Skip to main content

Inside the chilling lair of paedophile Cambridge graduate who made his victims eat dog food

Under the username '666devil' Matthew Falder, from Birmingham, asked dark web users for ideas on how to torture his 'daughter' as part of a 'hell week'

These chilling images show the squalid lair where a depraved paedophile preyed on more than 200 vulnerable victims before sharing photos of their abuse on the dark web.
Footage shot inside Cambridge University graduate Matthew Falder's pokey flat shows clothes, food containers and laundry strewn over the floor - as well as a roll of toilet paper on his bed.
Today he was jailed for 32 years for abusing and blackmailing a string of vulnerable victims, including a girl who he ordered to eat dog food.
The 29-year-old's desk was piled with rubbish and what looks to be a tub of dried up mushrooms.
Falder's bed was surrounded by rubbish
Falder is a Cambridge University graduate
Other objects surrounding his desktop computer included multiple pairs of scissors, superglue, wine glasses, tissues and cloths.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) launched a manhunt in April 2015 after he used the username '666devil' to ask fellow dark web users for ideas on how to torture his 'daughter' as part of a 'hell week'.
The post sparked a nationwide hunt by the NCA to safeguard the girl, who turned out to be the daughter of another of Falder's victims.
Dr Matthew Falder is a paedophile who blackmailed his internet victims into carrying out degrading sex acts
Investigators linked the user to the 'evilmind' and 'Inthegarden' accounts, which Falder had used to torture his victims.
Intelligence gathered by NCA, US Homeland Security, Australian Federal Police and Europol linked a person of interest to an address in Birmingham.
He was arrested in June last year after three traumatised victims, who were tricked into sending him humiliating images, attempted to end their own lives.
In footage of his arrest on June 21, 2015, Falder is heard telling officers: "So, what is it I am supposed to have done?"
The geophysicist - wearing a yellow T-shirt - then tells officers the list of offences he is charged with sounds "like the rap sheet from hell."
In the 1.12-minute footage supplied by the NCA, Falder repeatedly responds "no comment" when quizzed on his crimes.
Falder's desk and computer in his flat rubbish-filled flat
He eventually provided two prepared statements - in one, admitting that he controlled the 'evilmind' account.
Further surveillance shows the ex-Birmingham University post-doctorate researcher secretly setting up 'Peeping Tom' cameras in bathrooms and shower cubicles.
Although a handful of UK-based victims reported him, he was able to avoid detection by using more than 70 different online identities.
Falder also used the 'Tor network' which helps users hide their identities by encrypting connections and bouncing it around global volunteers to make it much harder for the authorities to trace.
Falder suggested a sick game in which a curling iron would be inserted into a woman's vagina and could only be turned off if they answered a question correctly
He would regularly post on 'Hurt 2 The Core', which is considered to be the world's worst website and is dedicated to: "Both the child love and hurtcore aspects of pedophilia."
An extract on the site reads: "If you do not agree with that, or are easily offended, then this is not the place for you, welcome to H2TC."
He also shared an instructional video on how to sexually abuse children as well as guidance on how to give youngsters sweets which were soaked in urine or semen.
He was arrested in June last year after three traumatised victims, who were tricked into sending him humiliating images, attempted to end their own lives
In further posts, he wrote about arranging to meet a blackmail victim for sex in a remote location and told how he would make the person tie themselves to a tree, lock the bindings and throw away the key to ensure a slow and painful death.
Falder also suggested a sick game in which a curling iron would be inserted into a woman's vagina and could only be turned off if they answered a question correctly.
He posted a video of a man repeatedly throwing a young child who couldn't swim into a pool, with the child submerged for several seconds each time and a three minute long video of a woman kicking and then beating a four-year-old boy with a stick.
Posing as a female artist he used dozens of aliases to contact more than 50 victims over seven years
Senior investigating officer for the NCA Matt Sutton said: "He was not about money, his currency was his kudos in the community and he traded in these types of images.
"He approached over 200 people, people posting that they needed babysitting work or dog walking, that they needed money or needed a home.
"He was approaching people in Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and Slovenia.
"He used Tor, anonymising the use of his internet and used over 22 email accounts including Safemail, based in Israel and Yandex, based in Russia.
"He had approximately 70 different online identities."
Falder, of Edgbaston, Birmingham, admitted 137 charges
Falder believed that his IT skills meant he was invincible to law enforcement and would not get caught.
"Falder's use of anonymising techniques made him very difficult to catch, this highlights previously unknown and very horrific offending," Mr Sutton said.
"Falder is not alone, there are many other users on these dark web sites.
"Anecdotal sources appear to suggest that the hurt core community is a hated minority within an already hated group - described as 'the worst of the worst'.
"Falder's victim targeting showed a level of directed activity, organisation and advanced manipulation."
Dirty socks and rubbish around Falder's bed
He continued: "As well as blackmailing and extorting victims, he also enjoyed simply engaging them in conversation in which he can hear about the suffering of another, or otherwise push boundaries, so long as the activity or material involved victim suffering.
"His primary motivation was for power and control, suffering and humiliation.
"Believing he had superior intellectual and computational abilities, he was confident that he could outwit law enforcement.
"There is little doubt that Falder would have continued his offending and caused untold pain and distress to many other vulnerable people.
"This was a man who was using the widest range of techniques to hide his identity."
Falder was jailed for 32 years
Mr Sutton added that Falder's only motivation was to 'cause pain' to others.
"It's very difficult to understand a crime where the motive does not include sex, passion, money, revenge or hate," he said.
"When the sole motivation of an individual is purely to cause pain to another, that's quite hard to grasp.
"Most crimes you can see the motive, you can see where it comes from.
"In this individual the sole motivation was to inflict pain on another and the journey to that."
Falder encouraged a teenager to rape a four-year-old boy online
Matthew Long, NCA operations strategic lead, said: "Falder thought he wouldn't be caught and I think he actually was probably the type of individual that would be telling people he wouldn't be caught on the anonymous servers and then living a completely different life in his day-to-day life.
"Ultimately that wasn't the case. Ultimately we, with our international partners, caught him and with the help of the victims we have put him in prison.
"For us this has been a relentless pursuit to catch Dr Matthew Falder, but what saddened me is his relentless pursuit of the victims.
"He would stop at nothing to exploit them, to make them feel sad, humiliated or unhappy and he didn't really care in any way, shape or form how that manifested.
"Ultimately that has devastated some people's lives and I am very proud of our team and also those victims being able to stand up and stop him.
"Matthew Falder is part of a very small group of people that took it to an extreme where it was about absolute exploitation, about absolute pain and really the degradation of humans within society."
The geophysicist told officers the list of offences he is charged with sounds "like the rap sheet from hell"
A GCHQ spokesperson added: "This is a horrific case and our hearts go out to the victims.
"GCHQ is determined to use our expertise in both cyber security and digital communications to counter this type of terrible online child sexual abuse.
"Protecting the digital homeland - in this case keeping children safe online - is a crucial part of our mission.
"We will continue to work in partnership with NCA and law enforcement to make the internet a hostile environment for these types of offenders to operate."

Comments