A serial sex offender faces extradition to the US for masterminding forums for paedophiles worldwide – while he was being monitored by UK police.
Former NatWest bank clerk Alan Wattman, 44, had repeated convictions for amassing a huge haul of child sex abuse videos and images of children as young as two.
He was on the Sex Offenders Register and subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO). Cheshire Police had the job of monitoring his behaviour.
Yet under its nose and discovered only by the FBI, Wattman admits to running a series of secret chatrooms sharing child abuse videos for paedophiles globally. One site he ran using the pseudonym ‘Tornado’ was called ‘Alice in Wonderland’.
Last February district judge David Robinson approved a US government extradition request, saying Wattman ‘played a significant role in a long-running conspiracy in which he used his technical proficiency to proliferate indecent images of children’.
Wattman admitted guilt but is fighting extradition, claiming conditions he would be subject to would breach his human rights.
Wattman – who has changed his name from Alan Webb – of Warrington, Cheshire, was sacked by NatWest after his first child sex conviction in 2009. He was jailed for having 34,659 indecent images of children on his laptop.
The judge said his photos showed children aged ‘four, five and six years of age subject to the most appalling sexual depravity’.
Five years later, Wattman was jailed for 16 months for two offences of breaching his Sexual Offences Prevention Order. He had been visited nine times by Cheshire police – but was only caught when an officer in Bradford found him on a laptop in a paedophile’s home.
In 2019 Wattman was convicted again of four offences of downloading indecent images of children. But he walked free under a three-year ‘community order’ and was given an SHPO and put on the Sex Offenders Register.
Yet, even while in court in 2019, Wattman was already deep into conspiracies to share child sex abuse videos and images worldwide.
His mastermind role, which began in 2018, was only discovered thanks to an FBI agent who infiltrated the paedophile networks. He was caught in July 2022 and quickly admitted to his guilt, even signing a document allowing FBI agents to pose as him online to gather evidence.
He served two years in a UK prison and was re-arrested when released in July 2023 under a Texas warrant. US prosecutors charge Wattman with conspiracies to receive, distribute and advertise ‘child pornography’.
Wattman’s extradition ruling appeal is due to be heard at the High Court this month.
DCI Katie Allen of Cheshire Police said: ‘Officers conducted regular unannounced visits to [Wattman’s] home address and action was taken when any breaches were identified.’