|
Job Discussion Forums "The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!"
|
View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
soapdodger

Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 203
|
Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:14 pm Post subject: Alert Thailand |
|
|
Anyone in Thailand who has just got a new colleague might like to note this article from Guardian Unlimited.
5.30pm
Internet paedophile suspect tracked to Thailand
Matthew Weaver and agencies
Monday October 15, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Police hunting a paedophile seen sexually abusing young children in newly unscrambled pictures believe they have identified him as a teacher of English who may now be in Thailand.
The suspected child abuser was identified by five different sources from three continents as a man teaching at a school in South Korea, Interpol said.
His name, nationality, date of birth, passport number, and current and previous places of work have also been established, after more than 350 people worldwide contacted Interpol in response to a global appeal.
Article continues
The international police organisation released a picture of the man, who flew from Seoul to Bangkok international airport on Thursday, where his image was captured by security cameras.
Earlier last week Interpol said the man had appeared in 200 images on the internet sexually abusing young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Some of the boys were as believed to be as young six.
His face had been distorted by swirls. But the images were unscrambled by experts from German's federal police agency. Pictures were then published on Interpol's website.
He is said to have distinguishing marks on his body that would prove he is the man in the photographs if he is eventually found.
The manhunt has been codenamed Vico because of the links to Vietnam and Cambodia.
But today the secretary general of Interpol, Ronald Noble, said Thailand was now the focus for the search.
He said: "The response and contribution we have had from the public has been remarkable, as has the support from the media, which has enabled officers in our specialised unit, our office in Bangkok and police in other member countries to make such remarkable progress in such a short space of time."
Mr Noble called for the public's continued support to pinpoint the man's new location.
Photo available on Daily Mail website
Last edited by soapdodger on Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
SueH
Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Posts: 1022 Location: Northern Italy
|
|
Back to top |
|
 |
John Hall

Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 452 Location: San Jose, Costa Rica
|
|
Back to top |
|
 |
John Hall

Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 452 Location: San Jose, Costa Rica
|
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Guy Courchesne

Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City
|
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The Cafe has made the news in relation to this story.
http://news.sympatico.msn.ca/World/ContentPosting.aspx?feedname=CP-WORLD&newsitemid=23275015
Quote: |
Before he disappeared, more than 300 messages under the name Peter Jackson were posted on a forum for English teachers called Dave's ESL Cafe. The posts are a window into the mind of a man who comes off as dedicated to teaching, well-traveled and well-spoken - but with a sophomoric sense of humor. Sex is a recurring theme, though he never mentions an attraction to children.
"Jackson" complained about condoms in South Korea, talked about a nurse who bathed him in a Thai hospital and described rebuffing a man who hit on him in a sauna. He discussed how to delay or skirt police background checks needed for some teaching jobs. |
I hope the community here is pulling together on this to catch him. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124
|
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Let's hope the computer scientists they used to generate the photo are better than those the British used in its farcical child pornography crackdown, Operation Ore, which was proved to be a fraud and ground to an ignominous halt after Duncan Campbell analyzed the evidence.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/74690/operation-ore-exposed.html
There could be some hefty libel damages to pay in Germany if the police are shown to have cocked it up again. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
jwbhomer

Joined: 14 Dec 2003 Posts: 876 Location: CANADA
|
|
Back to top |
|
 |
John Hall

Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 452 Location: San Jose, Costa Rica
|
Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Guy Courchesne wrote: |
I hope the community here is pulling together on this to catch him. |
I hope so too.
Funny that the Dave's Korea board has probably written well over a 100 pages about him in the last few days, but on the Thailand board (where Christopher Neil is supposed to be hiding out now), there is just one lone thread with only a handful of posts on it.
I don't think Dave's ESL Cafe has had more publicity in all its history. I only wish that it were for something that did not blacken the reputation of English teachers around the world. Chris Neil is scum, and unfortunately that is going to make a lot of people around the world see all of us as scum too. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Guy Courchesne

Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City
|
Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I don't think this story necessarily blackens the reputation of English teachers around the world. I think it reinforces the popular view of certain asian countries as pedo paradises more than anything else.
Take a look at the last high profile case...John Mark Karr, now exonerated of the charges put against him. They found him in Thailand too. That he'd been teaching English there seemed much more secondary to the place he'd been staying as the crimes he'd been accused of were committed in the US.
Worst case scenario is every other perv on the planet getting the idea that they can do this kind of stuff in places like Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, so long as they don't post photos of themselves on the net. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
QatarChic
Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 445 Location: Qatar
|
Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:03 am Post subject: |
|
|
I've been away on holiday and so have just been catching up with the news...it's very disturbing and sad. I for one feel sorry for his family, especially his mother- who could imagine giving birth to someone like that?
Hope it sends a signal to other would be child predators.... |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
The Lemon
Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 42
|
Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 5:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
Guy Courchesne wrote: |
I don't think this story necessarily blackens the reputation of English teachers around the world. I think it reinforces the popular view of certain asian countries as pedo paradises more than anything else. |
The best outcome would be required criminal and professional checks for anyone about to step into a classroom of children.
Mr. Neil may not have had a prior criminal record but he also had what can fairly be described as a less-than-successful teaching career, yet was able to walk into the Kwangju Foreign School's classrooms after just a 10 minute interview, according to his posts on the Korea board. He even boasted of not needing to do a police check. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124
|
Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:11 am Post subject: |
|
|
Police checks are a waste of time for EFL. What country do you want the police check in? How many people with any opportunity of alternative employment would enter EFL only to have long periods of unpaid idleness because of idiotic bureacracy.
Child molestors will be about the only ones willing to put up with the hassle. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
thrifty
Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 1665 Location: chip van
|
Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:52 am Post subject: |
|
|
Stephan you don't seem to show any of the normal outrage at the pervs' behaviour. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
The Lemon
Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 42
|
Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:40 am Post subject: |
|
|
Stephen Jones wrote: |
Police checks are a waste of time for EFL. What country do you want the police check in? |
Contacting previous employers - basic reference checking - is almost never done in Korea. They may want to consider it. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
John Hall

Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 452 Location: San Jose, Costa Rica
|
Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Guy Courchesne wrote: |
I don't think this story necessarily blackens the reputation of English teachers around the world. |
I'm not so sure about that. Read this article from ABC News:
Kids 'Sitting Ducks' for Pedophile Teachers
Accused Pedophile Christopher Paul Neil Exploited Asian Loopholes That Let Predators Teach By RUSSELL GOLDMAN
Oct. 18, 2007
Amid the bars and nightclubs of Bangkok's Khao San Road, the city's main backpacker hangout, fliers advertise English-language teaching jobs available to virtually anyone capable of reading the posters.
Teaching English has been a mainstay of countless Westerners looking to live in Asia, or simply looking for enough cash to keep traveling. In a region hungry to learn the international language of commerce and diplomacy, established schools and fly-by-night "language centers" employ transient tourists, recent college graduates and sometimes, inadvertently, sexual predators looking for young victims.
Canadian Christopher Paul Neil, 32, is the most recent alleged pedophile accused of exploiting the region's demand for English teachers and lax hiring practices in an effort to rape children.
Though technology once kept the face and identity of Neil hidden behind a computer generated swirl, Interpol and Thai police now believe he is hiding amid Bangkok's winding streets.
Since discovering pictures online three years ago of a man seen raping 12 boys, some as young as 6, in Vietnam and Cambodia, German police have worked to identify the suspect whose face had been digitally obscured. Neil, who is believed to have taught at a Thai school from 2003-2004, was caught on camera at the Bangkok Airport entering Thailand last week from Seoul, South Korea. A student at a Korean school in the southern city of Gwangju identified Neil has having taught there for three months.
"It is really a matter of access to children. How do foreigners access children in this region?" asked Rosalind Prober, president of the Canadian children's advocacy group Beyond Borders, by phone from Bangkok.
"There are many ways, depending on the skills you have. While some men pay for sex, teaching offers the perfect venue for access to others. ... These men are highly manipulative and experienced. � Schoolchildren are simply sitting ducks. There are lots of cultural mores about welcoming foreigners and many cultural taboos about complaining about teachers."
In January, British national Sean McMahon, 45, who was teaching English in Bangkok was repatriated to Great Britain on charges that he had raped an 8-year-old girl there.
A month later, Australian Peter William Smith, 48, who taught at a school in Jakarta, Indonesia, was sentenced to 10 years and fined $10,000 by an Indonesian court for engaging in sex with more than 50 boys.
Probably the most publicized arrest of a teacher accused of preying on children came in August 2006, when American John Mark Karr, who confessed to -- and was later exonerated for -- the 1996 murder of Jon Bennet Ramsey was picked up in Thailand. Karr's case spotlighted the ease with which sexual predators could find work in the region's schools.
Karr lost his California teaching license in 2001 for possessing child pornography but had nevertheless taught at three Thai elementary schools.
"Most schools are going to say that they have a screening process. What that means is they looked at a resume, or did an interview. Maybe they saw a diploma from a hopefully real university," American Craig Harrington, who taught in Thai schools for three years wrote in an e-mail from Bangkok.
"It's so very rare for them to do a screening, as we would in the U.S. You must understand, there is a huge demand for teachers here, and many schools just need to fill holes. And even if the schools, both private and governmental, did sufficient screenings, the ever-present language centers, where students go for extracurricular, usually weekend programs, will literally take anyone that has a degree, experience or not. � Facts are never verified, work histories aren't even looked at. If these freaks want to get to kids, they can do it quite easily. It's so easy to get a job on the first interview, and start the next day. How could they screen them?"
More established schools are increasingly relying on reputable Western agencies to vet employees.
"The vast majority of English teachers are not pedophiles," said Dexter Lewis of Search Associates, a company that places qualified teachers overseas.
"We don't work with language schools. We've had too many dicey experiences," he said.
Teachers seem to be the newest subset of Western men who travel to Asia to have sex with children, part of an even larger group of men traveling to the region to engage in sex with adult prostitutes.
In a 2004 report, Beyond Borders printed excerpts from e-mails exchanged among pedophile teachers that were intercepted by the Cambodian police.
"I am having a wonderful time with them sexually," one teacher writes. "Last night four boys spent the night and I like all four of them. � I pay $1 if they give me a massage and $2 if they give me anything extra."
While adult prostitution is a reality in Asia, a region where, according Prober, most local men have visited a brothel, regional governments have grown increasingly worried about child-sex predators.
The Thai government estimates a minimum of 3 million people visit Thailand as sex tourists every year
"Countries that need tourist dollars regularly turn a blind eye to adult prostitution," Prober said. "The Thai people have an economy that relies on tourism, and the fact that some tourists engage in sex with prostitutes has become normalized."
However, Prober said, the governments of Thailand and its neighbors have become increasingly committed to battling child prostitution, trafficking and exploitation of children.
"The Thai police should be commended for how quickly they have acted to find [Neil]. It shows how committed they now are to these issues," she said.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/Story?id=3743338&page=1 |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling. Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|