Hurtcore

Hurtcore, a portmanteau of the words "hardcore" and "hurt", is a name given to a particularly extreme form of child pornography, usually involving degrading violence, bodily harm, and torture, typically relating to child sexual abuse. Eileen Ormsby, Australian writer and author of The Darkest Web, described hurtcore as "a fetish for people who get aroused by the infliction of pain, or even torture, on another person who is not a willing participant". An additional motivation for the perpetrator, next to their position of power over their victims, can be the reaction of their victims to the physical abuse, like crying or screaming in pain. This reaction can stimulate the arousal of the perpetrator even more.
Some dark web forums are dedicated to the discussion, and sharing of images and videos, of hurtcore. In 2013, Vice called Hurt2theCore "the dark web's most notorious hurtcore site", run by Matthew Graham, who became known as the "King of Hurtcore", as well as "one of the biggest child pornography and hurtcore distributors in the world". The case of Matthew Falder was the UK National Crime Agency's first successful hurtcore prosecution.

Notable arrests

Matthew Alexander Falder – Englishman who, from a period of time between 2009 and 2017, coerced his victims online into sending him degrading images of themselves or into committing crimes against a third person such as rape or assault. He managed this by making threats to the victim by saying that he would send their family or friends degrading information or revealing pictures of them if they did not comply with his commands. Falder hid behind anonymous accounts on the web and then re-posted the images to gain a higher status on the dark web. Investigators said that he "revelled" in getting images to share on hurtcore websites. The National Crime Agency, which was part of an international investigation, described him as "one of the most prolific and depraved offenders they had ever encountered." Falder pleaded guilty to 137 charges from 46 complainants, making him one of the UK's most prolific convicted sex offenders. In February 2018, he was jailed for 32 years and ordered to serve a further six years on extended licence. The Court of Appeal later reduced the term of imprisonment to 25 years, with an extended licence of 8 years.
Peter Gerard Scully – Australian man who, from the Filipino island of Mindanao, is alleged to have built up and headed a lucrative international child sexual abuse ring that offered pay-per-view video streams on the dark web of children being sexually abused and tortured. Among the victims who had their ordeals recorded and sold over the internet was a five-year-old who was raped and tortured by Scully and two female accomplices. Scully is infamous for producing Daisy's Destruction, a series of four videos depicting the rape and torture of an 18-month-old infant named Daisy. The videos feature one of Scully's Filipina girlfriends torturing the toddler in several different ways, including clipping her genitals with cloth clips, placing ice cubes on her parts, pouring hot wax on her, tying the infant upside down, urinating on her, and beating her hands and feet with rope and various other material for hours, all while Daisy screams and cries in pain. Daisy's two sisters Liza and Cindy also suffered these tortures, although their videos were not as extreme as what Daisy suffered. According to Margallo, Scully recorded himself in a video with Cindy, in which he raped and tortured her, then made her dig her own grave before strangling her to death with a rope. Scully's victims were procured by Scully with promises to impoverished parents of work or education, or were solicited by Alvarez and Castaña. Scully was imprisoned for life in the Philippines after being convicted of one count of human trafficking and five counts of rape by sexual assault of children. Scully was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2018. In November 2022, he received a second conviction and was sentenced to an additional 129 years in prison.