Former British Lay Preacher Jailed In Thailand

[Mr Jones]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england...don/7855623.stm

[mrtoad]

Good that they have handed down a long sentence,shame that it has taken so long for him to actually get sent down.

[H2oDunc]

Pattaya again ? He got what will be a life sentence at his age. GREAT!! LETS HAVE MORE OF IT!!!! The Uk needs to learn how to deal with scumbags at the moment. The judicial system in the Uk at the moment is a joke.

[davyboy]

Good that they have handed down a long sentence,shame that it has taken so long for him to actually get sent down.

As a Brit, I totally agree. Throw away the key!!

[tw25rw]

He claimed he won't survive a year in prison as if it's a right to not die inside..

[mrtoad]

He claimed he won't survive a year in prison as if it's a right to not die inside..

Yeah, well he deserves to rot.

[bangkokrick]

Pattaya again ? He got what will be a life sentence at his age. GREAT!! LETS HAVE MORE OF IT!!!! The Uk needs to learn how to deal with scumbags at the moment. The judicial system in the Uk at the moment is a joke.

Great news that he got sent down for a long time regardless of his nationality. I don't agree that the UK is inept at dealing with these perverts. A certain Mr GG is no longer allowed to leave the UK and the authorities are actively seeking out the perverts that are already offshore. A step in the right direction i think.

Cheers, Rick

[jtp]

Did he get jailed in Thailand,or England? I HOPE IT WAS THAILAND......

[Tafia]

Wont last a year in prison???

He should consider himself lucky he was bailed so bloody often he should have been serving this sentence a few years ago.

Pleased to see Justice has finally caught up with him!!

[mrtoad]

Did he get jailed in Thailand,or England? I HOPE IT WAS THAILAND......

It's Thailand.

[davyboy]

Did he get jailed in Thailand,or England? I HOPE IT WAS THAILAND......

Hmm, So do I.

[angiud]

No mercy

[bruceboy]

Finally.

[Jingthing]

Another argument against the death penalty. A 14 year sentence in Thai prison for a 78 year old (he surely won't survive it) is definitely a much worse sentence than death.

Edited January 28, 2009 by Jingthing

[jtp]

Did he get jailed in Thailand,or England? I HOPE IT WAS THAILAND......

It's Thailand.

WOOOOOO HOOOOO!!!! Let THAT be a lesson to those so inclined...

[Chaimai]

I don't see any sympathy votes so far - and he won't get one from me.

[jtp]

Did he get jailed in Thailand,or England? I HOPE IT WAS THAILAND......

It's Thailand.

Hey,i just noticed you changed your avatar...I was just getting used to the old one... Now i will have to remember names............

[jtp]

You know the mods are going to shut us down,as soon as they see this.......

[spectrum]

An appeals court in 2004 upheld the sentence, but he was again freed on bail and allowed to take his case to the Supreme Court, which on Wednesday ruled that Praill must start serving his jail term.

He told the BBC: "... I do not think I will survive a year.

"But I am more concerned about the reflection on my family overall and it is a disgrace to the legal system."

Sudarat Sereewat, director of the child protection group Fight Against Child Exploitation, said: "We are very pleased that the Thai judicial system is finally aware of the child sexual abuse and have handed down justice.

"This suspect should have been in jail for a long time."

I think we will all be relieved that he's now unable to enact his predilections. At his age, particularly, the venue of confinement matters little, and his comments suggest no understanding of what he has done.

It is always encouraging to see Thais making comments in the English language media about abuse of Thai children and adults.

[phazey]

It'd be nice if humanity took hold of these poor souls. Let them be sent to a place far far away,where they can discuss their perversions and come to terms with the fact that they have done irreparable harm. Once they have come to terms with the fact they are the scum of the earth...

Nuke the bas***ds.

Edited January 28, 2009 by phazey

[Owain]

I am very happy that he has been sent down but it has taken too long. The guy has been appealing since 2001 and has been out on bail most of that time and has another 6 reports of child abuse against him while out on bail.

[mrtoad]

I am very happy that he has been sent down but it has taken too long. The guy has been appealing since 2001 and has been out on bail most of that time and has another 6 reports of child abuse against him while out on bail.

That is interesting, and certainly suggests that this despicable being has been a serial abuser for a long period of time. Hopefully, a few of the lads inside will give the nonce a bit more justice.

[deon]

I hope they kick the <deleted> out of him inside No matter how old he is a pedo and rapist ,the lowest of the low.

Though i think jail is to good for those kind .

[Boo]

in line with our policy on these kinds of threads I am closing this & moving to the news clippings.

[mrtoad]

More info about this nonce.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-53...N-Thailand.html

[soundman]

Supreme Court upholds 14-year sentence for British paedophile

Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a 14-year prison sentence for British national Maurice John Praill on charges of sexually abusing an 8-year-old boy eight years ago.

The ruling was read out to Praill, 77, at a court in Chonburi, 90 kilometres east of Bangkok.

Praiil was arrested in 2001 on charges of sexually abusing a minor at the beach community of Pattaya and sentenced to 14 years in prison but was allowed to live freely in Pattaya on bail for the past eight years as he appealed the case.

Since his 2001 arrest, at least six new child sexual abuse charges have been filed against Praill, Supreme Court officials said.

The initial sentence ordered by a lower court was upheld first by an appeals court and finally by the Supreme Court in Bangkok.

Wednesday's ruling was welcomed by ECPAT, or End Child Prostitution Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes, a non-governmental organisation, but it also expressed worries.

DPA

[Jai Dee]

Former Catholic lay preacher, 78, jailed in Thailand for raping underage girls

A British pensioner known to street children as ‘The Ghost’ was today jailed for 14 years on two cases of child rape, after a history of child abuse complaints dating back 18 years.

Maurice Praill, 78, a former Catholic lay preacher and video shop owner, was jailed for the rape of two under-aged girls by the Thai Supreme Court.

Judge Charoenchai Assawapirya-a-nan confirmed a sentence imposed more than eight years ago.

He said there was no way the child victims could have lied because they gave so much detailed evidence including how Praill cut up his Viagra tablets and his use of KY jelly.

Praill, from Harold Hill, Essex, was led off to prison in the Thai provincial capital of Chonburi.

'Paedophile - I don’t use that word,' he said. 'I pay to feel. The girls were paid'.

He said he was stunned at the verdict and insisted that the elder of the two victims, aged 14, wanted to marry him afterwards.

'I expect I will die in prison if I do not get a pardon.'

Praill had been repeatedly arrested in Thailand for child sex offences, and released on bail, by the police and courts, since he sold his business in England and retired in the resort of Pattaya, 100 miles east of Bangkok, in 1990.

He insisted before being led away in a blue prison bus: 'I just like helping young people, sex or not, never mind, it was not the main thing’.

For the first few arrests in the 90s, local newspapers reported, he just ‘paid fines ‘at the local police station, another way of saying he paid off the police and victims.

But then Praill, the stepfather of former Irish International and Crystal Palace footballer Jon Goodman, was sentenced to 14 years in December 2001 on the rape charges of two girls aged 13 and 14.

He had been able to stay free by getting bail while petitioning the Appeal Court, which confirmed his sentence, then he went the country’s Supreme Court, a total eight-year process.

Meanwhile Praill was arrested again in 2007 for the rape of two girls aged 11 and 9 and again given bail. That case has not gone to trial.

Then in March last year he was arrested in Pattaya for abusing an eight-year-old boy, and bailed again for the equivalent of £6,000. That case too awaits trial.

Praill, who ran a video hire business in Chingford, Essex , called Phoenix ntertainment, was nickname Phi or ‘The Ghost’ because of his frightening appearance, said Sudarat Sereewat, Director of the FACE (Fight Against Child Exploitation) Foundation, and a member of Thailand’s National Child Protection Committee.

But local expatriates called him ‘Davros’ a fictitious villain, and creator of the Daleks, in the BBC TV children’s sci-fi series ‘Dr. Who’.

When he first arrived in Thailand Praill kept a diary, now with the FACE Foundation, which detailed his attempts to buy up schoolchildren as his ‘wives’.

But far for being their benevolent benefactor he wrote how he paid sums of just £2 and £3 for what he referred to as ‘my conjugal rights’ and baulked when they asked for more.

He also complained in his diary how British government were taxing his pension.

In February 1992 he was trying to lure a girl 12-yr-old called ‘Ann’ to his rented house but she left demanding money for her school.

‘She does not want to provide me with even minimal conjugal rites,' he wrote bitterly.

He fortified himself with the sex drug Viagra and Vitamin C capsules and trawled three locations in Pattaya, the Royal Garden Centre the Siren Bar and the ‘Made in Thailand’ market, where he knew young girls hung out and found another 12-yr-old called Lek.

He wrote how he provided ‘lacquer’ for Lek and her friends , who sniffed glue in his front room, and of his desire to conquer her. But each time he tried she complained: ‘I don’t want to’ or ‘It hurts’.

'She makes me horny. How long can I take this?' he asked his diary.

Then on Wednesday May 6th 1992 he announced in triumph that his grooming had been successful: 'About 10 p.m. I have the best session ever. She seems to enjoy it.'

Praill went on to marry the girl in a Buddhist ceremony after she became 15 and he had paid the parents a dowry of £1,000. Monks blessed the couple and Praill later boasted: 'A policeman played the organ at the wedding party.'

He had employed the girl’s parents as his household staff. But there may have been another motive for the marriage: In his diary he wrote how Lek knew a ‘virgin’ working in a local tropical garden and elephant show tourist attraction, whom she could bring to the house.

His marriage lasted only three months before his young bride walked out to be with friends her own age.

FACE Director Sudarat Sereewat said: 'The Supreme Court decision is good news for children in Thailand and for those fighting to suppress child abuse.

'Maurice Praill, I feel, should never have been given bail to continue with his abuses and interfere with witnesses and I have already complained to the Regional Police.

'It was a difficult case because Praill would pay the families. Children are now safe from him.'

Abusers in Thailand have easily been able to play the system in the past. Police often negotiate compensation payments for the victims and for their own time.

Parents do not want their children to go to court and would much prefer monetary compensation.

Source: Mail Online - 29 January 2009