A 42-year-old British man has been sentenced to five years in jail for trying to orchestrate the abuse of young girls in the Philippines.

James Alexander, a former teacher at Bromsgrove International School in Thailand, was caught by United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) after he sent money to people who had live-streamed child sexual abuse from Iligan City, Lanao del Norte. He was jailed late last week.

He was convicted of plotting to abuse children by the Leeds Crown Court, which also banned him from all foreign travel and placed him on a permanent sex offender list.

“Alexander clearly tried to manipulate and exploit the poverty of the vulnerable in order to gratify his sick sexual desires,” said NCA Senior Investigating Officer Hazel Stewart.

“He believed he could abuse Filipino children safely from his home and wanted to visit the Philippines to carry out the sexual abuse himself.”

The Leeds native was arrested by the agency last year on June 30 upon arriving at the Manchester Airport from Thailand, where he had lived since 2017.

The NCA said one suspect in the Philippines has been arrested and several children have been placed under protective care.

After arresting Alexander, investigators found evidence on his devices of at least 15 money transfers to abuse facilitators between August 2017 and this past June. During that time, he asked the facilitators to send him images of girls under 13 years old posing indecently.

Investigators also said they found numerous illicit photos of minors on Alexander’s phone along with messages in which he described how he would like to abuse children as young as 4 years old.

What’s more, Alexander tried to arrange travel to the Philippines to abuse children in person, but there are no records of him ever traveling there.

While living in Thailand, Alexander worked as a part-time DJ while teaching at Bromsgrove International, which is located in the eastern district of Min Buri, Bangkok. He was dismissed from the school shortly after he was arrested. The agency said no evidence of abuse was found during his time at the school.

Reached for comment this afternoon, the school declined to respond.

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