Byline: Beth Hale and Tom Kelly
A FORMER Army major and a teacher's wife were exposed yesterday asmembers of a child abuse ring in which young victims were offered for sex onthe Internet.
They subjected two 12- year-olds to an afternoon of abuse which left theyoungsters devastated.
Infant school governor Archibald Wood, 60, seemed a pillar of the community inthe Devon town of Tavistock.
On the other side of the country, Kent businesswoman Monica McCanch, 55, cut anequally respectable figure as the divorced wife of a grammar school teacher.
But behind closed doors the two were involved in an Internet plot to abuse twoyoung children.
They responded to a chatroom posting by Steven Horton, 44, who was looking forpaedophiles who wanted to 'educate' a boy and girl.
Details of their appalling crimes emerged yesterday after they pleaded guiltyto 41 child abuse offences with another 17 to be taken into consideration.
Horton's offences included child rape.
The trio met at a house in Fleet, Hampshire, and subjected the young boy andgirl to an ordeal lasting several hours. The abuse - thought to be one of thefirst cases where children have been offered on the Internet in this way - cameto light only when Horton's girlfriend discovered e-mails referring to childabuse on his computer.
She contacted Kent Police, who raided Horton's home in Sittingbourne, Kent.
They found child abuse pictures on his computer and also traced him tochatrooms where he had offered the children up for abuse. The elechad'Diabolical, sick people' tronic trail led to McCanch and Wood.
Police also found that Horton, a manager for an electrical distributioncompany, had arranged a second abuse session. But the man he was due to meet ata holiday camp in Rye, East Sussex, never arrived.
Horton still abused the girl, while the boy pretended to be ill and hid in atoilet for an hour.
Horton was arrested in October 2006, while Wood and McCanch were held thefollowing month.
Police found that all three hidden the abuse from their respective partners,who were all shattered by the discovery.
Twice-married Wood, who has grown-up children, was chairman of the board ofgovernors at Tavistock Community College and a governor at St Rumon's InfantsSchool.
As part of his role he had been trained in child protection issues.
An active member of the Liberal Democrats in Tavistock, he was heavily involvedin volunteer work.
But fellow governor Roger Matthew said Wood was an unpopular 'abrasive' man.
Horton, another former military man, is also divorced and lived with agirlfriend.
McCanch, of Ash, Kent, is understood to have been a family friend of Wood.
She is thought to be divorced from her husband Norman McCanch - a renownednaturalist who teaches biology and chemistry at a Kent grammar school.
The trio were due to be sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court yesterday, but thehearing was postponed until September 13 because cells below the court wereflooded.
Michelle Elliott of the children's charity Kidscape called the case 'anincredibly worrying development', allowing people who may not have acted aloneon their perverted fantasies to get together with other paedophiles and becomefar more dangerous.
She said: 'The Internet, for all its good, is becoming a powerful tool in thehands of these diabolical sick people.
'I hope they are given indeterminate sentences. Clearly they will be a dangerto children for the rest of their lives.' A third man arrested during theinvestigation is due in court on September 7..
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