He was arrested by Britain's National Crime Agency in 2014 after a tip-off from the Australian Federal Police and convicted in 2016 of 71 charges of sexual offences against children, committed while he served as a Christian missionary and a freelance photographer[4] in Malaysia.

[2] On 13 October 2019, Huckle was subjected to a prolonged torture murder in which he was tied up, beaten, strangled, sexually assaulted, and repeatedly stabbed; a blade was also lodged in his brain via the nose.

[9] Fitzgerald, who had several previous convictions for violent and sexual offences, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 34 years on 24 November 2020.

[12] At the age of 16, he took part in a month-long expedition to visit a school in Namibia,[13] after which he began study at the nearby South Kent College.

[17] Huckle enrolled in a short CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) course with the British Council[18] before starting work as a freelance photographer in local communities around Kuala Lumpur.

Hoping to further his career and status within the community,[19] he also enrolled in an information technology (IT) study course at Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan University College.

[23] Officers used social media and chat rooms to track down the individual, eventually finding a Facebook page that appeared to be a match.

The profile was fake but photos of a vehicle led police to Shannon McCoole, a care worker from Adelaide, South Australia.

[23] Police assumed the identity of McCoole and ran his site to catch other paedophiles, arresting hundreds, as well as rescuing 85 children from harm.

After discovering his real identity, they learned that he was due to return to the United Kingdom to spend Christmas with his family and immediately alerted the National Crime Agency.

[25] On 19 December 2014, Huckle was arrested by officers from Britain's National Crime Agency at London's Gatwick Airport and questioned on suspicion of serious offences against children.

[23] His arrest followed an earlier tip-off from Task Force Argos, a highly specialised branch of Australia's Queensland Police Service responsible for the investigation of online child exploitation and abuse.

[31] In April, during a preliminary trial hearing, Huckle pleaded guilty to 71 of the 91 charges he was facing after a request to watch all of the evidence against him in court.

Huckle belonged to a website called The Love Zone on the dark web, which is obscured from general discovery and only accessible by anonymised means.

[39][40] The hearings revealed some of the stratagems Huckle employed to procure victims, such as taking children out on day trips from orphanages and escorting them home from their own birthday party.

At the start of the hearing, the judge stated that Huckle should expect to go to prison for a very long time, as he was considering multiple life sentences due to the gravity of the offences committed.

[8][45] Sapsford continued by asking the judge to take into consideration his client's young age, his claims of remorse, and the fact that he had no previous convictions.

It was noted how Huckle's ledger contained details of 200 children that had been abused but that they have been unable to access certain encrypted sections of his hard drive to obtain evidence.

[8] At the Old Bailey on 6 June 2016, Judge Peter Rook QC sentenced Huckle to life imprisonment on 22 counts with a minimum prison term of 25 years before being eligible to apply for parole.

Officers from the NCA travelled to Malaysia to engage with local charities, who performed child protection workshops in the community where Huckle lived, but they were kept in the dark about the gravity of his crimes.

Following the course, we have no records to indicate he was ever engaged as a teacher in Malaysia with us, either for adult students or children.They also stated that procedures would be reviewed, but that pre-employment checks are the responsibility of future employers, not their education provider.

But regardless of where people come from, we must have that check and balance.In August 2016, in response to the criticism, the prime minister Najib Razak formed a special task force to investigate how Malaysia's legislation could be updated to take paedophiles like Huckle into account.

[58] After a trial lasting four days, Paul Fitzgerald, himself serving an indeterminate sentence for serious sexual assault, was found guilty of Huckle's murder on 23 November 2020 by a jury after only one hour of deliberation.