It will be up to the interested reader of Cambodia 440 to arrive at his
or her own conclusions regarding the guilt or innocence of David Fletcher of
the crime of rape. I trust that even those who, upon reading all the evidence I
am presenting here in my blog, decide that Fletcher is guilty, that they also
acknowledge he is entitled to a fair trial; that his guilt or innocence should
not be a matter for journalists to decide – whether those journalists be
myself, Andrew Drummond, Richard Shears or any of the others who have taken the
roles of jury and judge upon themselves.
The following article by Andrew Drummond, written one month before David
Fletcher was charged with the rape of Yang Dany, marks the beginning of a saga
that continues to this day – with David Fletcher in jail in Phnom Penh,
Cambodia serving a 10 year sentence.
"Preying On The Garbage Dump Children"
Andrew Drummond
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Convicted
child sexual abuser runs ' charity' for rubbish dump kids in Cambodia
The
atmosphere was tense in a little hut next to a massive toxic garbage mountain,
for many years the sole source of income for poverty stricken families here in
the capital of Cambodia.
Inside the
corrugated shack in Dhamnak Thom Village No. 1 Scots born Scott Neeson of the
Cambodian Children's Fund was negotiating with the mother of a pretty 17-yr-old
girl to save her from a British child abuser.
The mother
58-yr-old Khaeng Sokun was once a teenage mum, who lost her first husband and
baby twin daughters to the ' Killing Fields' of the Khmer Rouge.
They were
taken away in the late 70's by a Khmer Rouge cadres. She heard her
husband was clubbed to death after telling the Khmer Rouge he could pack no
more fertilizer bags for Brother No I, Pol Pot. She does not know exactly what
happened to her children. Just that they never returned.
Two baby
girls lost to the Khmer Rouge. Child abuser wants the third
Now she is
about to give her third daughter 17-yr-old, Yang Dany, to a convicted
British child abuser for the princely sum of US$150 to help clear her family
debts.
'But we owe
US$600. How else can I pay this off?' Dany wants to help her family. He future
husband is a good man. She feels sorry for him. He comes here and gives
everybody food. '
There are
signs of frustration on Scott's face. Bawling the mother out is not an
option . He tells the mother that Dany is a star pupil. She will go to
University if she continues with her studies and all the family will
benefit. But her husband-to-be has already convinced Dany to stop going
to English classes. Clearly he does not need to communicate with the bride he
wants.
'We will help
you with your debts,' says Scott to the mother, who wants to return to Kompong
Som Province after the marriage. 'Please give this serious thought.'
Two hours
later at the Flora Bar in Phnom Penh's Street 136 we caught up with the man who
plans to share her bed.
Sixty six
year old David Fletcher, wearing an Indiana Jones fedora, had his hand inside
the brassiere of a young Cambodian hostess and was happy to tell me: 'She's
shaven you know. That's how I like them. No pubic hair.'
My sons have
disowned me. Who cares?
'Fletch the
Letch', as he has come to be known, continued: '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. But I know lots of people
are watching me so I am very careful about being seen with young girls.'
Fletcher was
convicted at Norwich Crown Court in July 1997 of the statutory rape of a
15-yr-old girl, whom he first plied with champagne and to whom he offered ?250
cash. He also admitted possessing offensive weapons, two pepper sprays and two
canisters of CS gas. He was jailed for eighteen months.
Judge David
Mellor said at the time: 'You exploited a young girl with the lure of money and
the disinhibitions of drink, then videoed what happened.'
Fletcher ran
a series of hair salons in Cambridge and Saffron Walden. But, after he
left jail, he fled Britain. He says today: 'Britain is much too P.C. for
me. You can't do anything there. I'm never going back'.
To all
intents and purposes Fletcher runs a charity in the Cambodian capital -The
Garbage Dump Project. He has a website
http://volunteerproject.weebly.com/index.html in which he tells the
moving story of Phnom Penh's garbage dump kids and invites readers to send
donations to his private bank account.
With the
money, he says, he loads up a truck or tuk tuk with food - ' US$1 can
feed three children' - and heads out to the dump with his sponsors of the day.
The Sunday
Mirror signed up for his tour and gave him US$50 to feed 150 children. At
a market we stopped to buy food and he bought bread baguettes, dragon fruit and
tangerines. We estimated he had handed over the sum of about US$30.
Never having
to say you're sorry
Fletcher was
not a tactful negotiator. When he thought the price was too high he would
extend an index finger to the seller and move on.
When we asked
him what the Khmer language word was for 'Sorry', Fletcher who has lived in
Phnom Penh for six years, initially as a bar owner himself, said he did
not know.
But we were
to find out later in the bars of Phnom Penh that he did however know the Khmer
for 'no nickers' and 'oral sex'.
When we got
to the garbage mountain at Stung Mean Chey on the outskirts of the capital he
took a cream bun and some fruit to 'my favourite little girl' but she was not
at home. The girl, aged 8, we later learned had been rehoused with her
family out of harm's way by the Cambodian Children's Fund.
With his tuk-tuk
driver he dished out fruit to long queues of children and then took us to his
fiancee Yang Dany's home with a special bag of goodies for her mum.
Where can a
man like my get a girl like this?
'I'm planning
to marry her when the time is right. Where can a man like me get a girl like
this? I am going to get a loan to put her through University and educate her
myself.
'This town is
full of N.G.O's. There are over 3,000 different N.G.O's here. They are a pain
in the butt; always making trouble for someone or other, so I am
especially careful.
'A couple of
weeks ago I was attacked by a foreigner with a pepper spray. I keep
a Bowie knife as protection now'.
After
delivering our food and now back at our pick-up point the 'Phnom Penh India'
restaurant on the city's riverside Sisowath Quay, Fletcher borrowed a receipt
book from the owner and wrote out an official receipt for US$50. 'Everything's
above board. People have accused me of pocketing the charity money.
'It's a fine
thing you have done today for the children of the garbage dump,' he said before
heading off with the change and arranging to meet us in a bar later on to show
us a 'good time'.
Later after
meeting him at the Flora hostess bar, he took us to the nearby '99'
hostess bar like many bars here full of young woman available for the taking at
a price.
'They
can charge US$25 dollars upwards for sex.' said Fletch the letch, groping a
girl, who said she was just 17, but whom Fletcher claimed was 23.
'But I don't
pay. I don't buy girls drinks. I give them tips. But I get sex for free
anyway. There is a girl who visits me from the local market in the
morning. She just does it to have a nice shower and a comfortable bed to sleep
in. I prefer Cambodian girls. I tried Thailand first; went there for
years to Patong Beach, Phuket, but here it's much better. They're more
needy. You just need to be a little careful. I know I am being
watched. The schools have complained I am taking kids out of their
classes. I just reply, 'Well you feed them properly then!'
Fletcher
offered to take us to another bar. 'I've got a girl in there who I can really
turn on. She gets so worked up she should pay me. She's so small I can
just lift her up and hang her on my ****. I don't use Viagra, I buy some much
better Chinese made stuff from a shop around the corner,' he said.
But when we
got there thankfully the bar was closed.
Fletcher used
to run his 'Volunteer Project' out of his former bar called 'Bogie and
Bacall' but his two Australian colleagues quickly left.
Rotary Clubs
gave cash
Said one of
them, retiree Ross Wright: '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 unaccounted for. Cash was coming in from Rotary
Clubs and big private donors, but we never saw any of it. We also had
complaints of him being too familiar with young girls.'
Scott Neeson,
51, founded the Cambodian Children's Fund with the proceeds of his US$1 million
a year salary in Hollywood as International President of Fox then International
President for Marketing for Sony Pictures.
He quit, he
says, after tiring of dealing with actors, particularly one famous one who
raised hell when he was not supplied with a 'playstation' on a long haul
flight. He had, he says, an epiphany. 'It was a rubbish life.
'But this is
a rewarding , only people like Fletcher are a continuous source of worry .There
is little doubt Fletcher devotes his time here to grooming young girls. He has
nothing to do with the boys. We have had girls of 13 and 14 turning up
with his charity business cards. He had told their parents he wants to adopt
them, care for them. They think, because he gives out food, he is good.
But he is grooming. They cannot see the other side.
'He also took
a 14-yr-old into town without her parents permission, to go shopping.
'The fact is
that these children can be bought. It's difficult to stop it. The British
Embassy have been told about Fletcher. Many organizations have files on him,
but nothing has happened.
'If you can
get this guy sent packing you are doing a service to the children here.'
The abuse of
children by foreigners in Cambodia is hampered by institutionalized corruption
in what has become a one party state run by strongman Hun Sen, who has in
effect locked out Opposition leader Sam Rainsy on trumped up charges.
Rainsy has
been forced to live abroad after being sentenced to two years in absentia for
creating a disturbance with boundary signs on the Cambodian border. He has
accused Hun Sen of selling off parts of Cambodia.
Police have
shown they are more than willing to take pay offs to release foreigners on
child sexual abuse charges and most cases are settled with cash payments to one
side or other.
But Britain's
CEOP, Child Exploitation and Online Protection unit, have established a
presence in the last two years and are linking progressively, they say,with
Cambodian police. A spokesman said: 'We are aware of complaints about
David Fletcher and have been in discussion with the authorities.'
When I
confronted Fletcher about his conviction against the 15-yr-old at Norwich Crown
Court he said: 'Oh yes. She was just my girlfriend. They caught me. I just did
it ahead of her sixteenth birthday. People will stoop very low to say bad
things about me.'
"Its a
wonderful thing you have done for the kids" said Fletcher
Story
correction: On re-checking the tape Fletcher says he has one son and one
daughter. Both grown up. The son objected to the fact that he (Fletcher) had
girlfriends younger than he did.
I will be
making many references to this article in subsequent posts. How accurate is it?
What is David Fletcher’s response to the allegations contained in it? What
impact did the article have on the sequence of events, over the next four
weeks, that led to Yang Dany’s ‘fiance’, ‘sweetheart’ and ‘boyfriend’ being
charged with her rape 15 months earlier? Will Andrew Drummond make public the
audio tape he claims to have made and from which he quotes David Fletcher?
I wrote to
Andrew Drummond:
“Andrew, via a circuitous route, doing some internet
research, I came upon your name in relation to David Fletcher. I am a filmmaker
doing some research into pedophiles, with a particular interest in Cambodia - a
favourite destination for these unpleasant men! I am trying to find out as much
as I can about the Fletcher case. I have trawled online but can't find anything
in relation to the actual rape itself - when it occurred, what the evidence was
or whether or not there were any witnesses. If you can be of any assistance,
please don't hesitate to make contact.”
Mr Drummond
did not reply.
NEXT
Some
questions for Andrew Drummond.
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