Justice to Children

Justice to Children 

Herald Review November 16, 2014 


Christine Beddoe, child rights activist will be talking about institutional abuse and the challenges arising in prosecuting travelling sex offenders.


LISA ANN MONTEIRO 

Christine Beddoe, advisor to the British Parliament on Child Abuse is presently visiting the country, raising awareness about travelling sex offenders and pushing for a memorandum of understanding between UK and India to facilitate investigation and prosecution of child sex offenders.

Although there continue to be many cases of sex offenders travelling to India, Beddoe says the trend has shifted from being tourism based to travelling child sex offenders who target schools, shelters and orphanages under the guise of charity workers, teachers and volunteers. “ Institutional abuse is the new child sex tourism and must be viewed as organised crime because it has the potential to involve many victims and multiple perpetrators. It is a pre- meditated crime, well planned and can involve networks of sex offenders from different countries operating together, sharing child abuse images across borders and abusing children disguised as ‘ the good samaritan.” Predatory sex offenders will go to extreme lengths to get access to children. They go to a local community volunteer their services and work to build up their reputation.

Beddoe highlights the infamous Anchorage shelter case in Colaba, Mumbai where UK citizen and ‘ charity worker’ Duncan Grant, set up the shelter in 1995. His associate Allan Waters also from the UK was a regular visitor to the home. The duo were charged with sexual assault after five boys complained to the police about abuse by the men. Mumbai High Court acquitted them in 2008 for lack of evidence but the Supreme Court later overturned that decision and sentenced them to six years.

In another case, India is pushing for the extradition of Jonathan Robinson a UK national wanted on charges of sexually abusing children at an orphanage in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu funded by him.

Recently Bartle Frere, a British Airways pilot was arrested in Britain on charges of pedophilia where he revealed that he spent time in Nochikuppam, a fishing village in Chennai where he took an interest in children and they in him. He revealed that he would take monthly BA flights to Chennai and made friends with families from the village.

He also reportedly claimed he would spend a couple of hundred pounds buying the children gifts including iPhones and didn’t mind it as he had money to afford and didn’t have a family to support. He was arrested in November 2013 and denied the 25 sex abuse charges against him.

Beddoe has also been closely following the extradition proceedings of Raymond Varley. She is upset about the UK Court’s decision last month, dismissing India’s appeal to extradite him. The system she said has failed children as Varley who had a number of convictions of child sexual abuse and related charges between 1974 and 1986, can now walk free as conditions on him were lifted in the UK with no charges pending. “ IN extradition cases very narrow legal arguments are put forward.

Only the merits of extradition are looked at and not pending criminal charges. In my view the Crown Prosecution Service should have established stronger relationships with the CBI and Indian officials and agreed on a strategy. The CPS did not proactively seek the opinion of CBI before the decision was made not to ask for an independent psychiatrist to examine Varley.” Any extradition case involving child sex offenders she says needs a specialised legal team trained in child protection. The prosecutors weren’t trained in child protection but were experienced in matters of extradition.

“ As a result we have a convicted sex offender who is still free to travel and potentially abuse children in the UK and internationally. The extradition system failed children,” Beddoe says.

She is calling for a high level agreement on child abuse investigations.

Without this agreement, she says cases will continue to fail with children never getting the protection they deserve.

Beddoe served as director of End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes ( ECPAT) UK and has worked extensively to combat sexual exploitation of children in tourist destinations throughout the world. She will be in the State, speaking at Miramar Residency on November 18 to shed more light on the issue and the challenges that arise in prosecuting travelling sex offenders.Review Bureau 

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