FROM ANDREW DRUMMOND, BANGKOK
March 30 2010
Pictures: Berm, Chiang Mai
Roger Pettit
A British pensioner, who allegedly trawled the Northern capital of Chiang Mai for hill tribe children, today faces the rest of his life in jail after being seized on drugs and child sexual abuse and charges.
Under arrest in Chiang Mai
Roger Leslie Pettit, 67, from Brighton, who police said had a history of child sex abuse in Britain, was arrested early today at a condominium in the city in a joint operation between Britain’s CEOP – and the Thai Police Woman and Children’s Department.
A statement from the Royal Thai Police said police obtained a court warrant after interviewing a 13-yr-old boy known as ‘Aek’.
“Pettit who had made several trips to Thailand was wanted in connection with sexual offences against hill tribe children” said a Thai police spokesman.
He added: “While searching his flat police also found, sex toys, pornographic movies, aphrodisiacs, and 42 methamphetamine tablets”.
Pettit was charged with drugs possession, child sexual abuse, and removing a child from his parents control without permission.
Chiang Mai and local regional provinces are the home to many hill tribes, common to Burma, Laos, Thailand and China. They include the Karen, Lisu, Wa, Akha, and Shan.
*Child Exploitation and Online Protection headed by Jim Gamble.
One less predatory deviant at liberty is a thing to be glad of. But the taking into custody of one frail opportunist amounts to very little save for headlines for CEOP and the Royal Thai Police.
Where is the investigation into the RTP themselves and their revolving door policy on pedophiles arrested elsewhere (and less publicly) in the Kingdom? Where is the sober look into the substantial claims they actually protect child sex rackets?
And more pointedly, where is the international co-operation of the authorities in China, Korea and Japan, when each of these countries is a major contributor to child sex-tourism and offenses again females minors in Thailand and throughout the region?
Some good points, Monger
But you seem to be assuming he is guilty
Set-ups are all too common in Thailand. This may or may not be one.
He may or may not be guilty; he may or may not be convicted. But let the court try him not the blogs and forums
As you probably know the size of your wallet and the money and contact cards it contains can have an influence here.
Andrew Drummond As a rule of thumb lest than 50 per cent of those arrested in these cases have traditionally come before the courts. These figures may now be improving, perhaps with pressure from CEOP. In the last CEOP operation ‘Operation Naga’ Robert Horsman made it to court and got 14 years. But at this stage I do not know what happened to other three. One appears to however have told his house and left the country.
Set-ups are far less common against people of relatively meagre means such as, it would appear, Mr Pettit. If he has much more than his condominium, his pension and a penchant for little brown boys it will be a shock.
And the motivation of a set-up is usually extortion which is exponentially more difficult in the glare of the media spotlight.
That also implies, does it not Andrew, that the 50% that do not get to court have suffered from being pronounced guilty by the “hang em high brigade” and it also perhaps confirms that in some cases a “deal” may have been done with the police.
Either way - hardly justice as it should be done.
Newbie: Right on both counts.
As disgusting as this story is - I’m really not surprised that yet another western foreigner has been arrested in connection with sexual offences against minors in this country.
However - as a point of comparison - Marwaan Macan-Markar writing in The Asia Times Online (23 August 2008) in a story concerned with foreign nationals who commit sexual offenses overseas had this to say:”Most of the child sex offenders are locals, although foreign exploiters are often in the media,” said Amalee McCoy, child protection consultant at the East Asia office of the United Nations Children’s Fund [UNICEF].”
She continues to quote Amalee McCoy in the article:”Few of these cases make it to local courts, she added. “Most of these cases are settled out of court, within the communities, where there is a transfer of funds as compensation for the family of the victims. The case is closed, but the abuser remains free.”
Macan-Markar concludes that:”However, the prevailing image of these sex predators as mostly white men - overlooks the larger and more disturbing truth that the majority of children abusers are local men or from other parts of Asia.
Anyway - having said that - let’s hope that a lengthy jail term for Roger Pettit eventually removes the utter absence of guilt - remorse and shame that often accompanies such arrests.
Good work by the UK’s CEOP and the Thai Police Woman and Children’s Department.
And now, perhaps, we have the rest of the story, unless the location, nationality and age are a simple and unlikely coincidence:
http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2010/04/03/child-sex-ring-run-by-monk-busted-in-chiang-mai/
“One of their foreign clients, an unnamed 67-year-old British national, was also arrested, charged with the same offences.”
Mr Marshall is to be commended for the citations he makes which bring an essential point to the fore: the involvement of Westerners in sexual abuse of Thai and other South-East Asian children is only a small fraction of this industry - that is the most apt term — and is almost exclusively homosexual in nature.
Hey Newbie,
Hi is guilty of being a Pedophile. He has a history of child sex abuse in Britain and was arrested in a joint opperation with a British organisation. You think they set devised a plan together to set him up?
Perhaps he came to Thailand and didn’t do what they said he did.
If he is a pedophile let him rot in a Thai jail whether he is guilty HERE or not!
Hey Expat girl
It has been suggested that, for complicated fraud cases in the UK, juries should be suspended and the judges alone should decide.
You take it one step further:
“let him rot in a Thai jail whether he is guilty here or not”
No juries, no judges. Hey Expat girl, your idea could save the cost of having a judicial system in the uk and - at a stroke - solve the debt crisis. In your system would there also be no need for a police force - presumably not as there would be no-one to whom evidence could be presented.
Expat Girl. There are already too many people rotting in prisons here for crimes they didn’t commit or weren’t entirely responsible for. There are also far too many scumbags (including ex-PMs, military men, policemen, prison officials and corrupt businessmen and civil servants) who continue to get away with their crimes. The justice system of this country needs a complete makeover, if it is ever to put people in prison on terms that are commensurate with the seriousness of their crimes. I am not at all phased by Thailand’s choice to stick with some fairly harsh punishment regimes, but it does need to be backed up with a system that also provides some carrot for people not to become scofflaws. Not to mention the fact that the police force and prison service are chock full of people who would be called criminals if they didn’t have a uniform to hide behind - and ruthlessly and violently exploit. If you can give me ONE shining example of how a corrupt system has deterred paedophiles, I might be prepared to listen. But the evidence seems to be that crime flourishes in a system where there is always the option of a buy-out. I don’t pretend to have the answers to such thorny issues. And I am certainly NOT in favor of cutting a piece of slack for paedophiles. (One such I have met here. He is now awaiting a court case and a long prison sentence in the USA. I’m happy with that.) What I do say is that the rotting in a Thai prison (perhaps guilty, perhaps not) doesn’t seem to act as a deterrent either.
Andrew Drummond
Just thought I would put in my twopence worth here, though the subject of paedophiles attracts extreme debate.
Firstly juries would not work in Thailand. They would be much easier to nobble than judges. Nobody with any cash would go down.
Secondly you have to have an honest police system. Can Thai police be honest? Yes. But there is no indication they are getting more honest. There are however honest police officers who can overrule the dishonest ones.
British Police and CEOP (which is not part of Scotland Yard) generally have to work with the officers with whom they are provided. There have been dishonest police both in Interpol here (Foreign Affairs Division of the RTP) and in the Woman and Children’s Police Dept. Moreover, few police stay long enough in one position to do any good.
However CEOP has established a relationship which has resulted in arrests. We now have to wait and see if the British pensioner goes through the system. If he does not he can be prosecuted in the U.K.
Paedophiles arrested here, who cannot buy themselves off the charge before it gets to court, have been known to boast about buying a ‘not guilty’ verdict after entering the system. Once that has been obtained they are pretty much untouchable by police from their home countries.
Then again James Fraser Darling was sentenced to 40 years jail in Phuket for abusing sea gypsy children….and was back in Scotland in three years. That was a good appeal.
Further to what I have already written today. Paedophiles traumatise their victims. Victims will usually suffer long-term (if not lifelong) trauma. (I speak from some experience.) Thus, we need both strong deterrents and apt punishments. The question is not only how we can ensure paedophiles are suitably punished, but also how to prevent them wanting to operate here. Paedophiles should be forced to live with the consequences of their actions for a very long time, if not the rest of their lives - in their home country. It seems that most paedophiles are on the run from some sort of punishment at home. That punishment almost certainly isn’t draconian enough. But it seems that they don’t like the idea of being constantly reminded of their crimes. How can we find ways to prevent known and convicted paedophiles leaving home in search of countries where justice can easily be swayed? How can we lock them into a system that constantly reminds them of their transgressions, with no boltholes? Some people might argue in favor of capital punishment. I wouldn’t entirely reject that, or chemical castration - if there is evidence that they CAN deter crime. Perhaps better, though, to give people decades of confinement, during which they are constantly forced to contemplate their crimes and the effect on their victims. Locked up in a Thai prison, with a bunch of uniformed sadists and perverts, doesn’t exactly seem like a punishment to fit the crime. Well yes, they suffer in such bedlams. But in doing so, they become part of a justice system in which the jailers all too frequently become state-sanctioned criminals. That allows paedophiles to rationalise that their jailers are no better than themselves. And that is yet another easy cop-out with which they can avoid living in the real world of correct social behaviour.
“42 methamphetamine tablets”
Destined for jail or not, he’d most likely be popping his clogs pretty soon if taking this lot at his age.
well my husband used to work with this man before he was sacked for trying Well not just trying) to touch up one of the VERY young boys in the office he just harrassed him. As far as we are concerned we hope he does spend the rest of his life in jail
hi I am a gay man——–its with great interest that I found this forum tonight ,
I have in the past witnessed the paedophiles that frequent Thailand’s resorts.
in particular an area called sunnee plaza in pattaya,
Paedophiles operate in open relaxed public view .
I attempted to out some activities on a Thai gay web site forum -I was barred from the forum because I outed one of their members who frequently blogged there , the moderators protected him .
It was plain for me they were protecting the paedophiles ? I thought birds of the same feather.
On my first visit to sunnee plaza I was shocked I witnessed peadophile’s molesting young boy’s in the water in that swimming pool bar in sunnee plaza run by an infamous Australian ,
Three times I complained to the owner what I had seen, I advised him to stop the men committing the crimes .
The owner told me several times what I could do with myself and threatened me with violence from what he called the gay mafia if I didn’t shut my mouth and he ordered me off the premises.
That swimming pool bar area in its design was built to attract children and cater for paedophile’s with dark rooms beside the pool where old men took under aged lads ,
Thai police officers take money off the owners of such establishments weekly and turn a blind eye to activities. They seem to make token arrests every now and again to gratify people. Westerners with money just buy their freedom , from corrupt police and court officials.
Thailand is a haven for peadophiles be they men women gay and straight alike ,
Mind you its also true that Thai parents send their sons and daughters out importuning for money from westerners in return for sex.
Most western people don’t understand the role that incomes from sex plays in the Thai economy ,
The city of pattaya runs on prostitution, However that doesn’t condone paedaphilia,
I think international law should jail all offenders for 10 years for each offence no matter what country the crimes are committed in.
ronny
Ronny: For a monthly stipend bar owners can get a document from police to say they have been investigated and no commercial sex activity is offered or takes place on the premises.
Roger Pettit used to be the General Manager of a rail freight operation in Yorkshire called Freightliner Heavy Haul before he was hoiked out under very dubious clandestine circumstances. I used to work for this guy and I’m happy to give evidence toward his conviction. Believe me - this guy is not innocent, he is a predator.
OMG! I dated this guy a few years ago when he lived shortly in Manila.
I knew there was something dodgy when he looked wistful as he was talking about his days of being a footie coach. He soon left with his dancer-partner to live in Thailand. Something tells me their relationship didn’t last very long.
As a south-east Asian who’s seen the the nasty underground sex trade on minors, I support Ronny’s idea on how pedophiles should be punished!