Richard Huckle

Richard Huckle (born 14 May 1986) is a convicted sex offender. He was arrested by Britain's National Crime Agency after a tip-off from Australian Police and convicted of 71 counts of serious sexual assaults against children while posing as a teacher, photographer, and devout Christian in Malaysia.^[3]

Huckle has been described as Britain's worst ever paedophile by both the media and the prosecution team, despite only being 28 years old at the time of his arrest,^[4][5][6] and on 6 June 2016, he was given 22 life sentences with a minimum prison term of 25 years before being eligible to apply for parole.^[2]

Early life

Huckle was born into a middle-class family in Ashford, Kent. He was educated at the Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone, where he was described as "a bit of a loner, but nothing out of the ordinary" by friends. At the age of 16, he took part in a month-long expedition to visit a school in Namibia^[7] before leaving the Harvey Grammar School to study at the nearby South Kent College.^[8]

Huckle was a regular worshipper at Ashford Baptist Church, where he was described as a quiet man.^[9] He was also a member of a church in London, which he continued to attend up until the time of his re-arrest in January 2015.^[10]

Richard Huckle during his trip to Namibia

Time in Malaysia

After leaving education, Huckle spent a gap year in Malaysia from 2005 to 2006,^[11] which was organised by World Challenge Expeditions, the company who organised his school's trip to Namibia. He returned regularly, helping out at local churches and among local communities, before moving there permanently in 2010.

Huckle enrolled onto a short CELTA course with the British Council^[12] before starting work as a freelance photographer working in local communities around Kuala Lumpur. He also enrolled onto an IT course with a local University, hoping to further his career and status within the community.^[13]

In addition to Malaysia, where all of the crimes he was convicted of occurred, and Cambodia, which was also mentioned in the trial, Huckle travelled extensively around south-east Asia to countries including Singapore, Laos and India. It has been revealed that, while in India, he persuaded a pastor to invite him to an orphanage in Bangalore to take photos and make videos with the children, posing as a teacher in order to gain trust.^[14]

Sexual offences

Initial arrest

On 19 December 2014, following an earlier tip-off from Task Force Argos, a highly specialised branch of Australia's Queensland Police Service responsible for the investigation of on-line child exploitation and abuse, Huckle was arrested by officers from Britain's National Crime Agency at London's Gatwick Airport and questioned on suspicion of a number of serious offences against children.^[15] He initially refused to answer officers questions and was bailed under the condition that he stayed at his parent's house, while his camera, laptop and hard drives were seized.

Background of arrest

Police officers from Task Force Argos had been aware of a network of paedophiles operating on a dark web network called The Love Zone (TLZ) for some time. They noticed one member who always made posts using the unusual greeting "hiyas" and had a distinctive freckle on one of his fingers.^[15] Officers explored the Internet and social media, and eventually found a Facebook page matching the profile of the individual they were looking for, including the greeting and freckle. The profile was fake but photos of a vehicle led police to Shannon McCoole, a care worker from Adelaide. A warrant was issued for the arrest of McCoole. Upon entering his house, police discovered that McCoole, who was subsequently sentenced to 35 years in prison,^[16] was actually online and running his dark web site at the time.^[15]

Police assumed the identity of McCoole and ran his site, which has since been closed down, in an unusual move in order to catch other paedophiles. In running the site, police rescued 85 children from ongoing abuse and arrested hundreds.^[17] One member that stuck out was Huckle, due to the number of children he had abused and the attitude of his posts. After discovering his real identity, and exploring the open Internet, they discovered that he was due to return to the United Kingdom shortly to spend Christmas with his family and then immediately alerted the National Crime Agency, who arrested him when he arrived in the UK.^[18]

Re-arrest and trial

After a short period on bail following his initial arrest, Huckle was re-arrested and charged with 91 counts including creation and possession of child pornography, rape of a child under the age of 12, digital penetration, child abuse, and creating a paedophile manual. He was remanded in custody, initially at HMP Lewes before being transferred to the notorious HMP Belmarsh in London to await trial. The time before his re-arrest was particularly turbulent due to him being thrown out by his parents, who asked the police to arrest him and take him away, after he was questioned and admitted his crimes to them.^[19]

At an initial hearing at the Old Bailey, in January 2016, Huckle pleaded not guilty to all 91 charges,^[20] which took over an hour to read in court, and prosecutors started to prepare three separate trials as they did not believe a jury should be subjected to all of the graphic evidence that would be presented in a single trial.^[21] In April, during a preliminary trial hearing, Huckle pleaded guilty to 71 of the 91 charges he was facing after a particularly disturbing request to watch all of the evidence against him in court.^[4] As a result of his confession, prosecutors decided not to pursue a prosecution against the remaining 20 charges, and asked that they lie on file, in order to spare a jury the horror of having to watch graphic images and videos of child abuse since the 71 charges which Huckle admitted to would be sufficient for a lengthy sentence.

During the hearings, the full scale of Huckle's crimes became apparent for the first time. Prosecutors, led by Brian O'Neill QC,^[5] showed evidence of a long line of horrific crimes that started during Huckle's gap year in 2006 and continued for eight to nine years until he was apprehended in 2014. They included rape of children under the age of 12, possession and distribution of child pornography, creation of child pornography, child abuse, creating a paedophile manual entitled "Paedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide", digital penetration of a child under the age of 12, and raising money for his activities via a crowd-funding website.^[22] His victims ranged in age from 6 months to 12 years old; one was abused while wearing a nappy, and another was abused for a number of years between the ages of 5 and 12. Huckle belonged to a website called The Love Zone on the dark web, a hidden area of the internet used by paedophiles, which is accessible only with specialised software. On the site, he shared photos of his crimes with other members.^[23] He boasted about his crimes to other paedophiles, posting such comments as "Hit the jackpot, a three-year-old girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care" and "impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle-class kids".^[24] In total, prosecutors unveiled 29 victims and over 20,000 photos, but believe there could be up to 200 victims all over Southeast Asia and thousands more photos in encrypted areas of Huckle's laptop, which authorities have so far been unable to access.^[25]

During the hearings, the scale at which Huckle went to in order to find victims was revealed. Methods included taking children out on day trips from orphanages and escorting children home from their own birthday party. Huckle had even talked about marrying one of his young victims so that he could set up a foster home and abuse "a cycle of children" who would pass through his home and turn paedophilia into a full-time job.^[25] Huckle also created a ledger of his abuses and gave himself what he called 'Paedo Points' depending on the scale of the abuse each victim suffered.^[26] It was from this ledger that the estimated number of children abused, 200, was gained, although so far authorities have only discovered photographic evidence of the abuse of 29 children due to Huckle refusing to give officers the passwords for encrypted areas of his hard drives.

Richard Huckle pictured in Malaysia

Extraterritorial jurisdiction

Huckle was prosecuted under Section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which allows British nationals to be tried and convicted for child sex crimes committed while overseas in an effort to prevent sex tourism,^[27] known as extraterritorial jurisdiction, a move which was welcomed by child protection charities.^[4][28]

This is a rarely used section of the Act and, while no official record is kept, it is believed that Huckle is only the seventh person to be prosecuted under the measure and that his crimes are the most serious to be prosecuted under it.^[10][29]

Sentencing

Huckle's sentencing hearing began at the Old Bailey on 1 June 2016 and lasted until 3 June 2016, with the sentence itself being given on 6 June 2016. At the start of the hearing, the Judge in the case, Peter Rook QC, stated that Huckle should expect to go to prison for a very long time, as he is considering multiple life sentences due to the gravity of what was committed.^[30]

During the sentencing hearing, Huckle's lawyer, Philip Sapsford QC, read a statement from Huckle where he blamed his crimes on his immaturity.^[6]

Sapsford continued by asking the judge to take into consideration his client's young age, his claims of remorse, and the fact that he has no previous convictions. He also quoted from a psychiatric report that said Huckle had had limited sexual experience with women and suffered depression as a teenager. He also stated that, despite the mitigating circumstances, this is the most extensive case of child sex crimes that he has ever been involved in.^[6]

It was also noted during the hearing, in a statement made by the prosecution, how convictions were only sought against crimes for which there was complete photographic evidence. It was noted how Huckle's ledger contained details of 200 children that had been abused but that they have been unable to access certain encrypted sections of his hard drive in order to obtain evidence.^[6]

On 6 June 2016, at the Old Bailey, Huckle was given 22 life sentences with a minimum prison term of 25 years before being eligible to apply for parole.^[29] He will be first eligible for parole in 2041, assuming good behaviour and a belief by the Parole Board for England and Wales that he no longer poses a risk to children the public at that time. However, he could be first eligible for parole in 2040 if time served while awaiting trial is taken into account. Before passing down the sentence, the judge, Peter Rook QC, stated that Huckle carried out a campaign of rape and was driven by his own sexual gratification.^[2][32]

Huckle stood in prayer as he was sentenced. As he was sent down, a woman in the public gallery shouted, "1,000 deaths is too good for you".^[2]

Aftermath and criticism

The National Crime Agency received criticism from the Malaysian Government, as well as a number of child protection charities in Malaysia, for their handling of the case. Officers from the NCA travelled to Malaysia to engage local charities, who performed child protection workshops in the community where Huckle lived, but they were kept in the dark about the gravity of his crimes. The Malaysian Government stated that they would like further details of the victims so they can offer counselling.^[33] On 4 June 2016, the Attorney General of Malaysia, Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali, stated that he was in the process of contacting his counterpart in the UK, and the British High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, in order to obtain information about the case, which would help his investigation into the crimes and his efforts to help Huckle's victims.^[34]

The National Crime Agency responded to the comments from the Malaysian authorities, stating that they revealed enough details to be able to help the charities but were unable to provide full details until the prosecution was completed. For the same reason, severe media restrictions were put in place, which prevented anybody from reporting the story until the British Government had taken steps to ensure that all of Huckle's material had been taken down and that steps had been taken to protect his victims from other predators.^[35] On 6 June 2016, however, the National Crime Agency referred itself to the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, due to the fact that they were aware of Huckle's continued attendance at two churches in the UK up until the time of his re-arrest in January 2015 but did not contact them until sentencing had already begun. The IPCC will look into whether the NCA had acted appropriately and whether more could have been done to determine whether Huckle abused any children in the UK through his relationship with the churches.^[29][36]

The British Council issued a statement saying that they had reviewed their dealings with Huckle.

They also stated that procedures would be reviewed, but that pre-employment checks are the responsibility of future employers not their education provider.^[12]

After the gravity of Huckle's crimes became known, the Malaysian Government set up a telephone hotline for people to call if they have any information about Huckle or if they were abused themselves.^[37] The Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, added that he was angered and saddened by Huckle's sexual violation of Malaysian children and called for all parties involved to ensure that children are not exposed to situations where irresponsible people can take advantage of them.^[38] In August 2016, in response to the criticism following the Huckle case, Najib Razak announced that a special task force had been set up to investigate how Malaysia's child protection laws could be redrafted to take into account the new ways that child sexual predators such as Huckle were praying on Malaysian children,^[39] with the aim of having a new version ready by the end of the year.

Following the discovery of Huckle's crimes, the Malaysian Government came under fire from child protection charities for their lack of laws against child abuse and child pornography. James Nayagam, chairman of Suriana Welfare Society for Children, was particularly critical of his government's relaxed nature in dealing with such crimes.^[40]

In the article, Nayagam continued by pointing out that Section 292 of the Penal Code only deals with sale and distribution of obscene material.^[40]

While the media in the UK were largely supportive of Huckle's sentencing, the Malaysian press widely stated that the punishment was not severe enough, with statements such as "a thousand years is not enough", "We are horrified that the sex fiend [Huckle] will be eligible to appear before a parole board after 23 years", and "this monster could be out in 24 years" appearing in the days after his sentence was announced.^[41][42]

References

External links

• Sky News documentary