Tyler Charter was jailed for over six years after police uncovered disturbing conversations on the encrypted messaging app Telegram
After serving over half his sentence for rape, Tyler Charter left prison and returned to live in Croydon in May 2022. He was deemed ready for release by the parole board. But in a matter of weeks, one of South London’s most prolific offenders was distributing thousands of horrific child abuse images and offering up toddlers for rape with other sick paedophiles.
By September 28, 2022, the National Crime Agency and officers from the Met’s online child exploitation team had cottoned onto the 35-year-old’s twisted internet activities and piled through his front door to make an arrest.
Charter – described as having ‘zero impulse control’ by the judge – tried to destroy evidence, but police were able to seize his phone. This would later prove crucial. Having spent 18 months on recall to prison, Charter was charged this April with arranging a child sex offence, and nine other offences for the distribution and possession of indecent images of children. After pleading guilty at a pre-trial hearing, on Thursday (May 23) the cowardly pervert hid behind a blue face mask and Rasta beanie as he was jailed for six years and six months at Croydon Crown Court.
Ahead of his sentence, MyLondon spoke to the woman responsible for bringing down Charter. Detective Constable Nikki Jones began by outlining Charter’s criminal history, listing offences of firearm possession, rape, sexual assault, exposure, criminal damage, battery, and threats to kill, then explained how he breached his notification requirements by failing to declare where he was living.
After an empty raid on his given address, police rerouted to a partner’s home, where Charter had failed to mention the presence of a seven-year-old boy. Charter’s partner was ‘quite hostile and aggressive’, DC Jones said, while his music boomed in the background. When police went inside to arrest him, DC Jones said Charter became ‘extremely violent’ and tried to dispose of his phone.
After a 15-minute struggle to restrain him, Charter was cuffed and taken to the station for an interview. There, DC Jones said, Charter remained silent but aggressive.
“He lashed out a few times and we had to stop the interview to calm him down,” she recalled. “He’s a very hostile man.”
That assessment was confirmed at Thursday’s sentencing hearing, where Charter obstructed the judge’s view of him by insisting on wearing a surgical mask and woolly hat in an empty video conference room. When the judge asked him to remove the face covering, he simply grabbed the TV remote and switched off his camera.
Unsurprisingly then, Charter refused to cooperate with the investigation or hand his PIN code to police. It took time for specialists to get into the handset, but when they did it revealed a collection of images and set of messages that Recorder Samantha Presland called ‘the most abhorrent conversations I have had to sentence for, and had the misfortune to read’.
Thousands of indecent images were recovered, all of which had to be categorised by DC Jones. An unenviable but important task to establish their level of illegality. Category A, the worst, includes penetrative acts, Category B includes sexual activity, and Category C includes provocative poses and sexual positions.
“From looking at his phone, most were prepubescent children […] most of them Category A,” explained DC Jones. Disturbing searches were also uncovered, showing Charter’s interest in ‘incest’, ‘sex with infants’, ‘prepubescent’, ‘young babies’, ‘rape’ and ‘paedo’. The court heard the total number of such searches was well in excess of a thousand.
The worst offence, however, was reserved for a paedophile-ridden Telegram chat, where Charter arranged for him and another user, ‘Hypervolt’, to pay a woman for the use of three children. The ‘aunty’, the court was told, offered up a 17-year-old, five-year-old, and three-year-old for Charter and his online pal to rape and abuse, in exchange for money.
The children were never identified, and it’s unclear if Charter ever acted out the plan, but alarmingly, the messages detailing the rape plan were exchanged on June 5, 115 days before he was arrested. On Thursday, prosecutor Will Noble said: “There was no evidence in this case if the arrangement moved to fruition. We simply do not know.
After cracking the phone and uncovering the chat, DC Jones went to HMP Littlehey, a Cat C prison in Cambridgeshire, to interview Charter again. This time he used his voice but made no comment. It made little difference for him though, as police had enough evidence to charge him with six counts of distributing indecent images, three counts of possession of indecent images, and one count of arranging the commission of a child sex offence.
“This is basically a very dangerous individual,” DC Jones told MyLondon. “If he’s released, there’s a high chance he will commit offences. He was released in May 2022 and he started distributing images in June.”
Detective Inspector Peter Harvey, from the same team as DC Jones, said someone like Charter will remain under close supervision from police long after his release. As well as a restrictive Sexual Harm Prevention Order, which means he must declare any children he intends to live with, notification requirements means he must regularly report to police and will get regular visits.
But at a time when the pressure on prison populations can see indecent images offenders spared immediate custody, DI Harvey reassured the public there is focus on keeping tabs on known offenders. “Sometimes there is a disparity. Some people might avoid jail who really should be in jail. But for us it’s about the ongoing risk management,” he said.
He also conceded there was a constant worry about threats from new technology, but insisted the Met’s high-tech crime unit ‘will find a way to get in’. In the case of Charter, police were unable to identify the other members of the Telegram chat, including the user who wanted to pay for use of the toddlers.
