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A vile British man has admitted to a cannibal plot to kidnap, rape, kill and eat a child in his US home.

Twisted Geoffrey Portway – who went by the online name “Fat Longpig” as he trawled the internet for victims – planned to carry out unspeakable atrocities inside a homemade dungeon he built underneath his house.

He now faces 27 years in jail before he is deported back to the UK after confessing to the sick plan in a plea-bargain deal with American authorities.

When police raided the 40-year-old’s home in Worcester, Massachusetts, as part of Operation Holitna last year they discovered a locked door in the basement.

This led to a second door that opened into Portway’s dungeon which was equipped with a steel cage, scalpels, butchering kits, freezers and castration tools. It also contained a child-size coffin which housed large speakers covered in a wire mesh and exterior locks.

Portway had also lined the cellar with special material to muffle a child’s scream.

In a series of disturbing web chats uncovered by cops, the computer programmer boasted of his intention to lock up youngsters in the horrific hell hole.

A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office said: “This dungeon was described in detail by Portway as a place he intended to use to keep kidnapped children while he sexually abused them and as a place to eventually murder and cannibalise the children.”

Portway, a UK citizen who worked for several years in America, spent hundreds of hours in a variety of online forums, discussing “abducting, raping, murdering, and eating children” and swapping child porn.

He used Skype to communicate with one fellow pervert over a period of several months, asking him for help with kidnapping children.

Police said records of the conversations revealed that the two men discussed youngsters – by names and photos – who one claimed to have access to.

In one conversation, the other man said it would not be hard to find out where a boy lived in Baltimore.

He asked: “Question is, would you go that far to snatch him?”

“I might, if I could get him,” Portway answered. “On just the chance of getting him, probably not. There are thousands of boys closer than that.”

Neighbours recalled how during Halloween Portway carefully packaged up sweets in bags to give to unassuming children who knocked on the monster’s door.

A forensic examination of the computers uncovered evidence of over 4,500 trades of child pornography between Portway and others.

Many of these involved him distributing child pornography to others based on their stated specific preferences, including images and videos appearing to depict dead children and the cannibalism of children.

Bruce Foucart, of Homeland Security Investigations Boston, said: “Since we began this operation, a worldwide network of offenders has been, and continues to be, unravelled, including Portway.

"We have rescued 160 children and arrested 51 perpetrators.

“Portway’s guilty plea should serve as a stern warning: We will investigate you, we will prosecute you and we will bring you to justice.”