Racially biased, says CBI

Racially biased, says CBI

UK judge refuses to extradite paedophile convicted in Goa case 

Herald Review June 8, 2014 

After 18 years of an international hunt to nail him for sexually abusing children in Goa in the notorious Freddy Peats case, paedophile Raymond Varley could walk away free all because a British judge thinks it would be “oppressive” to have him return to India for trial

LISA ANN MONTEIRO

Last month UK national Raymond Varley, 66, convicted for sexually abusing children in Goa and wanted for 16 years won his battle against extradition to India.

Raymond Varley, a teacher from Halifix, was accused of visiting Goa repeatedly during the 1980s and early 1990s to abuse children in an orphanage in Fatorda which housed over 150 boys and girls. The orphanage was run by convicted paedophile, the now deceased Freddie Peats.

The UK District Judge Quentin Purdy said Varley couldn’t be extradited because he was a “vulnerable individual” and should not be extradited due to dementia.

This was based on a report by Varley’s neuropsychologist that it was “unjust” and “oppressive” to return him to India for trial.

In his statement Varley said, “Should I be sent to India I would have no alternative but to commit suicide. There would be no point to live in such disgusting and inhuman conditions as I would face in custody, as well as daily ill- treatment.” Lawyers representing Varley argued that extraditing him to India would amount to breach of his human rights.

Peats, an Anglo German who posed as a social worker began his activities in Colva and moved to Fatorda in the mid 1980s where he ran Gurukul Orphamily, home to over 150 boys and girls.

With his snowy white beard and hair, some even saw the notorious Peats as a do- gooder Santa Claus, and unsuspecting parents, mostly underprivileged, willingly sent their children to him for two decades believing in his benevolence. The children were sexually and sadistically abused and tortured. Majority of these were poor orphans and street children.

In April 1991 the police acting on the complaint of a little boy, raided Peats’ residence and unearthed an international paedophile network that had been running for more than two decades. Over 2305 photographs of minor boys engaged in sexual activity with elderly white men, 135 strips of negative film, syringes and narcotics were found. One of the photographs showed a six year old boy blindfolded and strapped to the wall with drugs being injected into his testicles.

The police found that Peats along with his associates were supplying children to paedophiles around the world.

Peats was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 and died in prison at the age of 81 in 2005.

The children identified one of the abusers as ‘Raymond from Thailand’. There are allegations against Varley of abusing two boys aged five and seven who he photographed in the nude.

Varley was chargesheeted in 1996 along with other associates of Peats— Werner Ingo of Australia, EC McBride of New Zealand, Nils Johnson of Sweden.

Authorities never caught up with Varley who moved from Thailand, Slovenia, Mexico and Britain. He previously served time in prison until the mid 1980s and was given treatment to deal with his sexual offences. He claimed to be a changed man and said he left the country because of the public reaction to his crimes. He changed his name by deed poll to Martin Ashley.

He was in Thailand for 12 years and was deported in February 2012 for overstaying. Records by the CBI reveal he visited Goa in 1994 while Peats was under trial. His associates also visited the state till 1995.

The CBI has sent a special team to London to assist the Crown Prosecution Service who is fighting their case with the cooperation of the Indian High Commission.

“They ( Crown Prosecution Service) have appealed on our behalf. We’re not directly doing it. There are rules. Varley got himself examined by his own medical expert. We contested this but the court upheld it. The court didn’t request for an independent psychiatric assessment so we have to respect this. We requested to get him examined by the Medical Board in India but they refused.

This is not the first time that someone from the West has appealed that their human rights will be violated if they are extradited. There is a racial element in the case. We are strongly committed to this case but we have to follow the procedure of law. We cannot airlift him and bring him here. If they don’t agree to extradite him, they will not take him into custody. He will walk away a free man,” Kanchan Prasad spokesperson for the CBI told Herald Review.

Peats’ other associate New Zealander EC McBride was convicted of criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, sodomy and selling minors for prostitution and locked up for seven years in 2002.

Werner Wulf Ingo of Australia was jailed for ten years in 2007. Review Bureau