Man admits running paedophile forums from flat

A paedophile from north London has admitted running dark web forums from his London flat, with the sites being "exclusively" used for sharing child sexual abuse material.

Matthew Slate, 36, was a "global moderator" on the site between 19 April 2024 and 8 February 2025 under the username Loudechoes for a dark web site called Olympus.

The defendant pleaded guilty to 11 criminal charges at Wood Green Crown Court.

Slate, who lives on the edge of Alexandra Park, also worked on another dark web abuse site named Neverland between 20 July 2023 and 15 June 2024, the court heard. He will be sentenced on 8 May.

Slate pleaded guilty to distributing more than 2,000 indecent images of children, some of which were category A, the most serious kind, between July 2023 and August 2025.

He also amassed around 57,000 illegal images of children, including more than 10,000 in the most serious category of abuse.

The defendant accepted a further charge of possessing 55 prohibited images of children on 15 March 2025.

Slate pleaded not guilty to two counts of participating in activities of an organised crime group and one count of facilitating the sexual exploitation of children.

Prosecutor Corinne Bramwell told the court it was not in the "public interest" to proceed with those charges, and asked that they lie on file.

This means there will be no further proceedings against the defendant on those matters without the leave of the Crown Court or the Court of Appeal.

Adrian Langdale KC, who represents Slate, made an application to the court for him to be remanded in custody after previous media coverage of the case led to "threats".

This request was approved in court.

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