Chester, England – A Cheshire mechanic who created and managed child sexual abuse sites on the dark web was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Friday.
Nathan Bake, 28, from Runcorn, was convicted of running ‘The Annex’ – a dark web site with 90,000 members distributing extreme child abuse images and videos globally.
Judge Thompson called Bake a “dangerous offender” and imposed an additional 4-year community licence period post-release.
Chester Crown Court heard Bake was second-in-command on The Annex, which allowed millions of child abuse files to be shared worldwide.
Material included baby/toddler abuse and ‘hurtcore’ depicting torture and humiliation, prosecutors said.
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Thompson told Bake: “You represent a very significant risk of serious harm to children.”
Bake was also given a lifetime sexual harm prevention order and sex offender registration.
He was arrested after a probe by the National Crime Agency (NCA), which called The Annex “nothing off limits” and “encouraging everything.”
Bake gave users advice on evading detection and asked them to share more images during ‘happy hour,’ evidence revealed.
Over 3.6 million indecent images were recovered from Bake’s devices. Children’s clothes were also found.
Bake helped run a second abuse site and moderated links to more, the court heard.
Two other UK-based Annex moderators await sentencing. An American founder was jailed for life in the US in January.
The NCA said Bake played a vital role keeping the site running to facilitate global child exploitation.
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