20/06/2010EXCLUSIVE by Andrew Drummond in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
and Justin Penrose
Mirror.co.ukThey are known as the rubbish dump kids… starving children who scavenge for scraps of food on a toxic mountain of waste.
He is a former hairdresser who runs a “charity” in Cambodia inviting you to send him money to save them.
David Fletcher, 65, appears to be the Good Samaritan, feeding hundreds of children who affectionately know him as “Papa”.
But Fletcher hides a dark secret – he was jailed in Britain for the statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl and videoing the horrific crime.
He now uses the guise of his unregistered charity in Cambodia – where he fled to six years ago – to spend every day with little girls, some as young as eight. The pervert raises money from tourists who believe they are providing food and shelter for the hundreds of poor and hungry children.
But a Sunday Mirror investigation can reveal how Fletcher has become worryingly close to a number of young girls – and spoke to our investigators of an eight-year-old he calls his “favourite little girl”.
Fletcher has even bought himself a 17-year-old Cambodian bride for £150 who he met on the dump – sold by her own mother to pay off debts. Genuine charities are so concerned they attempted to outbid him to keep the girl out of his clutches.
The Sunday Mirror joined Fletcher for one of his tours to the rancid rubbish tip on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh.
We met him at the Flora Bar where he had his hand inside the bra of a young Cambodian hostess and was happy to tell us: “She’s shaven, you know. That’s how I like them. No pubic hair. I prefer Cambodian girls. I tried Thailand first… went there for years, but here it’s much better. They’re more needy. You just have to be a little careful. I know I am being watched.”
He added: “My two grown-up sons have disowned me. They did not like the fact that my girlfriends were younger than theirs. Who cares? It’s their loss.”
Fletcher was convicted at Norwich Crown Court in July 1997 of the statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl who he had plied with champagne and offered £250 for sex.
He also admitted possessing offensive weapons. He was jailed for 18 months. At the time he ran a series of hair-dressing salons in Cambridge and Saffron Walden. When he was released from jail, he fled Britain.
When asked about his conviction he was unapologetic, saying: “Oh yes. She was just my girlfriend. They caught me. I just did it ahead of her 16th birthday. People will stoop very low to say bad things about me.”
Fletcher runs the Rubbish Dump Project and has a website which tells the moving story of Phnom Penh’s garbage dump kids. He invites readers to send donations to his private bank account and claims every penny is spent on the children.
The Sunday Mirror signed up for a tour of the dump and handed over US$50, the amount Fletcher says will feed 150 children.
When we got to the garbage mountain at Stung Meanchey on the outskirts of the capital he took a cream bun and some fruit to “my favourite little girl”.
With his tuk-tuk driver he dished out fruit to more than 100 desperate children amid the stench. The slum families try to survive on what they can scavenge, so flock to him when he has food.
The pervert preys on their desperation, building up the children’s trust – including his 17-year-old bride-to-be Yang Dany, who he met at the tip.
We accompanied him to Yang Dany’s home with a special bag of goodies for her mum.
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“I’m planning to marry her when the time is right,” he said. “Where can a man like me get a girl like this?”
Earlier in the day our investigators saw British-born Scott Neeson, who runs the respected charity Cambodian Children’s Fund, try to persuade Yang Dany’s mother to change her mind about letting her daughter marry Fletcher.
Inside the corrugated shack in Dhamnak Thom Village No. 1, Mr Neeson, tried to negotiate with the mother.
Khaeng Sokun, 58, lost her first husband and baby twin daughters in the “Killing Fields” of the Khmer Rouge.
Now she is about to unwittingly give her daughter to a convicted British paedophile for £150 ($200) to help clear her debts.
She said: “But we owe $600. How else can I pay this off? Dany wants to help her family. Her future husband is a good man. She feels sorry for him. He comes here and gives everybody food.”
Scott says he will help the family with their debts and begs her to reconsider.
Scott, 51, said: “People like Fletcher are a continuous source of worry. There is little doubt Fletcher devotes his time here to befriending young girls.
“He tells their parents he wants to adopt them, care for them. They think because he gives out food he is good. But he is grooming them.
“The fact is that these children can be bought. It’s difficult to stop it. The British Embassy have been told about Fletcher. Many organisations have files on him, but nothing has happened.”
The abuse of children by foreigners in Cambodia is hampered by institutionalised corruption in a one-party state run by Hun Sen, who has locked up opposition leader Sam Rainsy.
Cambodia has become the favoured destination for paedophiles after several crackdowns on sex tourism by the authorities in neighbouring Thailand.
Last week the Sunday Mirror revealed that teacher Gary Robcoy became the first Brit to be deported from Thailand because of his paedo convictions in
the UK. In contrast only a handful of foreign tourists languish in Cambodian jails for sex offences, despite a thriving child sex industry. Police take pay-offs to release foreigners on child sexual abuse charges and most cases are settled with cash payments to victims.
Fletcher used to run his charity from a bar called “Bogie and Bacall” but the two Australian colleagues he had quickly left.
One of them, Ross Wright, said: “We decided to go our own way. He never once showed us the bank account into which donations were going.
"There were tens of thousands of dollars coming in. Cash was being donated by Rotary Clubs and big private donors. We also had complaints of him being too familiar with young girls.”
Fletcher is now being investigated by Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which has officers in South East Asia.
CEOP, part of the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, has established a presence there in the last two years and is working with Cambodian police.
A spokesman said: “We are aware of complaints about David Fletcher and have been in discussion with the authorities.”
scoops@sundaymirror.co.uk
