We warned authorities about Nick Griffin, volunteers say

Mar 20 2011
By Julia McWatt
Wales On Sunday

CHARITY volunteers who worked with Nick Griffin in Cambodia told Wales on Sunday of the disturbing behaviour they witnessed.

Griffin abused boys under the age of 15 at the orphanage he set up in Siem Reap but was only convicted last week – five years after he founded the institution.

Staff who worked alongside Griffin complained about him first in 2008 but the complaints were never proven and it was not until last year that he was arrested.

Sally Sayer, regional director of Volunteer Project Overseas, lives in Siem Reap and said she had become concerned about 53-year-old Griffin and the orphanage more than a year ago.

She said: “I didn’t have much to do with him at the start, but then in January last year I took over as project manager and I had a huge amount more to do with him.

“It was then that I started to look at things and think things were a bit odd.

“People were moving in to the orphanage and we did not know who they were. I was worried about the children.

“We took our worries to Nick and nothing was done about it. It was the whole set-up of the orphanage. I knew something was going on but I could not put my finger on what it was. I decided that we needed to pull out of the organisation.

“We started to ask questions about this man and what he had done before he came here. But we were ignored and accused of causing trouble and wanting to take over.

“There was one incident which I can remember, where we went for dinner one night and Nick came along.

“He brought one of the boys from the orphanage with him, he was about 14 years old. There was just something that wasn’t right with the body language between them. One of the volunteers came up to me and said ‘just tell me it’s not what I think it is’.

“The next day I went down to one of the coffee shops and the same boy was behind the counter.

“I asked why he was not at school and he said that he was spending time with Nick. He had an iPod with him and said Nick had given it to him. I just thought that it was very odd, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

The group then severed all ties with Griffin.

Sally said: “Rumours started to circulate about a previous incident with some boys. I went to ask him about them and he told me that he was with some friends one night and they wanted to see some street kids.

“He said they played with the street kids for a while and then said goodbye. He said the street boys then followed him home and he agreed to let them in for a drink. Then one of the boys opened his drawers and he was worried they would steal something so he asked them to go.”

Sally first met Griffin two years ago, and said he appeared friendly at first but then he began to change.

“When he was first there he did not seem unfriendly but he was very arrogant and he became unfriendly. He had a house with a massive high fence around it. You see things day in and day out and you see small things in people’s body language.”

But she says she is just happy to get a conviction in a country whose attitudes to child abuse have been complicated.

She said: “In Cambodia, a girl’s virginity is considered more important than a boy’s. Boys are thought to be like diamonds, they can be cleaned, but girls are like cotton, and once they are dirty, that’s it. The abuse that Nick did was with boys.

“If I’m totally honest I’m just grateful for a conviction, it could have gone the other way.

“After Nick was arrested we arranged for a bus to pick up the children and take them in. But then one of the trustees came and is running the orphanage.”

Nick Marsh, a trustee of VPO, added: “I can’t say I’m happy about the sentence but even a week in a Khmer prison will be better than 10 years in one of ours.”

Griffin was arrested during a dawn raid, which involved dozens of officers and as many as 100 youngsters were rescued and moved to a safe house.

He was caught after a joint operation by officers from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and the Cambodian National Police.

He had been under investigation for more than two years following suspicions surrounding the orphanage, which looked after children up to age of 18.

According to CEOP, Griffin had run a number of orphanages in a “tourist hotspot”.

The orphanage is now under new management.

In a statement on the Cambodia Orphanage Fund’s website, posted during the investigation, Lidia Linde, of the fund, said she wanted to “guarantee that this nightmare would never happen again.”

She said: “ I will not tolerate any action that will put in risk the life and dignity of the children, especially those who live in conditions of poverty, vulnerability or those who are abandoned.”