LONDON, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Britain's "worst" pedophile was sentenced to 8-1/2 years in prison as officials warned parents of the dangers to children posed by the Internet, officials said.
Michael Williams, 28, a postman, was sentenced for using social networking sites to contact up to 1,000 child victims over a five-year period, The Daily Telegraph reported.
He persuaded hundreds of children ages 10 to 16 to perform sex acts on Web cams, which he recorded on carefully cataloged computer files, the newspaper said.
He went on to sexually abuse at least four girls between the ages of 13 and 15, prosecutors said.
"This was Internet sex offending on a previously unseen scale," prosecutor Andrew Macfarlane said.
"Ironically, in this day and age, many parents don't let their children out at night lest they meet someone like the defendant," he said.
"Instead they feel they are safe in their bedroom, but unknown to the parents, some children were meeting the defendant using the computers. It is a chilling reflection," Macfarlane said.
Williams hid behind a network of different identities, prosecutors said, and targeted children he met on his mail rounds, while doing school runs as a part-time taxi driver and as the secretary of a football club.
Williams, of Penryn, Cornwall, pleaded guilty to 27 charges including sexual activity with a child, grooming children over the Internet and voyeurism, the Daily Telegraph reported.
