A scientist and university academic described as a “warped and sadistic” paedophile has been jailed for 32 years after blackmailing a string of vulnerable victims, many teenagers, into carrying out depraved sexual and physical acts. Dr Matthew Falder has admitted 137 offences, including blackmail, voyeurism and encouraging the rape of a child, relating to 46 complainants after being caught following an international inquiry led by the National Crime Agency (NCA). Falder, a former post-doctoral researcher in geophysics at the University of Birmingham, was caught by an international inquiry led by the National Crime Agency and arrested last June after after three traumatised victims, who were tricked into sending him humiliating images, attempted to end their own lives. The judge, Philip Parker QC, describing Falder as “warped and sadistic” and sentencing him at Birmingham crown court for “a tale of ever increasing depravity”, said: “As for your equally extraordinary sexual offending, no one who knew you above ground had an inkling of what you were doing below the surface.”

“You wanted to assume total control over your victims. Judge Philip Parker QC, sentencing at Birmingham crown court, described him as an “internet highwayman” who was “warped and sadistic” and whose behaviour was “cunning, persistent, manipulative and cruel”. For these individuals, it will never end, knowing the abuse caused by you still exists in other unknown persons’ computers.”

Parker, who also described Falder as an “internet highwayman” and concluded that he was a dangerous offender, said: “These sentencing remarks underplay your relentless, obsessive desire to continue committing offences.” 



A previous hearing was told that Falder coerced male and female victims into producing “increasingly severe self-generated indecent images of themselves, the focus of these images being to humiliate and degrade”. Falder forced one victim to film herself licking toilet seats and a used tampon, and eating dog food, and set up secret cameras in bathrooms to record women and girls naked. Opening the facts of the case against Falder, prosecutor Ruona Iguyovwe previously told the court that many of the images were then distributed on so-called "hurtcore" websites on the dark web, showing material depicting sexual and physical abuse. In reality, he was a member of several “virtual communities” of abusers on the dark web, distributing images on so-called “hurtcore” websites, where images of violent sexual and physical abuse are shared, and where he had a membership level of “rapist”. Falder, from Birmingham, committed the offences over an eight-year period and never physically met any of his victims, but instead manipulated them from afar by duping them into providing nude images and personal details. On his arrest, the former post-doctoral researcher in geophysics at the University of Birmingham asked officers: “What is it I’ve done?”

Then correcting himself, adding: “Supposed to have done.”

He then quipped that the list of suspected offences sounded ‘like the rap sheet from hell’.
A court sentences Matthew Falder, convicted on 137 charges, to 32 years in jail after confessing to blackmailing numerous teenagers into performing sexual acts.