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A former BBC journalist has been jailed for eight years after paying money to watch livestreams of children being sexually abused in the Philippines.

Duncan Bartlett, 52, was sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court in north London after pleading guilty to 35 offences in August.

The Metropolitan Police said he was first arrested in September 2021, after the force recieved intelligence which linked him to accessing indecent images of children.

They seized his electronic devices which uncovered 6,000 indecent images, and held records of payments to the Philippines to people who organised the abuse of children.

Some of the victims have been identified and put under safeguarding measures in the Philippines, Scotland Yard said.

Bartlett was formerly the BBC’s correspondent in Tokyo, and he spent 15 years working for the BBC World Service.

Bartlett pleaded guilty to 11 counts of causing a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity, nine counts of causing a girl 13-15 to engage in sexual activity, 10 counts of paying for the sexual services of girl under 13, three charges of making indecent images of children, and two offences of encouraging the commission of either way offences

Detective Constable Emily Dawson who led the investigation said: “Over a period of seven years, Bartlett made multiple payments to people in the Philippines asking that they arrange children to be sexually exploited for his own gratification.

“With close liaison work with our counterparts in the Philippines, we managed to identify and safeguard some of these children while several adults were arrested.

“Bartlett’s behaviour was utterly abhorrent but thanks to the painstaking work of detectives, a case documenting his offending was put together – this left him with no option but to admit his guilt.”

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