Indian-origin doctor jailed for 6 years in UK for running child sex abuse website

Dr Garg has been sentenced on June 23 at Woolwich Crown Court, is on the Sex Offenders Register for life.

An Indian-origin psychiatrist in London has been sentenced to six years jail by a UK court on Monday for his role in running a child sex abuse website, BBC said in a report.

Garg has been sentenced on June 23 at Woolwich Crown Court, (BBC )

Dr Kabir Garg, 33, from Lewisham in South-east London, was identified by UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) as one of the operators of "The Annex" website, had over 90,000 members worldwide, the report added.

Garg has been sentenced on June 23 at Woolwich Crown Court, is on the Sex Offenders Register for life. He had been pleaded guilty in January this year, to eight charges, including facilitating the sexual exploitation of children, three counts each of making and distributing indecent images of children, and possession of prohibited images, the report added.

"Garg was involved in facilitating child sexual abuse on a significant scale. He used the dark web to access a global community of paedophiles sharing and discussing horrific crimes against children," NCA’s Adam Priestley said in a statement.

"There are hundreds of thousands of members of such sites on the dark web, but few of them are prepared to commit to being a member of staff, which involves dedicating a lot of time for no payment," the official added.

Meanwhile, UK's national crime agency issued a statement on Monday and said, "Officers arrested Garg at his flat in Lewisham in November 2022 as part of a coordinated operation with international partners, at a time when the site was open on his laptop with Garg logged into his moderator account."

The authorities also arrested 34-year-old Matthew Smith last year for allegedly being involved in child sexual abuse in India and recovered thousands of images and videos of sexual harassment perpetrated on children, the report added.

The authorities found over 7,000 indecent images, videos and several medical journal articles which he acquired as a psychiatrist. One of the journal was titled 'A Study on Child Abuse India'.

The investigation revealed that Annex, which is no longer active, was running like a company and had a team of around 30 administrators.

NCA found that Garg was initially a member, but dedicated time and effort to become sufficiently trusted to be invited to be a moderator. He was responsible for enforcing the rules of the site and removing members who did not comply, the report added.

(With inputs from agencies)