I once assumed that the worst offenders in child sexual abuse cases operated in shadows too obscure for conventional policing to penetrate. The sentencing of Robert Pasteiner suggests otherwise.
On 23 July 2026 at Portsmouth Crown Court the 76-year-old from Old Broyle Road in Chichester, West Sussex, received a 12-year prison term after pleading guilty to 36 child sexual abuse offences. These included causing or inciting the sexual exploitation of a child, attempted sexual communication with a child, arranging or facilitating the sexual exploitation of a child, and making indecent images.
The offences were not abstract. Pasteiner paid individuals in the Philippines to sexually abuse children to order. National Crime Agency investigators traced suspicious payments from him totalling more than £200,000. Some of the recipients were facilitators of live-streamed child sexual abuse.
He was arrested in February 2023 at Heathrow Airport as he tried to board a flight to the Philippines. Analysis of his mobile phone revealed arrangements to meet a 12-year-old girl at a hotel. A search of his luggage turned up perfume, jewellery, condoms, Viagra, a large quantity of Filipino pesos and false documents.
At his home officers found 15 electronic devices. Six contained indecent images: 29 in category A, 65 in category B and 269 in category C. Handwritten notes detailed conversations with child abuse facilitators in the Philippines, including personal information, payment records and references to some transactions as being for 'a show'.
The agency worked with the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation to identify and safeguard victims. Pasteiner also received a lifetime Sexual Harm Prevention Order and will remain on the Sex Offenders Register for life.
