Tag Archive for ‘Vietnam’ at Andrew Drummond

Tag Archive for 'Vietnam'

Two young Brits die in boat tragedy in Halong Bay UPDATED

Published

Andrew Drummond

on September 28, 2009

in General News

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From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok, Monday September 28

Link to Daily Mail

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From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok, Monday September 28
An inquiry was launched today into how five passengers died including two young Britons when a brand new tourist boat sank in Vietnam on just its second passenger trip.

Timothy Roney and Karen Puddifoot

From reports in the country’s Quang Ninh province it has already been established that the boat was neither insured nor allowed to operate after dark when the accident happened in a tropical storm late last week.
The young Britons aged Tim Roney, 22 and Karen Puddifoot, 27, were cycling around the world to raise cash for the British Lung Foundation. They were among 25 passengers on the tourist three story cruiser on Halong Bay in the Gulf of Tonkin, when storms, which have been ravaging south east Asia for the last week, struck.
The British friends, from Northwood, set off on their trip in June and aimed to cycle 21,000 miles through 12 countries. Before leaving Mr Roney, a ski instructor, said: “I’ve always dreamed of doing something like this. A few people have told me I must be mad but this is the biggest adventure of my life.”
In a statement Mr Roney’s family said: “Tim was extremely sociable, talented and adventurous and always had a smile on his face.”
Ms Puddifoot’s family said: “She was talented, hard working, independent, strong-willed and brave. Losing Karen has left a deep hole in our family.” A former Watford Grammar School for Girls pupil, Ms Puddifoot studied at Wimbledon School of Art before working in the film industry.

Typical Halong Bay junk

The boat they had chosed in Halong Bay was the boat’s first outing apart from one earlier trip under-going sea trials, it was reported today.
Two Vietnamese and a Frenchman also drowned in the incident yesterday. Other passengers were treated for shock and minor injuries. The British couple had boarded the boat at Ti-Tong island along with the French man. The incident happened an hour after dusk last Thursday.
A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said today: “Our consular officials from Hanoi are providing consular assistance”.
“Arrangements are being made through an insurance company to fly their bodies home.”
British Embassy officials travelled to Halong Bay, some 100 miles east of the capital, Hanoi, to help officials confirm the identify the two UK travellers.
The boat sank in strong winds and choppy waters as it was returning to port last Thursday evening. Twenty-five tourists and seven crew members were on board.
The boat QN-5298, owned by the Bien Mo Company, was heading for Cat Hai island in neighbouring Haiphong Province when it was hit by the storm, the Captain Do Long told police. The boat capsized and water filled two of the three levels, spilling the passengers and crew into the water. Some passengers were able to climb to the third level.
The passengers were buffeted by high winds, rough waves, and driving rain.
The survivors were picked up by other boats which rushed to the scene.
According to Thahnien newspaper in Vietnam the brand new boat built at a cost of £360,000 said Pham Van Bac, the director of the Bien Mo Company, and was considered to be the “biggest and most beautiful in the area” but it was not insured and not licensed yet to operate at night.
An investigation has been launched by Quang Ninh police and the provincial authority.

Andrew Drummond the only reporter with Gary Glitter -Daily Mail August 21 08

Published

Andrew Drummond

on August 24, 2008

in The Times

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REJECTED BY VIETNAM, THAILAND, HONG KONG, NOW POP PERVERT GLITTER AGREES TO RETURN TO BRITAIN

By Andrew Drummond and Sam Greenhill

Paedophile Gary Glitter has agreed to fly back to Britain after two days in international limbo as he was refused entry to Hong Kong and Thailand, according to Thai police.

Officers said the disgraced former pop star has finally agreed to board a flight back to London despite his attempts to avoid returning to his home country.

The paedophile and former pop star has agreed to return to Britain after being caught in a sting that resulted in him being served deportation papers in Hong Kong.

Thai police want him on the first available direct flight back to London. A space is being held for him on flight TG 901, which departs at 1.10am local time and lands at Heathrow Terminal 3 at 6am tomorrow.

Reluctant: Gary Glitter flying back to Thailand today. Police there say the convicted paedophile has now agreed to take a flight back to Britain

The deal came after it emerged that Glitter had appealed to the Foreign Office to help him out of his travel deadlock.

But an airport source said he had fallen into a trap by boarding the plane to Hong Kong:

“Gary Glitter was allowed to fly to Hong Kong. It was a trap and he fell for it. He was given the deportation papers as soon as he touched down.

‘They can now legally make him get on that plane back to the UK, or put him in a detention centre.

‘Thai immigration police colluded with Hong Kong to make this happen as neither country wants him. Consular officials are speaking to him.”

A spokesman said: ‘It’s our understanding that he’s arrived in Bangkok. He will either try to go somewhere else or come back to the UK.’

Some 19 countries had refused the convicted paedophile entry and Thai officials had threatened to put him in a detention centre if he refused to leave for Britain.

The 64-year-old, travelling under his real name Paul Gadd, was said to be trying to book flights to Sri Lanka and Singapore this morning before accepting his fate.

With an estimated £5 million fortune, there were fears that he could bribe his way into a country and resume his pursuit of children.

The former singer appeared totally determined to avoid returning to the one country he will certainly be allowed into - Britain.

He was released from prison in Vietnam on Tuesday after serving a three-year jail term for abusing girls aged 11 and 12.

From there he was deported to Thailand, supposedly to board a flight from Bangkok back to Britain but on arrival, he refused to budge.

Last night it was suggested that an announcement by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on restricting travel by paedophiles was behind this decision.

glitter

The sleeping creep: Glitter snoozes on a Thai Ariways flight to Hong Kong yesterday

After a farcical 20-hour standoff with immigration officials, he eventually took a Thai Airlines flight to Hong Kong.

Glitter had rebuffed all attempts to coax him aboard two London flights from Bangkok, and the Thais had made it clear he was not welcome to stay in their country, declaring him a ‘threat to domestic morality’.

During the confrontation, he was overheard saying: ‘I’ve been in jail three years. Now I want to do some shopping in Hong Kong.’

Once aboard Thai Airlines Flight TG602 to Hong Kong and settled into his business class seat, Glitter began issuing instructions to cabin staff, telling them: ‘I am quite famous and hard of hearing. Please can you arrange for an escort for me at the other end?’

He used an on-board phone to call a friend in Hong Kong, asking him to book accommodation in Wanchai - the city’s lively night club area. ‘Just leave any message with Thai airways ground staff. They will know how to contact me,’ he said.

The only reporter on the plane, Andrew Drummond, who was in the seat behind him, asked Glitter his plans and was told: ‘I am travelling to Hong Kong for medical treatment.’

gary

Stop right there: Gary Glitter arrives at Hong Kong airport where he is greeted by immigration officials

Drummond said: ‘On landing, Glitter left the plane after being met by Cathay Pacific staff and an immigration official.

‘He smiled as he was fast-tracked through the Diplomats and Airline Staff immigration point, but once out of sight the smile must have been wiped off his face.’

At least 19 countries have said they will refuse him entry.

Meanwhile, the Home Office denied reports it had blundered by issuing him a new passport last year, allowing him to roam the world.

A spokesman insisted his passport - number 761028553 - was in fact issued in 2002, four years before he was jailed in Vietnam.

The spokesman said: ‘There was no blunder. We do not enforce the return of sex offenders, and he was entitled to a passport.’

While Glitter, 64, was doing his utmost to avoid the UK, Home Secretary Miss Smith seemed determined to bring him home and keep him here.

She was accused at Westminster of trying to manage the news by waiting for a ‘celebrity pervert’ to promote her tough measures to curtail paedophiles’ rights to travel.

In fact, there were suspicions Miss Smith had actually triggered the Glitter farce by panicking him into refusing to board the flight to Britain.

Glitter

Please let me in: Glitter tries to persuade Chinese officials to let him into Hong Kong

While at Bangkok, he watched the BBC which was broadcasting that paedophiles would never be allowed to travel again.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve, said: ‘Government policy timetable should not be dictated by the movements of a serial sex offender with a media profile.

‘This would be the crudest form of news management in an extremely sensitive area.’

Embarrassment: Home Secretary Jacqui Smith

Miss Smith admitted that she had found it ‘ embarrassing’ that Glitter had not come home but said: ‘No paedophile is a celebrity, every paedophile needs to be controlled.’

The former star, who in his 1970s heyday sold 18million records and has a personal fortune of £5million, told reporters he was planning to write a book to ‘prove’ his innocence.

He said: ‘I should never have been in there. I was set up”.

Pictures Andrew Chant

Link to Daily Mail

Glitter skips his flight home - The Independent Aug 20 08

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on August 24, 2008

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Glitter skips his flight home after jail release

Link to Independent story

By Mark Hughes and Andrew Drummond at Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok
Wednesday, 20 August 2008

The convicted paedophile Gary Glitter made a hysterical but successful break for freedom last night as he was being deported from Vietnam to Britain after serving nearly three years in prison for child sex offences.

The former rock star, 64, managed to avoid boarding a flight to London during a stopover in Thailand after a series of confrontations involving British embassy officials, police and Thai immigration officers. He told them he was scared of the press, particularly the television crews expected to meet him in London.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, collapsed in a bedroom at the Louis Tavern – within the territorial no-man’s land of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport – and complained of heart problems, demanding to be taken to hospital. In the early hours of the morning Bangkok time, he was attended by a doctor on call at the airport, paying for his treatment in cash. Meetings were being held in the early hours involving Thai officials, British officials and child protection agencies to discuss his future.

The Government chose today – the day of Glitter’s expected arrival – to announce that it is increasing to five years the amount of time paedophiles can be banned from travelling abroad, among other measures to clamp down on sex tourism. The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said of Glitter: “We need to control him and he will be, once he returns to this country. It certainly would be my view that with the sort of record that he’s got, he shouldn’t be travelling anywhere in the world.”

Glitter’s attempt to do just that began 12 hours after he was released from Thu Duc prison, 100 miles north of Ho Chi Minh City, where he served his sentence for abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam. He was taken under police escort and accompanied by an official from the British consulate in Ho Ch Minh City to the airport, with his lawyer insisting he was returning to Britain.

He signed autographs for fellow passengers on the Thai Airways flight to Bangkok, but tried to avoid conversation. One passenger said: “He seemed fairly relaxed but tried to keep himself to himself. Some passengers started hassling him and asking questions, but he got moved away from them all.”

On arrival at Bangkok, it was clear that going to London was the last thing on Glitter’s mind. He was met at the aircraft by Thai immigration police and taken immediately to a VIP room.

Sudarat Sereewat, the secretary of Thailand’s Fight Against Child Exploitation group, said: “At first he asked to be allowed to enter to Thailand but he was refused. He said he had not committed any offence here but he was told he was not wanted.”

Unable to enter Thailand, Glitter then demanded to fly on to Singapore. Mr Sereewat added: “This situation is still far from clear. He has been told that he will be arrested if he attempts to enter Thailand.”

Gary Glitter tricked onto flight - The Times August 21 08

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Andrew Drummond

on August 24, 2008

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From Times Online August 21, 2008

Gary Glitter tricked on to flight back home

Andrew Drummond in Bangkok

The disgraced glam-rocker Gary Glitter has finally agreed to return home to Britain after falling for a trick by Thai police, with a little help from their colleagues in Hong Kong.

The 64-year-old convicted paedophile sat alone tonight on a bench seat in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, cordoned off from the press in a transit area and waiting to be deported for the third time in three days.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was thrown out of Vietnam on Tuesday after serving two years and three months for abusing two girls aged 10 and 11.

But his arrival in Bangkok from Ho Chi Minh City left Thai Immigration Police in a quandary.

They did not know the strong feelings his name conjured in Britain and, although they had been tipped off about his arrival, nobody had given them any official documents which they could use to further his deportation to London.

Officers knew he had been convicted in Vietnam, but the government there did not give Thai Airways any deportation documents – even though it insisted that Glitter travel coach class. He got himself upgraded as soon as he entered the plane and arrived in Bangkok as a person with status.

“I am a free man. I have served my time,” Glitter insisted, producing a document from his Vietnamese lawyer stating that he was a full member of society, purged of any crimes and free to travel where he wished.

He then demanded to change his London ticket for a ticket to Singapore. When he was told there were no flights at that time of night, he demanded overnight accommodation and installed himself in a transit area at the airport where weary passengers can book rooms by the hour.

As the minutes ticked away for TG901, his connecting flight to London, in stepped an officer of CEOP – Scotland Yard’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection unit – who said that Glitter should be returned to London forthwith. He then withdrew and booked him a room nearby, admitting that he was “out of his jurisdiction”. He had no papers to present which could validate a deportation.

Thai police duly turned up shortly after midnight to take him to the plane, but Glitter would not budge. He demanded attention from the British Embassy duty officer, who duly arrived in the form of Stephen Buckley, a member of the commercial section whose duty that night was to out-of-hour calls from Britons in life-or-death situations.

Glitter ranted about his rights. “I will need to call the Ambassador,” Mr Buckley said diplomatically.

The following morning, with the plane already gone, the British Embassy told Thai officials that they did not want to get involved, which left the Thais back at square one. Glitter slept through as the morning flights left to Hong Kong and Singapore, his destinations of choice. He did not surface until 11am and refused to leave his room until he was brought a ticket.

The Thai Airways midday flight left for London without him on board. Thai Immigration told Thai Airways to solve the problem because they had brought in a deported person without the right documentation.

Glitter was eventually invited to a 3pm meeting in the office of the head of the airport police. A solution could be reached, he was told, that could be agreed by all parties.

Singapore was ruled out, said police, “because they won’t even let you in there”.

When Glitter suggested Hong Kong there were quizzical looks and an officer was sent out to enquire.

“I’ve been in jail for nine years. Why can’t I go and do some shopping in Hong Kong,” said Glitter smiling. Everybody smiled back. Some laughed.

Within the hour Glitter was promised a ‘Press Free’ permit to Hong Kong, although he was advised to buy a return ticket anyway.

By 7pm Glitter was in seat 11B, a glass of champagne beside him and happily unaware that he had fallen into a trap. He planned to stay in a luxury hotel in Wanchai and used the phone on his arm rest to summon a friend to collect him at the airport.

But Thai Police informed Hong Kong Immigration that he was coming and they agreed on a plan. He was arrested on arrival.

By 1pm today Gary Glitter was back in Bangkok and, this time, Thai Airways brought the deportation papers they needed - issued by the Hong Kong police.

His fate was sealed and his farcical Asian odyssey had come to an end.

Tonight, Major General Phongdej Chaiprawat, of the Thai police, confirmed that Glitter had agreed to return home. Honouring his part of the deal, however, he refused to tell the press which flight the star would be on.

Link to Times story

Pictures: Top: Glitter, aka, Paul Gadd tries to negotiate himself out of Hong Kong

Centre: Reading on the aircraft

Bottom: Cheerfully arriving in Hong Kong

All pictures by Andrew Chant

Police to meet Gary Glitter in London - The Times Aug 14 08

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on August 14, 2008

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Link to The Times story

Link to ‘Tracking Down Gary Glitter’

From Andrew Drummond,

Bangkok

Gary Glitter, the former rock star who was jailed for three years for abusing children in Vietnam would be deported back to Britain next, his lawyer said yesterday.

The statement appeared to contradict an earlier statement by lawyer Le Than Kinh that Glitter would be unaccompanied and free to go anywhere after leaving Vietnam.

But it is understood Glitter, real name Paul Francis Gadd, has been only provided with a one way travel document back to Britain, since his passport expired a year ago.

On his return to Britain it is understood that Gadd will be put on the paedophile register before being allowed to travel abroad again.

He has indicated in an interview with a Vietnamese journalist that he needed to seek medical and dental treatment in Britain as a matter of priority, although in that interview he said he would like to go to Singapore or Hong Kong where he had friends.

The Vietnamese Foreign Affairs department has politely declined work visas for foreign journalists intending to cover his release and asked that they respect Gadd’s wishes.

Le Than Kinh said last week that the fallen star, who had a cult following with songs such as ‘Leader of the Gang’ , would be escorted directly onto an aircraft by police and with a British official from the Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City.

He confirmed yesterday: “Police booked his ticket from Ho Chi Minh City to London and I have already paid for the ticket on his behalf.”

Glitter was arrested in the southern province of Baria-Vung Tau after journalists from a Sunday newspaper spotted and photographed him with young girls there.

A subsequent police investigation resulted in four charges of ‘lewdness with children’ aged 11 and 12, being brought against him.

An investigation into child rape was dropped after the parents of the two victims demanded US$10,000 and US$5,000 respectively.

Lawyer Le Than Kinh negotiated the compensation down to US$2000 each and the families then petitioned the People’s Court to stop the case in order ‘to avoid further damage to the girls’ families’ honour and to the privacy of the victims.

Since the offences the girls have been returned to the care of their parents, and of two older girls who procured the children for Gadd, one was now married and another has been sentenced and released from custody at the Baria-Vung Tau Social Labour Centre, a rehabilitation unit.

When Gadd was sentenced to three years in prison the Chief Prosecutor of the People’s Procuracy of Baria-Vung Tau noted that in 1999 he had been ‘taken into police custody for two months by British police on a charge of storage of forbidden sexual photographs in a laptop’ and that in 2003 he was expelled by police from Cambodia.

After he was sentenced officers from Scotland Yard visited Paul Gadd in prison in Vietnam and examined the hard disk of his computer which contained images of children involved in sexual activity. The case had not been proceeded with in Vietnam because Gadd claimed in his defence that he had borrowed the computer from a friend and there was no evidence that he intended to ‘widely propagate’ the material.

It is understood there is no plan to prosecute him in Britain for these offences.

Pictures: Andrew Chant

Gary Glitter to roam free - Daily Mail Aug 7 08

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on August 7, 2008

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Link to Daily Express

From Andrew Drummond
Bangkok
August 6 2008

Disgraced former rock star Gary Glitter will be free to roam the world at will without registering as a paedophile the day he leaves jail in Vietnam, his lawyer said today.

There will be no restrictions placed on Glitter, real name Paul Francis Gadd, from the moment he steps on an aircraft at Ho Chi Minh International airport, said Le Thanh Kinh.

“His ticket has been bought but I am not free to say where he is going. That is confidential. He will be escorted from the Duc Thu prison by Vietnamese police and a member from the British Consul in Ho Chi Minh straight to the door of the aircraft.

“Once he is on the aircraft he is a free man. He will not be accompanied,” added the lawyer. “He has served his sentence”.

Glitter, who is about to complete a three year jail sentence for sexually abusing under aged girls in the province of Vung Tau, Vietnam, has a choice of regional flights to Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Kaohsiung in Southern Taiwan, or the Gulf States, Phnom Penh, or Bangkok.

He has been blacklisted as undesireable from Cambodia but the blacklist has never been tested.

He can connect to London via Singapore, Bangkok, or Hong Kong, though the route through Thailand is shortest.

Sudarat Sereewat Secretary General of ‘Fight Against Child Exploitation’ in Thailand said. The authorities are aware of Gary Glitter. But he has not been convicted of an offence in Thailand so I am not sure what can be done except to keep him under surveillance if he comes here.”

ends

Seized how ’swirly’ paedophile worked with boys all his life - Daily Express October 20 07

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SEIZED: HOW ‘SWIRLY’ PAEDOPHILE WORKED WITH BOYS ALL HIS LIFE

EXPOSED: Neil, 32, once worked as a chaplain

Saturday October 20,2007
By Andrew Drummond in Bangkok and Cyril Dixon in London
THE world’s most wanted paedophile was paraded in public yesterday after a global manhunt traced him to a remote bolthole in Thailand.

Christopher Neil, 32, was flown to Bangkok and put in front of the cameras by police after a tip-off led to his arrest.

Neil ,nicknamed Vico, became the focus of an international search after images of him abusing children were posted on the internet with his face digitally disguised into a swirl pattern. Yesterday, as Thai police warned he faces up to 20 years in jail, details of Neilís sinister double life emerged, including his work with children as a teacher and chaplain.

Family and friends described Neil as an ordinary Canadian from a respectable family who had trained as a priest.

He was said to be a ìregular guyî who had once worked as a military chaplain offering comfort and advice to recruits as young as 12.

Neil was identified after Interpol specialists managed to unswirl his image.

He was arrested in Nakorn Ratchassima province, 150 miles north-east of Bangkok, where he had fled to stay with a Thai friend.

During the investigation, police collected up to 200 photographs of Neil abusing young Vietnamese and Cambodian boys as young as six. Police say he will be charged within 48 hours with abusing three victims, aged nine, 13, and 14, at an apartment in the city.

Wearing a white shirt and dark sunglasses and with a foot injury visible, Neil was placed at a table at Bangkok police headquarters where he stared impassively ahead while photographers took his picture.

Police Lieutenant-General Ponsapat Pongcharoen said: “We received several tips and also found victims of his abuse. We went to pick him up this morning.”

“He has already been identified by one of the victims, not only from his face but from a mark on his body. I cannot tell you where that mark is.”

“We have a message. We take the abuse of our children very seriously. It is against our culture and against our religion. We will not tolerate foreigners coming to Thailand to abuse our children.”

Yesterday, residents in Neil’s home town of Maple Ridge, near Vancouver, were in a state of shock.

His younger brother Matthew, 30, said: “Our range of emotions has gone from anger to shock to devastation. My mother is completely devastated.

“He came back to stay with us this year from April to August. We’d often go for a few beers and watch the hockey game. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.”

Teacher Amy Bowler, who grew up with Neil in Maple Ridge, said she contacted Interpol after seeing his image in press reports. “It was certainly unthinkable that he would be a predator of any kind,” she said. “But the resemblance was so striking that I contacted Interpol if only, I thought, to rule him out. None of us wanted to believe it was true.”

Neil had begun training to be a priest in the 1990s at the Seminary of Christ the King in Mission, a few miles from Maple Ridge.

Rector the Rev. Nicholas Ruh said yesterday Neil left because he ‘lacked the necessary personal qualifications’.

However, he was allowed to work as a chaplain at military cadet training camps in Nova Scotia for several summers where he gave spiritual guidance to youths aged between 12 and 18.

Although Neil has spent most of his working life in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, he also held a volunteer instructor’s post at St Patrick’s Elementary School, Maple Ridge, six years ago.

Most recently, he taught at a private school run by the Adventist Church in Bangkok and offered web advice to Canadian teachers on how to avoid police scrutiny when applying for jobs in south-east Asia.

Daily Express story here

Paedophile suspect ‘boasts’ of evading police - Times October 2007

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Andrew Drummond, in Bangkok , October 17 2007

A suspected paedophile on the run from Interpol apparently boasted about getting a job in a Vietnam school without police checks and advised fellow teachers how to delete pornography on their computers.

Christopher Neil, 32, from British Columbia, Canada, is being hunted after allegedly posting some 200 pictures on the web which appear to show him abusing young boys in Vietnam. His facial features were deliberately distorted in a swirl, but they were uncovered by German technical experts.

Today, as his family begged for him to give himself up, Mr Neil appeared to have left his mark on the internet in two websites.

In a discussion forum for English teachers in the Far East called Dave’s ESL cafe, a writer thought to be Mr Neil boasted about being able to evade the authorities in Vietnam to get a teaching job, and also advised colleagues how to delete pornography from their computers.

In addition, in a MySpace.com site accompanied by a photograph of Mr Neil, a writer identifying himself as Chris, aged 32 from Thailand, wrote about how he was being forced to run away “as fast as I can”. It is believed that Mr Neil has held teaching jobs in Vietnam, Thailand and South Korea over the last few years.

Posting in Dave’s ESL Cafe, a user called ‘Peter Jackson’ - a name which police believe that Mr Neil used when writing on the site - wrote: “Police checks are NOT needed to get a visa. Public schools will want one but you should be able to stall them. Often they want teachers SO quickly that they will ‘wait’ for some things.

“I never gave a police check for my last public school job. I was in Vietnam at the time and getting one wasn’t easy. I delayed and never heard about it again.”

In a different posting, the user described programmes that would be needed in order to delete pornography. “If you’re worried about any ‘content’ there are several ways to encrypt your drive,” he wrote. “If you want to get rid of old files so no one will see, then simply deleting them will not work.”

A trail of evidence also seems to have been left on a MySpace profile, in which he appears to fret that the police web was closing.

“I’ve got to get out of myself. Free this slave, endure this trial no more. I’m running as fast as I can. My only hope is to let this go. Be alone. Escape this entrapment. The circle’s getting smaller. The tunnel narrower,” the user wrote, in one of a number of poems filed on the site. The forum says it belongs to Chris, aged 32, whose profile said: ‘Loving Asia…will I ever go home again??!’

Today, as Interpol stepped up their hunt, his family urged him to give himself up. “Chris turn yourself in. Get back into Canada,” Matthew Neil, his younger brother, told reporters in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

His brother said that the family was devastated and shocked by the allegations. “You know, you get anger too as well because, you know, one person can bring the whole family into a situation that’s very uncomfortable for everybody,” he said.

The suspected paedophile worked as a supervisor at the Greenwood Air Cadet Summer Training Centre in Nova Scotia from 1998 to 2000.

However, most recently he had taught at Kwangju Foreign School in South Korea in the town of Yongin. His details have been removed from the school’s website.

The hunt for Mr Neil was given a boost last Thursday when an image identified as his was captured on a camera at an immigration desk at Bangkok International Airport.

However, he has not been seen since and Mike Moran, the Interpol officer sent to Bangkok to co-ordinate the search, made a fresh appeal for new witnesses. “We will catch him. Maybe not today or tomorrow but soon. Its only a matter of time,” he said.

No records have been found of Mr Neil leaving Thailand, so police assume that he may still be in the country However, Thailand’s land borders with Laos and Cambodia are porous and he could reach Vietnam without his arrival being detected for days.

The Times story here

Police close in on internet paedophile - The Times October 16 2007

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From The Times

October 16, 2007

Police close in on the internet paedophile

A prolific paedophile at the centre of an international manhunt is believed to be an English language teacher living in Thailand, police said yesterday.

Last week Interpol made an unprecedented global appeal to catch the man, codenamed Vico, who is shown sexually abusing children in about 200 images on the web.

The man had digitally altered images of himself to disguise his identity, but police managed to unscramble them. Interpol then released pictures of him and he fled to Thailand last week, three days after the images were published.

Yesterday Interpol said that the suspect, photographed abusing children in Vietnam and Cambodia, had been identified by five sources from three continents as a man teaching English at a school in South Korea.

Interpol released a picture of the man, believed to be a Canadian, who flew into Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok from Seoul on Thursday. It shows a man in his 30s with receding hair and wearing glasses.

Thai police sources said last night that he had since travelled to Vietnam and the hunt had switched there. Schools in Thailand have closed for a month. Ronald Noble, Interpol’s Secretary-General, said in a statement: “Thailand is at the centre of an international manhunt, and authorities in the country, in cooperation with Interpol and police around the world, are hunting him down.” He praised the remarkable response to the appeal and added: “We must once again enlist the public’s support, this time to pinpoint Vico’s current location.”

The man’s name, nationality, date of birth, passport number and current and previous places of work have also been established.

Police specialists are reviewing the information and although Interpol would not comment on details of the investigation, it said that all leads would be directed to Interpol’s National Central Bureau or police experts specialising in crimes against children.

Interpol made the appeal after its initial investigation across 186 countries failed to identify the man. Photographs of him abusing young boys were altered to create a swirling effect that disguised his face. But specialists from the German federal police agency, the Bundeskriminalamt, worked with the Trafficking in Human Beings Unit of Interpol to unscramble the pictures. After Interpol released a series of identifiable images of the man it received 350 messages from the public. National police forces from Interpol’s member countries also were given leads.

Kristin Kvigne, assistant director of Interpol’s trafficking in human beings unit, which is managing the case, said: “The public’s response has been very positive, and we have also had encouraging feedback from local and national law enforcement officers.”

The case is part of Interpol’s aim to collect every image of child abuse that exists on the internet. The organisation hopes to examine each image, enabling an expert to analyse pictures of abuse as soon as they arrive in police hands. The database has helped to identify more than 600 victims from 31 countries.

Daily Telegraph story here

Andrew Drummond