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| ABOVE: Paedophile copper Ian Bower was arrested in Cambodia for paying kids for sex |
By Lee Sorrell
The Star (UK)
"It is scandalous that Bower was allowed to stay in Cambodia after his initial arrest and continue teaching in a school" - Christine Beddoe, director of children’s charity ECPAT UK
HANDCUFFED and shamed – this is the moment fugitive paedophile copper Ian Bower was arrested in Cambodia for paying kids for sex.
Bower, 46, a former special constable from Nottingham, was nabbed on a charge of sexually abusing six boys aged between 11 and 16.
The vile pervert was seen showing pornographic photographs and molesting boys shortly before his arrest near his grotty apartment in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, according to investigators.
Police confiscated the mobile phone he allegedly used to play the porn but Bower managed to shred his memory card before his capture.
Last week Bower, who has been on the run from British police for five years after failing to complete a sentence for other child sex offences, appeared in court and was remanded in the country’s Prey Sar Prison.
It is the second time he has been charged with child sex crimes over there.
Bower fled a bail hostel in Derby in 2006 after being released on licence for abusing kids and downloading child porn and was allowed to head straight to Cambodia, a notorious hotspot for paedophiles.
Within months he was charged with paying youngsters as little as 50p to perform sex acts on him. He was later released after the court dropped the charges in 2007 because of a lack of evidence.
Cambodia-based child protection group Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), who were involved in his prosecution, says he simply paid off his alleged victims.
Astonishingly, Bower was allowed to remain in Cambodia and continue working as a teacher for the Cambodian Air Traffic Control Service.
Shamefully, the British Government failed to secure his deportation so they could put Bower back in jail here, even though charity bosses begged the Home Office to take action.
Investigators in Cambodia claim Bower continued to abuse kids after his release, leading to last week’s arrest.
APLE, which has conducted a four-year investigation into Bower’s activities, says he has “continued to prey on young children but he was cautious enough to manipulate his victims to prevent disclosure”.
Last night the Government was facing questions from child protection campaigners as to why it failed to bring Bower back after his original prosecution collapsed.
Christine Beddoe, director of children’s charity ECPAT UK, said: “It is scandalous that Bower was allowed to stay in Cambodia after his initial arrest and continue teaching in a school.
“The catastrophic result of this lack of action is that children were put at risk and he is now up on more child sex abuse charges.
What does this say about the lack of controls in the UK preventing sex offenders from travelling and failing to do more to bring them back to Britain when they are caught?”
Bower escaped to Cambodia after he was released early on licence from a three-year and nine-month prison sentence and placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register.
He had served time for a string of child sex offences, including indecent assault on a male under 16, two acts of gross indecency with a child and downloading scores of indecent images of children being sexually abused.
During his trial, the court heard that Bower had spent hours on his computer after moving in with his then girlfriend and her two children in 1999.
The couple separated in July 2002 and police later examined a computer found at his mother’s home. They found 38 indecent images of children and two films of boys performing sexual acts.
Another 91 images of children were found to have been deleted but were recovered by the Computer Crime Investigation Unit.
In September 2007, ECPAT UK wrote to the Home Office, warning of the “unacceptable risk to children” that Bower posed.
The letter stated: “It is quite frankly an embarrassment that at a time when the Cambodian authorities are becoming more effective at prosecuting sex offenders that it remains the fault of the British authorities to not have adequate systems in place to protect vulnerable children.”
A month later a Home Office minister responded that the UK had no formal extradition treaty with Cambodia but said the relevant UK authorities had been “continuously and extensively involved” in the case of Bower.
British criminals can, however, be deported from the country.
Last month Welshman Nicholas Griffin was brought back to Britain after serving a year’s jail term for abusing youngsters at a Cambodian orphanage.
He was immediately arrested on arrival at Heathrow airport on suspicion of sexually abusing a youngster while working as a scout leader.
4 comments:
Be careful with the kids in Cambodia because they might play the tricks and take advantages of someone like Mr. Ian Bower. Those kids were Yuon born in Cambodia who might have been trained by their CPP/Viet-Yuon parents or CPP/Yuon voters, wanting the money or allowing corrupted CPP/Viet-Yuon officials to take the money from someone like Mr. Bower.
Don't go near those kids or say Hi those kids who might try to play secret things (taught by their CPP/Viet-Yuon parents).
Don't go alone there near those kids.
Unfortunately, Mr. Bower is stuck without having anyone witness or help to prove.
Just warning!
Khmer are fucked up people. They only care about money and kow tow to foreigners. Whoever have money can own this low-life people.
5:06 PM is a fucking Yuon idiot like other Viet-Yuon folks looking for money from the foreigners and destroying the Khmer people's values
I know this guy as the sick bastards abused my brother and you lot are just as sick as him for defending him!
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