'Only international co-operation can nail globe-trotting paedophiles'

Only co-operation and information-sharing between enforcement and non-government agencies can help nail globe-trotting paedophiles who often follow the international tourism trail looking for under-aged victims, a leading Britain-based campaigner said Tuesday.

Christine Beddoe has been campaigning in Britain for the deportation of Raymond Varley, 66, a British teacher who faces child sex abuse charges in Goa and is accused of being part of a paedophilia ring which abused more than 150 children in the late 1980s here.

"The paedophiles have a network among themselves which supports them. There is no reason why law enforcement agencies and others should not work out a similar global mechanism to bring child sex abusers to justice," said Beddoe, who is a director at End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking (ECPAT), an NGO based in the United Kingdom.

Beddoe said that child sex abusers tended to exploit lacunae in understanding and co-operation between inter-country immigration and police agencies to escape the legal dragnet over and over again and cited the Varley case as an example.

Varley was an associate of Freddy Peats, who headed one of the first known Western paedophile rings in India.

Varley and other associates abused hundreds of children at an orphanage operated by Peats in a South Goa beach village. When the racket was busted in 1991, Varley disappeared and continued to travel freely despite an Interpol alert against him.

"When he was caught by the Thai authorities (in 2012), he was deported to the UK and not India, which had issued the Interpol alert," Beddoe said. India's efforts to extradite Varley for trial here received a setback after a court ruled in the accused paedophile's favour after he claimed he had dementia and was therefore in need of healthcare.

ECPAT research shows that in 2011-12 alone, 66 British nationals were held for child abuse abroad, while the number of UK nationals accused of child sex crimes abroad over the last five years was 293.

"In 2008-09 alone, there were 33 cases in which UK nationals accused of child sex abuse abroad were associated with teaching positions," Beddoe said, adding that child sex predators targeted orphanages, schools and other areas which children were likely to frequent.

Some of the favoured overseas destinations for British sex offenders were Romania, Bulgaria, India, Philippines and Thailand.