(L-R) Cordery, Malpas, Flack
(L-R) Cordery, Malpas, Flack Reuters

A group of paedophiles including a soldier, a scout leader and a sheep farmer have been jailed for a combined minimum total of 35 years.

Reading crown court heard that the group raped children as young as eight and met up for abuse and bestiality parties at a secluded farm before police were alerted to their activities.

Farmer Nicholas Cordery, who owned the farm where the parties took place, was jailed for 11 years. Similar sentences were handed out to scoutmaster Peter Malpas and IT trainer Anthony Flack, whose arrest played a key role in busting the ring.

Fellow gang member Simon Davies, a serving soldier who boasted about being bisexual and craving sex with dogs, will be sentenced in October, after admitting to 22 counts of child rape.

The court heard that the gang groomed victims and filmed sexual assaults on them. On one occasion, 63-year-old Cordery tipped off Davies about a girl he had groomed, before Davies, 37, raped the child and sent his friend a video of the attack. He then took her to a gathering at Cordery's farm in Wiltshire.

Davies also arranged for 45-year-old Malpas, who is HIV-positive and has regularly used gay chatrooms, to sexually assault a girl in the back seat of his car.

Hotel capture

The police made a breakthrough in their investigations after undercover officers posed as children online and lured Flack to a hotel, where he was arrested.

The 54-year-old was in possession of condoms, lubricant and a camera when he was met by undercover police at the hotel.

Police interrogation led to Davies and Cordery, whose farmhouse was found to contain sex toys, pornography, an old teddy bear and a pair of Hello Kitty knickers.

Police also found a computer disc at Cordery's home, containing 1,700 indecent images of children.

Sentencing, Judge Stephen John said: "Two central figures were at the heart of the enterprise.

"The first was Simon Davies, who is to be sentenced at a later date, who repeatedly raped a nine-year-old girl, distributed images of his rape and offered her for further rape directly through Cordery, including to Flack and Malpas.

"The second was Cordery, living in a secluded farm and providing facilities there for sexual activity involving offences with animals and children."

The judge also said that, given the age of the victims at the time of the attacks, "the physicial and, particularly, psycholological attacks are difficult to imagine".

All three sentences are open-ended, and the three men will only be returned to society if they are deemed to pose no further threat to children.

How Police Lifted Lid on Wiltshire Child Sex Farm [ANALYSIS]