CHILD SEX ABUSE IN THAILAND – THE TICKING BOMB

Above and below: US officials and an FBI agent visit a child care organistion in Pattaya - not the subject of the latest controversy

The methods of policing child sexual abuse in Thailand have come under considerable scrutiny and now there appears to be a ticking bomb set to go off on the eastern seaboard where well to do officers are under scrutiny.

At the centre of the current controversy are officers of the Banglamuang Woman and Children’s Protection Unit, a couple of police foreign volunteer ‘aids’ and a child protection centre, from which an abnormal amount of children appear to have been the subject of sexual abuse after ‘escaping’.

Unconfirmed figures put the number of children from one child protection centre involved in prosecutions in the region of sixty.  But even if the figure were half that amount it would bring the management of the centre into question.

It would appear that a high percentage of the prosecutions in Pattaya involve children ‘under care’ and several are 'repeat victims'

At the centre of the current enquiry is Canadian-American Christopher Hobbs an electrical engineer who claims he was falsely arrested and accused of abusing two children in Pattaya.

FNI agent Randall Devine  with US official and ngo in Pattaya

He has since been given his 300,000 baht bail back and is waiting for charges to be formally dropped.

The only evidence linking him to any child abuse is that a truck he had bought for a juice company, in which he was a partner, was parked outside one of the alleged rooms where child sex abuse, with a young Thai and a young Cambodian boy took place.

But Hobbs was also identified by the two boys – an ID now withdrawn. There is no evidence that Hobbs had ever stayed at that apartment.

Hobbs is determined not to let the matter go. He has demanded an investigation into his wrongful arrest, and has commissioned lawyers and investigators to get to the bottom of the matter.

Hobbs with police and rescue centre boss

He claims he was fitted up by the FBI who assumed he had rented a room in the house in question, from which US citizen Steve Strike was taken last December and sent back to Hawaii to face child sexual abuse charges.

Strike

The FBI’s involvement has been highlighted in earlier stories linked at the bottom of this page.

But now investigators are focusing on several factors:

* The conduct of independent child protection agencies in particular a home set up to save children from trafficking.

Said Hobbs today: “Local police, the FBI, and child welfare workers have a lot to answer for. The Thai police say the case was given to them by the FBI.”

Sudarat Sereewat of the Fight Against Child Exploitation Foundation said that Hobbs was entitled to sue both the Thai and United States authorities. Hobbs’s case, she said, was a case for concern.

Hobbs with Sudarat

In the last year mistrials have been ordered in two high profile cases of child sexual abuse.  In the case of American Greg Miller, from Madison, Wisconsin, it’s alleged the allegations were made by a jilted girlfriend. She has now reportedly admitted she made up the claims for a promised reward.

In the second case involving Briton Ian Tracey, from Surrey, the alleged victims denies there was any sexual abuse. He said he was threatened with prison unless he made a statement, which he did.

Video grab: FBI Chris Donohue at Hobb's arrest

But in court he denied there was an offence.  Tracey was acquitted but the prosecution appealed and Tracey was found guilty in his absence.