A paedophile who used AI to ‘nudify’ thousands of pictures of children was bailed and allowed to return to his home overlooking a playground he targeted.
Zafer Dogan, 32, was jailed at London’s Wood Green Crown Court yesterday for two years and four months after admitting to a series of child abuse image offences.
He pleaded guilty at Highbury Magistrates’ Court on 6 August to three counts of making indecent images of a child. This included 653 category A images – the most serious – plus 294 category B images and 900 category C images.
Dogan, whom police say took over 5,000 photos, also admitted to two additional counts of making indecent photographs of a child, plus possessing extreme pornography, possessing a prohibited image of a child, creating purported intimate images of an adult, and obstructing a constable in the execution of their duty.
Despite prosecutors’ efforts to remand him in custody ahead of sentencing, Dogan was granted bail by the courts on several occasions, permitting him to go back to his flat in Enfield.
His north London home is where police say he took many photos from his bedroom window, with his return ultimately forcing one family he targeted with his crimes to move into temporary accommodation.
Dogan had pictures on his phone of girls playing outside, arriving at and leaving school, and walking alongside their parents. He also followed unsuspecting women in the surrounding areas.
He then used artificial intelligence software to remove their clothing. 33 pictures of women were found, and two of girls aged seven and 13.
After he threw his phone into a neighbour’s garden on July 16 this year, the day of his arrest, police dogs discovered it. Investigators then found another 1,800 indecent images of children and extreme pornographic material, including bestiality.
However, most of those in the images have yet to be identified. Police are still urging anyone to come forward with useful information or witness accounts if they have seen Dogan filming or taking pictures.
Meanwhile, the mother of the 13-year-old said she felt like she’d been ‘punched in the gut’ as she told the court that she had to leave the family home.
‘I feel like we’re on the run, yet we’re not the sexual offenders,’ she said. ‘Dogan is just living the same life while our lives have been changed forever.
‘How can a court put him back so close to his victims?’
And in a statement read by prosecutor Sarah Gabay, the mother of the seven-year-old said she, too, had been ‘desperately trying to move’ to ‘protect [her] child from this monster’.
‘It doesn’t seem fair that because he’s a paedophile and chose to exploit my daughter, that my daughter, a victim, has to change everything. How is that fair? She’s done nothing wrong.’
London’s victims’ commissioner, Andrea Simon, has added that the victims and their families were ‘grossly failed’, stating that ‘the justice system did not centre victims’ when Dogan’s bail was approved.
‘To know that the police and prosecutors opposed bail multiple times, but nevertheless, he was returned to the community, is an indication that the capacity pressures on prisons are not being balanced with the impacts that that’s having on victims’ lives,’ said Simon.
‘We seem to be lurching from one crisis to another, and victim safety and their rights seem to be put to one side as the justice system struggles.’
Echoing Simon’s words, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said it is ‘unfathomable’ how Dogan was ever bailed: ‘A victim and their family found themselves living in close proximity to a man who had admitted targeting them.
‘They were so fearful, they ultimately felt forced to move to distant temporary accommodation, disrupting their lives and disrupting their children’s lives, simply to escape being in the neighbourhood of the offender.’
He further condemned AI companies, demanding that they ‘do more to prevent their platforms and tools from being used to facilitate sexual offending and harm’.
A government spokesperson said: ‘These were awful crimes, and our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones.’
They added that ‘the law is clear that bail should only be used where necessary and proportionate, including to protect victims, witnesses, and the public while investigations and court proceedings are ongoing’.
‘We’ve brought in tough new laws to ban AI tools designed to create child sexual abuse images, target websites that spread them, and stop this vile material being created in the first place.’
Handing down sentencing, the judge said the images found in Dogan’s possession were ‘chilling’, and he took the original photos while the women and girls were ‘going about their daily business – walking, children playing on climbing frames, or at a local park’.
‘All of them were completely unaware you had surreptitiously taken photographs, no doubt for your sexual pleasure,’ he said.
The judge declared he would be ‘utterly failing [his] public duty’ should he enable a suspended sentence.
Defending Dogan, Joseph Carr apologised to the victims and their families on the paedophile’s behalf and said he wanted to express ‘the sincerity of his remorse and reassurance’ that the images he made with AI weren’t shared.
The sex offender’s family has been ordered to leave their home of 30 years and will move out in the coming days.
Metropolitan Police Constable Natalie Scagliarini has insisted that the force remains ‘committed to protecting women and children and bringing those who seek to exploit them before the courts’.
Thanking those affected by Dogan’s crimes for their ‘bravery’, she called the case ‘deeply distressing’ and his actions ‘predatory and dangerous’.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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