# 85 "Canadian National Pierre Deslauriers (70) is a predator of the worst kind!”

It is not unusual for me to receive information in emails that readers of my blog wish me to publish. They do not wish to publish even anonymously out of the fear that the comments may be traced back to them. This one such email and it relates to a story that many in Cambodia will be familiar with.

"Canadian National Pierre Deslauriers (70) is a predator of the worst kind!”

Deslauriers, who worked as a photographer, was convicted of indecent exposure in 1968 and received a suspended sentence for sexual assault in 1987. He was also punished with five years in prison in 1994 for the sexual assault of two girls aged 3 and 5 during a photo shoot, the Montreal based newspaper La Presse reports.

In Canada, Deslauriers presented a pro-pedophilia lecture at a sexuality symposium at Collège de Maisonneuve. He also published an article defending his position in a banned magazine, according to La Presse.

After his wife died 10 years ago, Deslauriers started travelling across SE-Asia. He spend several years in South India, where he took advantage of the lack of law enforcement to sexually abuse underage boys on a daily basis. Over the past 10 years Deslauriers has been sexually abusing underage children in several SE-Asian countries, according to his own statements.

In January 2014 Deslauriers visited Siem Reap, Cambodia, for the sole purpose of having sex with underage boys. His suspicious behavior attracted the attention of locals, who informed Child 'Protection' NGO Action pour les Enfants.

APLE followed the suspect for almost a month. They took pictures of Deslauriers luring underage street kids and taking them into a forest near the temple complex of Angkor Wat. In the forest Deslauriers raped 4 underage boys.

Parents of the victims filed a complaint and Deslauriers was arrested by Siem Reap's Anti Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Police on February 23, 2014. Police chief Doung Thavery said "the man tried to kill himself upon arrest, stabbing himself in the abdomen and cutting his wrists with a pocketknife. Police managed to wrest the knife away and took him to a local hospital, where he was treated".

During his arrest police also confiscated a laptop. On this laptop police later found pornographic evidence of Deslauriers abusing underage boys in several SE-Asian countries. During questioning at the police station Deslauriers admitted to having had sexual intercourse with the four boys in the forest. His excuse was: "But I didn't hurt them!"

In November 2014 Deslauriers was found guilty on charges of purchasing child prostitution from children under 15 and was sentenced to 7 years in prison by Siem Reap Court judge Duch Sok Sarin.

APLE's Deputy Director of Field Operations Khoem Vando welcomed the conviction, but was not happy with the sentence:

“We welcome the punishment, but we are not satisfied with it because sexual abuse of children has nothing to do with physical injuries. It’s a lifelong trauma. Personally our team would love to see this guy die in prison. He should have gotten the maximum sentence of 15 years, absolutely! But . . .”

If it's such a life long trauma (which it can be indeed), why didn't APLE prevent these crimes in Cambodia from happening in the first place Mr. Khoem Vando, Deputy Director of Field Operations ? ? ?

Letting the crime happen

Why is it that Action Pour les Enfants ALWAYS lets the crime happen before taking action ? ? ?

APLE had been following Pierre Deslauriers since early January 2014; followed him when he was approaching young boys on the streets of Siem Reap. APLE took a lot of pictures for their next media show, but APLE did not walk up to the boys and protected them!

No, instead APLE kept taking photos and videos of Deslauriers. APLE staff followed him into the the forest and watched how Deslauriers raped these poor kids. The youngest was only 10 years old!

In my eyes, that's a crime too! It may be not as bad as the crimes Deslauriers committed, but what APLE did in this case was a form of prostituting children for financial benefit!”

One of the questions I have to ask myself, and perhaps someone reading this has the answer is: “Did APLE actually “watch how Deslauriers rapes these poor kids” or is my correspondent gilding the Lilly a bit.

For anyone who knows more about this than I do please share your thoughts with us.

In a similar vein, here is another extract from an email that I submit for comment:

“Apart from letting the crime happen rather than prevent it from happening, a second serious violation of child rights is detaining 'victims' at Hagar International. In 2012 Terre des Homes Netherlands pushed the Cambodian Government to make it mandatory to place 'victims' of sexual abuse in 'Protected Custody' until the trial. According to TdH this action should be mandatory to prevent families of 'victims' from being bribed by the accused. In reality APLE uses this handy tool to get parents out of the way and to force children into making whatever accusations against the foreigner APLE wants.

In recent cases the Provincial Department of Social Affairs gets called in immediately after the children have been questioned at the police station. Social Affairs gives APLE the permission to take the children into custody. Parents get informed only after this procedure has been completed. At that point the parents have no more rights at all.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/separation-anxiety

“It was determined that these children could go through the healing process better [in the shelter] than at home,” said Khoem Vanda, APLE project officer. “I believe the authorities checked with the parents, and that there was a meeting to tell the families.”

Sure!

Parents can only get their children back after they sign "some forms". Most parents cannot read and write, so they have no idea what they're signing. In one case I know of, the parents had to sign "some forms" with a thumb priont before they got their children back. Later they told APLE that they didn't want APLE lawyers to represent them. APLE told them "Firstly, you've already signed a complaint and secondly you cannot change lawyer! You've already signed for our lawyers to act on behalf of your children!" Luckily another NGO offered an independent lawyer for free. This new lawyer wrote a letter to the court and fired the APLE lawyers.  

The problem is that parents of poor families don't know their rights and they get lied to by APLE staff.”

My only comment on this, for the time being, is that I can understand the logic behind removing children from their families at the time they make their statements. Given that the alleged sex abuser will be very rich compared to a poor Cambodian family there is a danger (a very real danger) that the accused could make it financially worth the family’s while to deny that any abuse took place.

However, the same applies for APLE, the Cambodian Children’s Fund Child Protection Unit and other NGOs wishing to see the ‘sex abuser’ convicted. They too can intimidate and offer cash inducements to get statements from children that will bolster their case.

It seems to me that one way to minimize the possibility that either the accused or an NGO induces a child to make a false statement is to have the initial (and only) interview with the children videotaped in the presence of trained professionals who do not have a vested interest in the outcome of any court case that might result.

The sort of video cameras required to record such interviews are very cheap these days and I can think of no logical reason why all interviews are not recorded in accordance with agreed-upon protocols.

This is not an area of expertize for me but I would have thought that two cameras on tripods are required. One would focus reasonably closely on the child and the other would be a wide shot of the whole room in which the interview takes place. The second camera would be present to safeguard against the possibility that someone behind the camera recording the child was using gestures to threaten or instruct in some way.

Others with expertize in child protection matters could formulate the appropriate protocols.

With such a system in place, with the children being interviewed soon after the alleged offence has occurred and its perpetrator taken into custody, there would be no need for the children to be removed from their families for many months. There would be little or nothing to be gained by either the alleged perpetrator or an NGO intimidating the child and their family or offering money to change their story. The story would have been told and, if done properly, would not need to be told again.

The key to the success of what I am suggesting here (and an idea that it seems the Cambodian Children’s Fund’s CPU is exploring) would lie in the procedures and protocols employed in the conducting of such interviews.

There is no shortage of papers to be read about the advantages of videotaping children in the course of investigating cases of alleged child sex abuse.

Here is one I can recommend as a starting point for discussion:

http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume9/j9_1_4.htm

Interviewing Methods and Hearsay Testimony in Suspected Child Sexual Abuse Cases: Questions of Accuracy

Judith K. Adams

ABSTRACT: It is difficult to obtain accurate information from young children. The potential inaccuracies in hearsay testimony are a crucial issue because of the likely due process violations created by inaccurate and unreliable hearsay. The current research on interviewing techniques which may compromise the reliability of children's testimony is summarized and methods of increasing the accuracy of interviews and hearsay testimony are discussed. It is particularly important to videotape all interviews with the child.

 A few highlights:

....child sexual abuse usually occurs in private with no witness other than the alleged perpetrator and the victim. Investigators must depend on children's accounts or physical evidence in order to determine whether or not allegations of sexual maltreatment are valid. 

....Questions concerning the reliability and credibility of children's accounts are often raised in adversarial legal proceedings...

....concerns about the suggestibility of children's testimony...

....certain interview conditions have a high risk of contaminating young children's reports. 

....Under certain conditions, young children can also make errors of commission about personally experienced events involving their own bodies i.e., reporting that an event occurred, which, in fact, did not occur. 

 ....research calls into question the validity of the axiom that "children never lie about sexual abuse." 

 ....Several factors affect the likelihood of children giving misinformation about personal events. Foremost among these are the interviewing methods which are used in obtaining the testimony. Repeated questioning, delayed questioning, suggestive and misleading interviewing, the emotional tone of the interview, and the status of the person conducting the interview can all have a significant negative impact on the testimony which is obtained from the child. Furthermore, if the interviewer has a bias that sexual abuse has occurred, the interviewer's methods of questioning will be adversely affected and the child's response or testimony will be consistent with the interviewer's bias.

....Interviews with children in suspected sexual abuse cases far too often are conducted using improper interviewing techniques. 

....if the child is presented with inaccurate post-event information, interpretations, or explanations, the misleading information will modify the child's memory of the event being recalled. Generally speaking, the younger the child, the more likely the child will accept someone else's interpretation of an event if it bears a resemblance to the original event.

....improper interviewing methods may negatively affect the reliability of children's testimony. 

....Several studies show that asking children the same question repeatedly within an interview and across interviews often results in the child changing his or her answer.

....children.... questioned in a contradictory manner quickly changed their stories to conform to the suggestions and beliefs of the interviewer. Suggestions planted in the first interview session were quickly taken up and mentioned in the second interview session. This means that if a child is originally interviewed using improper methods, the "testimony" of that child can be contaminated through all subsequent interviews.

....highly suggestive, coercive, and inappropriate interview techniques. ....children who ultimately became witnesses in court were interviewed dozens of times before they "testified." 

....repeated interviewing is far more likely to be the rule rather than the exception in suspected sexual abuse investigations. 

....misinformation presented in initial or early interviews can taint the testimony that the child gives later. 

....After the use of improper interviewing methods, a determination of what, in fact, actually happened to the child becomes virtually impossible.

....investigators in repetitive child sexual abuse cases appear to have no knowledge whatsoever of the potential of their own interviewing methods in destroying the evidence, i.e., the child's testimony.

 ....In some cases, interviewers have told children that their friends have "already told" about being abused, even when this is not true. 

....Young children are sensitive to the status and power of their interviewers.... they are especially likely to comply with the implicit and explicit agenda of such interviewers. Children are more likely to believe adults than other children, they are more willing to go along with the wishes of adults, and are more apt to incorporate adults' beliefs into their reports.

....Interviewers who are authority figures (police officer, prosecutor, parent, or counsel) may consciously or unconsciously influence the child's accounts. 

....children....interviewed by biased interviewers gave the most inaccurate information. If an interviewer's belief was contrary to what the child had experienced, interviews were characterized by an overabundance of misleading questions which resulted in children providing highly inaccurate information.

....the most reliable and accurate information is obtained from children who are responding to open-ended questions designed to elicit free narrative accounts of events that they have experienced. 

...the reliability of testimony obtained from children may be compromised when improper interviewing methods are used. 

.....repeated interviews or interviews employing improper questioning methods can irreversibly taint the evidence...

....Improper questioning, even if the interviewer is unaware of using improper methods, can also destroy the primary evidence. 

....The more interviews to which the child has been subjected, the greater the likelihood that the child's testimony has already been contaminated.

....the potential danger of faulty memory on the part of the child witness. 

....memory can be seen as constructive, often inaccurate, and susceptible to numerous influences which reduce accuracy. 

....for mental health professionals to ask a four-year-old child if someone "touched" him or her invites inaccuracy. The child who is four years old often cannot distinguish a general, affectionate touch from a sexualized touch. The child may honestly relate, on the basis of a concrete interpretation of the word "touch," that he or she was "touched." 

 ...."if the interviewer has a bias that the child was sexually abused, this can color his interpretation of what the child said or did; and it is this interpretation that appears in the summary rather than a factual account of what transpired"

....the failure to have audio- or videotaped records of the initial interviews with children makes it impossible to determine the accuracy of their subsequent statements. 

...."system professionals" may be motivated by financial and personal (job-retention) motives. This author has heard of child protective service workers falsifying under oath, with the rationalization that "I will say anything I have to say to protect a child." Such inferences are shocking in consideration of possible lack of candor in hearsay.

.... child abuse cases present a delicate balance of conflicting interests, those interests being the protection of the alleged victim from further harm and the accused's right to confrontation of the accuser. 

....Statements admitted under hearsay exceptions must be "so trustworthy that adversarial testing would add little to its reliability."

....improper questioning can, in effect, destroy the primary evidence — the testimony of the child — such that cross-examination of the child can no longer produce reliable information.

....one possible answer to the question of reliability is to videotape all investigatory interviews with children. 

....videotape records of the interviews allow later review of questioning methods, shelter the child from subsequent stressful court proceedings...

....the Idaho Supreme Court considered the failure to preserve any reviewable record of an evaluative interview with the child to be unprofessional conduct, and that failure clearly inclined it to find the hearsay report of the child's allegation to be untrustworthy and inadmissible...

....Professionals who advocate for video or audio recording of all interviews with children argue that taping will reduce dual risks of improper interviewing and inaccurate hearsay. 

....interviewing promptly, requiring the interviewer to be a neutral professional not aligned with either the prosecution or the defense, and taking measures to assure privacy to the child...

....failure to tape record initial interviews with child witnesses rules out the possibility of ever reaching any firm conclusions as to whether any abuse actually occurred, because the primary evidence has been destroyed. 

....Videotaping of interviews with children is also recommended for the sake of the child. Videotaping can reduce the number of interviews to which the child is subjected, with each interview likely to produce some stress to the child (Lamb, 1994). Therefore, videotaping should be viewed as advisable by child advocates who are interested in protecting the child from the trauma of repeated, confusing, and possibly suggesting or coercive questioning.

....Both from the scientific psychological community and from the legal community, serious concerns have been raised about the accuracy and reliability of testimony pertaining to children in suspected sexual abuse cases. A host of improper interviewing techniques have been identified, all of which can seriously compromise the reliability of testimony obtained directly from a child. Improper questioning methods may irreversibly contaminate the evidence from the child, making determination of what really happened impossible. 

....Videotaping all interviews can be advocated on several grounds. Videotaping not only allows review of the interviewing methods and accuracy in recounting what transpired, but also may protect the child from the trauma of repeated, suggestive, and possibly even coercive interviews.  

.... The time for thoughtful consideration of the process of investigating and trying suspected sexual abuse cases has undoubtedly come.