Ex-BBC foreign correspondent jailed for paying to watch live streams of children being sexually exploited

A FORMER BBC foreign correspondent has been jailed for paying to watch live streams of children being sexually exploited.

Duncan Bartlett, 52, admitted 35 offences including funding abuse of kids in the Philippines.

He was once the BBC’s Tokyo correspondent and spent 15 years at the BBC World Service.

He left the Beeb in 2015.

He was arrested in 2021 and his electronic devices seized.

Nearly 6,000 indecent images of children were found, as well as evidence of payments.

Bartlett, of Bloomsbury, West London, was jailed for eight years at Wood Green crown court.

Det Con Emily Dawson said afterwards: “Over seven years, Bartlett made multiple payments to people in the Philippines asking that they arrange children to be sexually exploited for his own gratification.”

“With close liaison work with our counterparts in the Philippines, we managed to identify and safeguard some of these children while several adults were arrested.

“Bartlett’s behaviour was utterly abhorrent but thanks to the painstaking work of detectives, a case documenting his offending was put together – this left him with no option but to admit his guilt.”