Michael Warren, who downloaded more than 1000 images of child abuse while working in child protection, will serve his sentence on the tiny Pacific island 
 
 The former mayor of Pitcairn Island has been sentenced to 20-months in prison after he was convicted of possessing more than 1000 images and videos depicting child pornography. 
 
 The tiny British territory in the South Pacific, which has a population of around 50 people, gained international notoriety in 2004 when seven of the island’s 12 men were accused of a total of 55 sex crimes, some dating back 40 years. 
 
 Pitcairn mayor charged with possessing child abuse material wants to face 'local law' Read more 
 
 According to crown prosecutor Kieran Raferty, former mayor Michael Warren - who served as the island’s mayor from 2008 to 2013 - began downloading images of child abuse in 2004. 
 
 During the years Warren downloaded the images he was working in child protection on the island - and travelling to New Zealand and the United Kingdom in an official capacity for further training in child protection. 
 
 Raferty said Warren’s initial defence was that he had downloaded the images because he wanted to understand child pornography after the 2004 sex abuse cases. 
 
 Warren has also been found guilty of engaging in an internet “sex chat” with a person purporting to be a 15-year-schoolgirl, and of possessing a video that showed a bound and gagged naked woman. 
 
 Warren will begin serving prison time when New Zealand police officers arrive on the island, which could take up to six months. 
 
 Map of Pitcairn Island Map of Pitcairn Island 
 
 It is not known whether he will be detained on the island’s specially-built prison, which was constructed by islanders found guilty of sex crimes with material shipped out from Britain in kit form. If he is kept in the facility, he is likely to be the only inmate, and would effectively be serving his sentence in solitary confinement. 
 
 Since the sexual abuse scandals of 2004, Pitcairn has been trying to rehabilitate its community and attract people to the island - which could not survive without immigrants or more children born on the island. ||||| Pitcairn Island, one of the remotest communities in the world, is embroiled in another controversy involving underage sexual activity after its former mayor was found guilty of possessing more than 1,000 images and videos depicting child abuse — the eighth man out of a total male population of around 12 to be accused of sex crimes involving children. 
 
 Michael Warren, who served as mayor of the tiny South Pacific island from 2008 to 2013, could become the only inmate in the island's prison, after being handed a 20-month sentence by a court in New Zealand for charges stemming back as far as 2004. 
 
 That year, the island — which has a total population of around 50 — made international headlines after seven of its 12 men were accused of 55 sex crimes against underage girls as young as seven. Six were found guilty of crimes which stretched back more than 20 years. 
 
 Warren was working in child protection on the island throughout the period he was downloading the images, and traveling in an official capacity to both New Zealand and the United Kingdom for training in the field, reported the Guardian. 
 
 The images were reportedly found in Warren's possession in May 2010, after he accidentally sent an email to a diplomatic staff member from an address in someone else's name. That address was found to be linked to an online chat site containing explicit images. 
 
 Because of the remoteness of the island, which sits roughly halfway between New Zealand and Chile, and a series of legal challenges that saw Warren successfully resist facing justice in New Zealand, he was not formally charged until last month. 
 
 Warren initially defended his possession of the images by saying he was trying to better understand child pornography in the wake of the 2004 convictions, according to Radio New Zealand. His lawyer Tony Ellis subsequently argued the images found in Warren's possession were "comparatively moderate" when compared to other cases and taken in the context of an island community with limited adults where most of the women were in relationships, according to Radio New Zealand. 
 
 However, a New Zealand Police investigation found Warren had engaged in sexually explicit online activity with a girl he believed to be 15 years old at the time. 
 
 Along with three other volcanic islands, Pitcairn Island forms Britain's last remaining Pacific overseas territory. A treaty between New Zealand, Britain and Pitcairn allows for legal proceedings to be conducted in New Zealand, which also provides law enforcement assistance to the island. 
 
 Related: New Zealand Supreme Court Rejects Kiribati Man's Bid to Become a 'Climate Refugee' 
 
 It is not yet known whether Warren will serve his sentence as the only inmate at the island's prison facility, which was constructed in 2004 by the men found guilty of sex crimes against young girls. 
 
 Those charges resulted in sentences ranging from community service to six years' imprisonment for the defendants, who included then-Mayor Steve Christian and his son Randy. At the time of the trial, the court responsible said the sentences were relatively short in response to the special circumstances of the island. Ever since, the island has been attempting to rehabilitate its image in an effort to encourage the immigration it needs to maintain its population. 
 
 At their trial, the arrested men insisted sexual activity between grown men and young girls was a long-standing feature of life on the island, based on cultural traditions stemming from the Polynesians who had been some of the island's original settlers. A study of island records and anecdotal evidence found that most of the women on the island had their first child between the ages of 12 and 15. 
 
 In 2005, six other men who had left the island were found guilty of sex crimes against children after being tried in New Zealand. 
 
 Pitcairn was settled in 1790 by nine mutineers from the British naval ship HMS Bounty, who arrived on the island with a group of 18 Tahitians, including six men, 11 women, and a baby girl. The Pitcairn Islands chain — which includes the three other uninhabited islands of Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno, — became a British colony in 1838. 
 
 Related: Northern Irish Child Abuse Survivors Want Alleged MI5 Collusion Properly Investigated 
 
 Image via Flickr ||||| A court in southwestern Germany on Tuesday sentenced a 48-year-old woman to 12 and a half years in prison for offering her son, now 10, up for sex on the darknet in exchange for payment. The woman's 39-year-old partner was given a 12-year sentence followed by preventive detention. 
 
 They were the main suspects in a pedophile ring that operated out of Staufen, near the city of Freiburg. 
 
 The couple — named as Berrin T. and Christian L. — both confessed not only to pimping the victim out to a number of men, but also to carrying out abuse themselves. 
 
 Read more: Staufen child sex abuse case: Spanish national sentenced to 10 years in prison 
 
 Eight people have been tried, including this 44-year-old German, who asked the boy's mother if he could rape then kill him 
 
 Details of the case 
 
 Investigators charged Berrin T. and her boyfriend with nearly 60 acts, including forced prostitution, verbal intimidation and abuse, extreme humiliation, physical bondage and rape. 
 
 They say the couple allowed a number of foreign and local men they found on the darknet to rape and abuse the boy over a two-year period until September 2017 in exchange for thousands of euros. 
 
 Video recordings of many of the crimes were traded online, some of them showing the boy masked and tied up. 
 
 Police uncovered the pedophile ring in September 2017 after an anonymous tipoff. 
 
 Officers arrested eight suspects including Berrin T. and her partner, who has a previous child abuse conviction. 
 
 Three German men, one Swiss national and a Spanish citizen have so far been sentenced to prison terms ranging from eight to 10 years. 
 
 Read more: Investigators bust major darknet child porn platform 
 
 Watch video 28:31 Now live 28:31 mins. Share The Battle against Child Pornography Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/2yTM0 The battle against child pornography 
 
 Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 14 1/2 years in prison for the mother and 13 1/2 years for her partner. 
 
 Call for change 
 
 Judge Stefan Bürgelin said the mother's motive in condoning and participating in the abuse was to make sure her new partner didn't leave her. Later, the "financial interest" took over, as the couple raked in several thousands of euros for renting the boy out to pedophiles. 
 
 Wilhelm Rörig, the government-appointed special representative for the sexual abuse of minors, told broadcaster SWR that the bureaucratic failures that allowed the abuse of the boy to continue for as long as it did needed to be "relentlessly scrutinized." 
 
 He said the case showed that "even family courts are not free from mistakes," and called for changes such as compulsory legal training for family judges and boosted funding for youth services. 
 
 Shocking case: The Staufen child sex abuse case and the horrific details that have emerged in the trials have shocked investigators and the German public. Questions have also been asked about the authorities' failure to protect the boy. The investigation exposed a series of blunders on the part of youth services and family courts that resulted in the boy living under the same roof as convicted pedophile Christian L. 
 
 Read more:Sexual abuse experienced by one-in-seven young Germans 
 
 Berrin T., 48, admitted to allowing her young son to be raped by pedophiles 
 
 Flaws in the system: A local youth welfare office took custody of the child in March 2017, when it became known that Christian L. — who is subject to a child contact ban — was living in the same house. The mother went to court and won the right to have her boy sent back home. The family courts apparently failed to interview the child, and the fact that Christian L. continued to live with them also escaped authorities' notice. When the boy's school raised the alarm about possible abuse, the youth welfare office considered the details too vague and so kept the information to itself. The boy is currently living with a foster family. He is "doing well, considering the circumstances," according to his lawyer. 
 
 Read more: Independent committee to investigate sexual abuse 
 
 Motives of the mother: In his confession, Christian L. said he was the "driving force" behind the crimes. The mother, Berrin T., has only testified in closed court, but observers cited by the dpa news agency said she hadn't explained her motives for allowing dozens of acts of abuse to be carried out against her son. Psychiatric expert Hartmut Pleines told the court she had an underdeveloped capacity for compassion, adding it was unlikely she was forced into the crimes by her partner, as she claims. 
 
 Read more:Darknet, the shady internet 
 
 Journalists gather outside the district court in Freiburg, near to where many of the crimes took place 
 
 What is the darknet? The darknet refers to a hidden part of the internet that is only accessible by specialized software and cannot be found by mainstream search engines like Google and Yahoo. This space is often associated with shady business deals, but it's often also used for other purposes. Highly sensitive documents were funneled to WikiLeaks through the darknet, and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is said to have used it to contact reporters. 
 
 Editor's note: Deutsche Welle follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and obliges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases. 
 
 Watch video 02:40 Now live 02:40 mins. Share Darknet - the hidden side of the internet Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/1AjKg Darknet - the hidden side of the internet 
 
 nm/rt (dpa, AFP) 
 
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– Efforts to rehabilitate the image of a tiny British territory in the South Pacific that was rocked by a 2004 sex abuse scandal have hit a roadblock. The former mayor of Pitcairn Island has been convicted of possessing more than 1,000 images and videos showing the sexual abuse of children, reports Vice, which notes that Michael Warren is the eighth man of the island's male population of about 12 to be accused of sex crimes against children. The island's total population is about 50. Prosecutors say Warren, mayor between 2008 and 2013, began downloading the images more than a decade ago, the Guardian reports. Warren's possession of the images was first discovered when he mistakenly sent an email to a diplomatic staff member from an email address linked to a chat site containing explicit images. Warren downloaded the images during a period in which he was working in child protection on the island. Initially, he defended himself by saying he did so to understand child pornography after the 2004 scandal, in which seven of the island's men were accused of 55 sex crimes. Defendants in that trial argued that sex between men and young girls was a cultural tradition on Pitcairn. Those men received sentences ranging from community service to six years in prison, while Warren was sentenced to 20 months. It is unclear if he will serve the sentence in New Zealand, where the island's legal proceedings are conducted, or as the sole inmate of Pitcairn's prison, which was constructed by islanders convicted of sex crimes. The island desperately needs new immigrants to survive, and Warren's case surely won't help. (In the US, some former vets are now going after child predators.)