KUALA LUMPUR: Richard Huckle, described as Britain’s worst paedophile, had kept a diary of the grotesque acts he committed against children, including those he had molested in Malaysia.
This was the revelation made by the BBC in its investigative report on Huckle, who was in 2016 convicted of 71 offences against 23 children. His youngest victim was six-months-old. The judge at his trial had noted that his victims was likely to number around 200.
In a report yesterday, BBC journalist Bronagh Munro wrote that she had uncovered the 30-year-old’s diary while producing a BBC Three documentary titled ‘The Gap Year Paedophile’.
Huckle’s known victims are Malaysian and Cambodian, but the authorities believe there is a strong possibility that he may have also had victims in the United Kingdom.
Huckle, from Kent, was 19-years-old when he first set out for his gap year in the Gap Year Challenge programme. Munro wrote that in Malaysia, Huckle had masqueraded as a devoted Christian and English teacher, gaining access to children through churches, schools and orphanages.
He gave children alcohol and drugs, abused them and shared his acts with other paedophiles on the dark web, all the while maintaining a facade that he actually cared for the children.
“He even wrote a manual to instruct other paedophiles on how to do it themselves,” said Munro.
The article quoted Ann Jones, formerly employed with World Challenge, the company that organised Huckle’s gap year.
Huckle, she said, “made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.”
Jones said Huckle was moved from his first school placement as he had rubbed other 'gappers' the wrong way. He was then placed at a church, where he became a Sunday school teacher.
It was not long after Huckle had to be removed from the church as well as the Gap Year Challenge programme altogether. This came about after reports emerged of him smacking some of the children.
However, instead of leaving Malaysia, Jones said she later learnt that the church
church independently gave Huckle his job back.
“Huckle repeatedly mentioned the pastor of the church in his diary. But, when I tracked the pastor down, he insisted Huckle had never been a Sunday school teacher there and that he had no memory of any concerns about Huckle’s behaviour,” wrote Munro.
Following Huckle’s conviction in 2016, Malaysian journalist Mahi Ramakrishnan interviewed one of his victims, who had been repeatedly raped by Huckle from the age of three.
Mahi said the girl had told her family about the abuse, but was instead told "to just shut up".
“Huckle deliberately targeted the city’s poorest and most vulnerable communities. He exploited his status as a white man to gain their trust, groom and then abuse their children. On the dark web, he boasted about how easy it was,” wrote Munro.
Huckle was eventually arrested in London Gatwick Airport on December 2014 as he returned home from Malaysia for Christmas. Police had said that he was carrying a heavily-encrypted computer and camera that contained over 20,0000 images of child sex abuse, over 1,000 of which showed him committing offences including rape.