# 89 Chad Williams hoist on his own petard by false allegations made against him

Dear Chad

It was never my intention, when I asked you to imagine yourself in Liam Miller’s shoes, that someone on this blog would, anonymously, place you directly in the same shoes.

The blog entry containing these allegations is factually incorrect. So too is the Post article alleging that Liam Miller was charged with rape. The only difference is that whilst relatively very few people read my blog a lot of people read the Phnom Penh Post; that whilst the Post article defaming Liam Miller is available through google search, the allegations made about you on my blog are not.

There is another and very important difference. Whereas the accuracy of the Post article about Liam Miller has never been challenged in a public forum (until here in my blog) the accuracy of the allegations made about you in the past 12 hours has been challenged in public. I think it is clear to all readers that some ‘troll’ has decided to give you a taste of the Post’s own medicine. Judging by the number of page hits this blog entry has received to date (213) the ‘troll’s’ objectives have been achieved.

False allegations made about anyone, in either the print media or online, highlight the problems inherent in defamatory statements going unchallenged. Once they have been published by the media, and then repeated by others in the media, such allegations come to be treated as facts that require no further evidence to support them. And once they are available to any and everybody through google search the person who has been defamed has little or no chance of having the defamatory material removed.

So it is that Scott Neeson’s allegations about David Fletcher still resonate today and are accepted as fact by so many people. Here is what Scott said about David Fletcher just a week before David Fletcher was arrested in Thailand:

 “There is little doubt Fletcher devotes his time to grooming young girls….The fact is 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.”

No-one in the media in Cambodia has challenged this statement of Neeson’s – an allegation that has, this past 5 years, been treated as if it is a fact – despite there being no evidence of its truth that has ever been tested in a court of law.

In a country in which the rule of law prevailed, Scott would have been be sued for defamation for making this statement. His only defense in a properly constituted court would be to provide evidence that his allegation was true – namely that David Fletcher had been grooming young girls. If he could not do so, Scott would lose his case, be publically humiliated and would have to compensate Fletcher financially. So too would Andrew Drummond for the defamatory article he wrote that quotes Neeson. So too would other journalists who have used Neeson, Peter Hogan and Andrew Drummond as reliable sources of factually correct information.

Had David Fletcher had an opportunity to sue for defamation his fate might have been quite different. A public awareness that Scott Neeson (and Andrew Drummond) had lied would have placed the rape allegations made against Fletcher in a different context. Instead of there being a cheer squad on Khmer440 baying for blood, it is possible that there would have been contributors (particularly men) who realized that they too could find themselves in Fletcher’s position as a result of defamatory statements made about them. Had the Phnom Penh Post asked Neeson for evidence of the truth of his allegations, perhaps the Post would have been able to publish a statement long the lines of:

“When asked for evidence that David Fletcher had been grooming young girls Mr Neeson declined to answer.”

There is, of course, no point in David Fletcher suing Scott Neeson in a Cambodian court. Facts, evidence and truth would be irrelevant. The verdict would be decided upon in advance of any hearing  for reasons that are obvious to anyone with the most basic understanding of how the Cambodian judiciary works.

I have asked Scott several times if he has any evidence to back up his claims about David Fletcher grooming young girls. He refuses to answer. And the Phnom Penh Post refuses to ask Scott this question or, indeed, any questions at all about the legality of his removal of children from their families. Scott is a protected species. As is Action Pour les Enfants. As is LICADHO.

Ask Scott to provide the Post with a copy of the pro forma contract he forces parents to sign before taking their children into residential care. He will not do so. Then speak with a cross section of parents of children in CCF residential care and ask them to recount the circumstances under which they were induced to sign such secret ‘contracts’. Then look at the “Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation.” Here is the relevant extract:

Article 8:Definition of Unlawful Removal

The act of unlawful removal removal in this act shall mean to:

1)    Remove a person from his/her current place of residence to a place under the actor’s or a third persons control by means of force, threat, deception, abuse of power, or enticement, or

2)    Without legal authority or any other legal justification to do so to take a minor person under general custody or curatoship or legal custody away from the legal custody of the parents, care taker or guardian.

Article 9: Unlawful removal, inter alia, of Minor

A person who unlawfully removes a minor or a person under general custody or curatorship or legal custody shall be punished with imprisonment for 2 to 5 years.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7259345/Law-on-Suppression-of-Human-Trafficking-and-Sexual-Exploitation-15022008-English

Is the way in which Scott Neeson obtains signiatures on contracts with the parents of children he takes into residential care legal; in accordance with “Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation”? Or has he used “threats, deception, abuse of power, or enticement” to secure signiatures on contracts that parents are not allowed to retain copies of?

Just as neither Scott Neeson nor Action Pour les Enfants should be protected from media scrutiny, nor either should LICADHO.

Naly Pilorge claims that LICADHO has arrived at different conclusions about the David Fletcher case to the ones that I have arrived at. Here are her words:

On Sun, Dec 21, 2014, at 04:52 PM, LICADHO Director (Naly Pilorge) wrote:

Dear XXX

“Thanks for your email. We are following the case, our findings differ from James Ricketson but we cannot reveal the details of the case to protect the parties involved, thanks.

Naly

Naly Pilorge

Director”

What are LICADHO’S ‘findings’? And which parties are being protected? APLE, an NGO that specifically requested David Fletcher not be granted a ‘re-trial’? Yang Dany, who had been spirited off to China by APLE because she and her mother were going to tell the truth in court?

Given LICADHO’S refusal to even send a representative to court to observe what was supposed to be Mr Fletcher’s ‘re-trial’ in Nov 2014, it is clear that Naly believes herself to be in possession of facts, of evidence, that the Phnom Penh Municipal Court is not in possession of. (I am in possession of all the documents) To be more precise, Naly knows that David Fletcher is guilty – regardless of any doctors reports; regardless of Yang Dany’s denials. Naly Pilorge, representing LICADHO, has set herself up as investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury and believes the 10 year jail sentence for David Fletcher is fair and just and that he is not entitled to a trial at which he is able to present a defense. This, from the Director of Cambodia’s pre-eminent human rights NGO!

Naly Pilorge can feel secure in playing the roles of prosecutor, judge and jury because the Phnom Penh Post (nor any other newspaper) will not challenge her; will ask no questions at all in relation to this case.

The same applies for Action Pour les Enfants. Thierry Darnaudet and Samleang Serila likewise have get-out-of-jail free cards that leave them free of any scrutiny by the Post.

The Phnom Penh Post had more than one journalist in court the day on which David Fletcher’s trial was to occur – as promised by the same judges three weeks earlier. The Post journalists heard the APLE lawyer oppose David Fletcher’s right to a trial. The Post journalists saw the judges refusing to accept any evidence from David Fletcher; saw the judges refuse Fletcher the right to speak on his own behalf and saw them, after a 15 minute break, read a long  statement that had clearly been written before the days proceedings explaining why they had decided against allowing David Fletcher a trial. And what story did the Post publish about the travesty of justice that occurred in court that day? Nothing. The clear breach of Mr Fletcher’s human and legal rights did not warrant even a paragraph in the Post!

Again I ask you, Chad, to place yourself in the position of someone (like Fletcher or Miller) accused of a serious crime for which there is no evidence of your guilt. Imagine appearing in court and seeing Phnom Penh Post journalists taking notes. Lots of notes. And then you discover the following day, in the days to come, that the Post has published no story at all. How would you feel? What would you think? Would you feel inclined to speculate as to why the Post remained diplomatically silent?

I will, in the next 24 hours, remove all references on my blog to the false allegations made against you so that there is no possibility that these may be found by anyone through a google search; such that there is no chance that you may, at some point in the future, find yourself in precisely the same position as Liam Miller.

I trust that you will extend the same courtesy to Liam Miller.

best wishes

James Ricketson