Michael Julian Leach (Pic: Reuters)
(UKPA) - A former Government policy adviser from London has been jailed in Cambodia for sex attacks on girls as young as 10.
Paedophile Michael Julian Leach, 51, abused three children who lived with him at a guesthouse near the poverty-stricken capital of Phnom Penh.
He previously worked as a telecommunications adviser for both the Department of Trade and Industry and communications watchdog Ofcom before moving to Asia, it is understood.
Phnom Penh municipal court judge Oeung Seang jailed Leach for 12 years, ordering him to pay 12 million riel (£1,880) to one of his victims. Compensation had already been paid to the other two, according to police.
Cambodia has targeted sex offenders in recent years but it remains a magnet for paedophiles because of poverty and poor law enforcement.
Erica Hall, World Vision UK's child rights specialist, said Leach's conviction illustrated how important it was for Cambodian and British authorities to work together.
Such convictions were "just the tip of the iceberg", she added.
Registered sex offenders are still allowed to travel overseas without telling the UK authorities as long as they return within three days.
Ofcom confirmed Leach worked for the regulator for three years until 2008 in "a very junior role advising on radio spectrum matters."
A source close to the investigation said he worked for the Department of Trade and Industry, now the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, until 2005.
1 comment:
This one of many reasons why those NGO needed to register and legalize to do business in Cambodia and they should screen their staff thouroughly for criminal background check. There are many high profile people that came to Cambodia working with children that possess such behavior. Learn from Thailand, what they went through with these foriegners. The government should required any workers that work with children to have criminal background check, child abuse clarence from their country. I know NGO doesn't like it but you have to protect Cambodian children from the predator. Thailand doesn't play around with the foriegn workers. We can learn a thing or two from Thailand because they dealt with this type of issues regularly because there are many foriegn investors, NGO in their country.
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