd acts with the girls and emailed them back to his own computer.
When they searched his house, police said they found more than 600 pornographic images on the computer.
Towner was found guilty of having sex with a child under 13, three counts of indecent assault and ten counts of possessing gross images of a child.
If it had not been for the new legislation, it is likely Towner would only have been charged with the possession of obscene photographs. His defence counsel, John O'Higgins, said he had succumbed to temptation when he arrived in Cambodia.
"That country has a huge sex industry and the availability of girls gave him the temptation he would never have contemplated before," O'Higgins said.
After Towner was sentenced, his wife, who did not want to be named, said what he had done turned her stomach.
"I discovered the pictures on the computer and was utterly stunned," she said. "They were disgusting. I want nothing more to do with him and will be getting a divorce."
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