A man who schemed to rape children as young as six was revealed at his trial to have been a police informer who spied on environmental activists.
Nick Gratwick, 68, was found guilty on Friday of 38 “abhorrent” paedophile offences, including plans over the last two years to pay to rape or sexually assault children in the UK and abroad.
The trial at Guildford crown court, in Surrey, heard the contents of graphic conversations on encrypted applications which were described by the National Crime Agency (NCA) as “some of the worst seen by specialist child abuse investigators”.
Gratwick discussed harming children for sexual pleasure, arranging to pay a Romanian mother to allow him to rape her daughter, and advised others on how to drug children to abuse them.
The radio engineer, of Mitcham, south London, was also found guilty of possessing more than 1,300 photographs and videos of children being abused.
In an astonishing twist, the trial also exposed his previous role as an informer who worked for the police infiltrating prominent environmental and animal rights protests for six years in the 1990s and 2000s.
He masqueraded as an activist keen to protect the environment and to prevent the exploitation of animals, but, unknown to campaigners, he was at the same time secretly passing information to the police.
Among the campaigners he spied on were those taking part in the Newbury bypass protest, a landmark campaign to prevent the chopping down of thousands of trees in a largely protected ancient landscape to make way for a 9-mile bypass around Newbury, in Berkshire.
In 1996, thousands of activists set up 30 camps along the planned route, erecting treehouses, digging a tunnel and clinging to trees to stymie the plans. The road ended up costing £74m to build, £5m to police and £25m for the 800 security guards employed to deter the campaigners. Nearly 800 arrests were made.
Activists told the Guardian that Gratwick played a prominent role in helping to organise the protests, supervising the acquisition and distribution of equipment, such as rope and harnesses, to assist the protests.
Craig Logan, a campaigner, said: “Literally people from every camp would come and talk to him about what they were doing at their camp, what they want to build, what they were trying to do. I can’t think of a better role that you could have for an informant … he’s absolutely at the core of it.”
Gratwick was known by the nickname “Radio Nick”, as he was instrumental in establishing a network of CB radios – at a time before mobile phones were being used widely – so that activists in different camps could communicate and warn each other about the impending police actions.
Helen Beynon, another campaigner, said: “If you wanted to spy on people, being one of the people crucial to our radio network was absolutely a very good place to be. You could hear everything that was happening. He’s right in the middle of that.”
Gratwick later infiltrated animal rights groups, including a campaign to close the animal testing laboratory run by a commercial company, Huntingdon Life Sciences.
In March, Gratwick, whose full name is Edward Nicholas Gratwick, was arrested by NCA officers at Stansted airport as he was about to board a flight to Romania to rape a child in a paid arrangement with her mother, the prosecution told the court. In his bag was an item that he had previously said he was going to use to suffocate the child slowly while he raped her.
Robbie Weber, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “The abuse [he] described inflicting on young children with other like-minded individuals was abhorrent. It was clear from the evidence that he was intent on harming and abusing children and was willing to pay significant sums of money to do it. Not content with satisfying his own sexual desires, he also advised and encouraged others how they could commit equally horrific crimes.”
In interviews with the police, Gratwick alluded to his past covert work for Thames Valley police, suggesting that the officers “talk to special branch”, the secretive unit responsible for monitoring political groups. Gratwick and Thames Valley police declined to comment on his work as an informer.
An account of the case, agreed by barristers acting for both the prosecution and his defence, revealed that “records show that during the eight-year period between 1995 and 2003, [Gratwick] provided information to police for a total period of approximately six years. He provided information on animal rights and environmental matters.”
At his trial, his defence said that he had created a fake persona to string along abusers and extract information so they could be prosecuted.
Prosecutors told the court that Gratwick also schemed to rape and abuse children in the US and Switzerland.
Danielle Pownall, a senior investigating officer at the NCA, said: “Gratwick has continually denied the offences he faced, despite overwhelming and indisputable evidence, which shows his lack of remorse and disregard for the safety and welfare of children.”
He will be sentenced on 28 November. He pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing and offering to supply banned drugs.
