Massive scale of crimes committed by serial sex offender worries police

The “unprecedented scale” of the crimes committed by a “depraved” sex offender has alarmed police, said one of the investigating officers.

Nicholas Moxham was found guilty on Thursday of a series of sex crimes, including multiple rapes and voyeurism.

The court heard the 52-year-old lured sex workers to his home in a suburb of Stockport and secretly filmed himself and others carrying out sexual assaults, sometimes while the victims were unconscious.

Det. Sgt. Lee Attenborough said a raid on his home uncovered “huge catalogues of secretly recorded sexual material” so extensive it took officers years to identify the women featured in the videos.

After a five-week trial, Moxham was found guilty on 32 counts, including controlling prostitution for pay, slavery and sexual harassment.

Greater Manchester Police have since revealed that Moxham had previously admitted a number of other offences, including sexually abusing a child under the age of 13, making and taking indecent photographs of children, possession of extreme pornography and running a brothel for the purposes of prostitution.

Det. Sgt. Attenborough said that despite the scale of the crimes uncovered, the investigation into Moxham had “started on a small scale” after his neighbours raised concerns about suspicious activity at his home in June 2020.

He said staff at charities that support sex workers had also raised concerns about Moxham as she was “very well known” to her clients and was often seen “hanging around” near homeless shelters.

Greater Manchester Police said Moxham then “recruited” six women as sex workers and arranged for clients to visit him at his home in Heaton Chapel and another address in Longsight, Manchester.

Det. Sgt. Attenborough said when officers searched Moxham’s home in July 2020, they found a “pale and malnourished” woman under a duvet on his living room floor.

They also found countless hard drives, storage devices and hidden filming devices such as pen and peephole cameras.

He said the investigative team then had to spend hours looking at “very disturbing material.”

“Only then did we realize the extent of what was going on,” he said.

“He treated his victims as property, as something that belonged to him, and arranged the sexual exploitation of them for his own sexual perversions.”

He said during the course of the investigation, officers worked with sex worker support charity Manchester Action on Street Health to locate the victims.

“We slowly began to identify these women, approach them, and many had the courage to talk to us,” he said.

“Without their courage and persistence we would not have achieved this result.”

He said police remained in contact with the seven women, who were being supported by several aid groups and the charity Justice in Care.

He said that even when charges were brought against him, Moxham denied many of his “gruesome crimes until the end and forced his victims to endure the ordeal of a trial.”

“He showed no regard for his victims, and some of them did not even know they were being targeted because he exploited them using calculated and covert methods,” he said.

“This is one of the most horrific and disturbing cases my team has ever dealt with.

“Moxham is a controlling and predatory sex offender who thought he was untouchable.”

He added that Moxham’s arrogance was such that he “continued his well-planned” crimes “while he was being investigated” and that he even “bragged to one of his victims that he was too clever for the police”.

“His victims were extremely brave and I can only thank them for agreeing to testify,” he said.

“I know this hasn’t been easy, but thanks to your brave actions, Moxham is no longer on the streets and now faces a significant amount of time behind bars.”

Moxham is due to be sentenced for his crimes on July 12.