JUNE 7 — For those who are not familiar with the criminal justice system, back to back life sentences are imposed by a judge when the defendant is convicted of more than one crime, each of which carries a life sentence. A Concurrent Sentence means served at the same time. A consecutive sentence, on the other hand, means one sentence served after another.
In Richard Huckle’s case, making the sentence consecutive and not concurrent would have lessened the chance of this monster coming out of jail early. Generally, unless specified “without possibility of parole, a life sentence means an average of 20 or more years in prison before parole is possible. This means that a convict who is serving concurrent life sentences could conceivably receive parole on all of the offences after serving the minimum term, but someone with consecutive sentences would have to begin serving the second sentence upon being paroled on the first.
In Huckle’s case this concurrent sentence means, in practice, that he will be out when is around 50 odd years of age. A terrifying thought indeed.
Huckle is now 30 years old. He was 18 when he first came to Malaysia. In pleading guilty, he would have reduced the length of his sentence further. Just imagine — the charges against him took more than an hour to be read out in court. He pleaded guilty to 71 counts of child sex offences, including raping babies and infants, in a London Criminal Court. His youngest victim was a 6 month old baby, who he raped repeatedly.
Has justice been served?
The judge, Peter Rook, when passing sentence, said that: “It is very rare indeed that a judge has to sentence sexual offending by one person on such a scale as this”. The judge also made reference to a quote from Huckle’s Manual (on how to abuse children) where Huckle had said that “impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle class western kids”. He then pronounced a sentence of 22 Concurrent Life Sentences.
And yet… this means that in reality… Huckle will be out of jail in a mere two decades.
Or should the judge have exercised his discretion accordingly to impose a Consecutive sentence, bearing in mind the horrific and heinous nature of the crimes of paedophilia; the rampant and repetitive sexual abuse and the rape of so many minors over a decade in Huckle’s case? This writer wishes such a sentence had been imposed; which would have spelt out a strong message of deterrence and abhorrence of such crimes of paedophilia in society today.
Huckle’s evil past
In this case, there were 191 child victims; 22 Malaysians and more than 20,000 indecent images. Some were videos of rapes he had filmed of himself in the starring role, raping babies and children. At least this is what we know so far. The number of victims could well surpass this, as Huckle had been in Malaysia for nearly a decade. Who knows what else he did, and to whom. There are many traumatised and voiceless victims out there who may never come forward. Indeed, to date, less than 5 victims have shared their stories. Although his laptop contained a ledger in which he detailed the abuse of 191 victims, officers were unable to press charges on all cases as there was insufficient photographic evidence.
Posing as a pious man under the umbrella of the church, he came to Malaysia more than a decade ago, in 2005. He has worked in many jobs here — as a teacher; photographer; volunteer in church activities and “helping” children in slum areas in Kuala Lumpur. Between 2005 and 2014 he sexually abused his victims, young children who had placed trust and confidence in him. Huckle boasted online that there were not many people who could say that they had been with the same girl for many years — but that he could, and that he had sex with a little girl from a slum area first at the age of 5, and he continued to do so till she was 12. He even wrote a 60 page online manual advising other paedophiles on how to go about abusing children.
One cannot help but wonder — how on earth did he have access to so many children in Malaysia during his stay here? If one volunteers to do social work, isn’t there any form of screening the suitability of the candidate? He has even received tokens of appreciation from people for being a “good Samaritan”. Some child care centres and homes for abused children allowed him to photograph children, which he sometimes did for free. He then uploaded these images of abuse of the boys and girls onto the Net, in the “TLZ” (“True Love Zone”, a now disbanded site; containing graphic pictures and videos of child pornography and rapes of children). Some of the photo prints featured children in festive wear. Apparently he spoke Tamil well and mingled amongst the children freely. Unsuspecting residents remember Huckle to be a “good man”. How could this have happened? Were there no clues whatsoever that something was wrong with this man?
Some lessons to be learnt
Instead of pointing fingers, what can we do to reduce the chances of this happening in the future? There are no easy solutions but the following are some of the things we can, and indeed must do:
Development and enactment of a strong legal framework
It is indeed lamentable that there is no legal framework to govern child pornography offences involving paedophiles in Malaysia. A strong legal framework which will protect child rights; together with the willpower to implement and enforce these laws; and to prosecute child offenders promptly is much needed.
Amendments to the Child Act (amendment) 2015
Specific offences relating to abuse of children, be it physical; verbal, or sexual must be enacted; with appropriate punishment(s). Amendments to the Child Act are long overdue and must be debated upon in Parliament and enacted on an urgent basis.
Development of a strong social service network and counselling for victims of abuse
The development of a proper avenue for counselling of victims of abuse is vital. Whether this is to be enacted as specific relief together with legislation or separately needs to be debated upon in a more thorough manner. Counselling of victims cannot just be left to NGO’s to be done on a voluntary and ad hoc basis. There needs to be a strong social service network which is adequately funded and monitored; and the responsibility of all relevant parties.
A Sex Offenders Registry is mandatory for the protection and safety of children
A Sex Offenders Registry is urgently need in this country so that particulars of child sex offenders would be recorded in a public document. People working in children related industries such as nurseries, schools, child care services; school bus/transport services; homes and shelters for abandoned and neglected children can refer to this registry as a filtering mechanism before employing workers. Whilst this may not be a fool proof mechanism, it is better than nothing. At least a step in the right direction.
Without a Sex Offenders Registry, we would have perpetrators lurking in society at large, unmonitored. Speaking of which, we all will remember our very own notorious Malaysian Mara Mathematics scholar in Imperial College, London, who was caught in London recently and sentenced to 18 months in jail after 30,000 images of child pornography were found on his laptop. He was also found guilty of making and then distributing further indecent images that were described by officers as some of the most extreme and graphic images of child sexual abuse that they had ever seen. After serving his sentence in the UK, he returned to Malaysia. Still in his mid-20’s, he is roaming around freely in this country. There is no registry to track his movements. No one seems to care. It is as if we have so easily forgotten what he did. For all we know, he could be working in a job where he has free and easy access to children. Now, isn’t that a terrifyingly chilling thought?
The truth is that there are many more Richard Huckles out there. And they have not been caught yet. This not the first time child sex abuse has occurred in this country.
So what are we waiting for?
* Meera Badmanaban is the Senior Lecturer of Laws at Advance Tertiary College and believer in consecutive sentences and chemical castration in cases of heinous paedophiles such as Richard Huckle.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
