Thai man accused of molesting boys in toilet

[wowpow]

Bangkok Post - 24th May 06, Wassayos Ngamkham

"Police yesterday arrested a man for luring underage children and sexually abusing them in his internet cafe in Bang Bon district. Officers from the Crime against Children, Juveniles and Women Suppression Division filed charges against Prajak Chuenrutai, 34, after he allegedly performed lewd acts with boys under the age of 15 at his unnamed internet cafe. The arrest followed a complaint by a woman who told police on Monday that her 12-year-old and six-year-old sons had been molested by Mr Prajak for the past five months.

"He often lured the boys to please him in a bathroom or in his private room behind the cafe," a police officer said. The police said Mr Prajak promised to give money to the children or let them play on-line games for free if they agreed to accompany him to the bathroom, where he tried "various types of sexual abuse" on them. Many boys are believed to be his victims but did not dare tell their parents.

Mr Prajak denied all allegations against him. If found guilty, he will face a maximum of 10 years in jail or a fine of 20,000 baht, police said. The man, a manager for a garment export company, was arrested in front of his office in Muang district, Samut Sakhon province."

[bucknaway]

I hope he is considered innocent until proven guilty. And if he is Guilty it is a shame he only would face 10 years in jail....

[catawampuscat]

Whenever you watch the farang Thai TV news in Pattaya, there are always a couple of police arrests of drug sellers and/or
gold chain snatchers or burglars..Each time, the arrested Thais return to the scene of the crime and recreate the crime often pointing
to the people involved.. I get the impression that since they are usually caught with the goods or have many eye witnesses,
the vast majority confess and cooperate with the police.. There is no concept of innocent until proven guilty at least with the
poor, powerless underclass profiled on every local news report.. I am sure the wealthy, well connected upper classes have
a different experience..
Also Bucky, 10 years in a Thai prison, especially for child molestors must be a living hell and sounds more than appropriate
for child molestors..In the USA, he probably would be killed by the other prisoners long before his prison term ended, as
child molestors are considered the bottom of the barrel or simply scum. I imagine it would feel like a lifetime.. I have heard
of hineous crimes, including deaths, and money to the victim's family seems to ease everyone's concerns and perhaps this guy
can pay his way out of this... It ain't the USA, Bucky.........

This is disgraceful. Where were the FBI honey trap folks?

[cottmann]

This is disgraceful. Where were the FBI honey trap folks?

The FBI doesn't do honey wagons, apparently.

What I want to know is, where are all the boo-hoo cry-babies who are always lamenting the fact that "the Thai police only target foreign pedos?"

[Surfcrest]

Sorry guys,

Maybe its the Canadian in me saying this, but I don't agree.

Child abuse is an illness that should be treated or addressed at the source. Quite often child abusers were abused themselves and so they too were victims of someone else.

As past generations pushed this issue under the carpet for so long, they are only surfacing now that it is acceptable to bring these complaints forward rather than surpressing them in shame.

There is only so much room in prisons and only so much burden the tax payer can support. This like so many issues needs to be addressed at the source, rather than when it becomes a symtom. If and when these molesters get out of prison, they quite often do it again because they can't help themselves.

Fortunately this is not a gay issue, nor is it a Gay Thailand issue. It has nothing to do with homosexuality what so ever. If it is a crime to molest young boys, why the hell do they allow businesses in Thailand to feed these people's hunger. It's just as stupid as our Canadian government providing drugs and drug supplies to the addicts instead of the help they need.

I just don't get it.

Surfcrest

Maybe its the Canadian in me saying this

I love having a nice Canadian boy in me, especially if it's a well-hung French-Canadian twink.

What I want to know is, where are all the boo-hoo cry-babies who are always lamenting the fact that "the Thai police only target foreign pedos?"I've never been so naive. I always assume that the only paedophiles who get arrested and charged in Thailand are the ones who can't afford to pay off the police or who are so newsworthy (eg. former Australian diplomats) that the Thai police can't afford to lose face by not charging them. In this particular case a Thai complained to the Thai police and presumably either the man didn't have the money to pay off the police (most likely) or it was such a locally prominent case that the notoriety factor meant they had to be seen to be doing something. The nationality of the perpetrator is irrelevant. The Thai police, I find, like most Thai officialdom are generally colour blind - until it comes to the colour of money. Ports of Thailand in clearing exports and imports are, if anything, even worse than the police. I know that boygeenyus has a competely different view of what constitutes corruption and happily trots around to his local cop shop (intentional naming - you can buy one or more policemen there) with flowers and choccies at New Year, to encourage them to do the job for which they are already paid by the taxpayer

Dearest Homi, perhaps you missed one of my recent posts, which went something like this:

"The police police were corrupt long before Thaksin. Probably from the beginning of time".

Could I have spelled it out any more clearly? And what's this about flowers and choccies?

And what's this about flowers and choccies?Don't tell me! You've stopped giving presents at New Year to your local police station? When did this change of heart occur?

Each New Year, I give a 500 baht Central Department store gift certificate to the cop who mans the traffic booth at my corner, just because he's always pleasant and smiles at me. (No, he doesn't change the lights to green when he sees me approaching). No flowers or chocolates.

Each New Year, I give a 500 baht Central Department store gift certificate to the cop who mans the traffic booth at my corner, just because he's always pleasant and smiles at me. (No, he doesn't change the lights to green when he sees me approaching). No flowers or chocolates.And that is my point. In many Western countries that would be regarded as corruption even though (as you say) no favours are returned and in those countries there are rules against precisely that sort of thing. I know you have a different view, which was what I meant when I said that you had different views on corruption than me. For the record I believe Thaksin came by his fortune corruptly, and has behaved corruptly while Priome Minister. He was formerly a Thai policeman - his corruptness is a "given". The Thai police have always been corrupt, and while the system sees nothing wrong in 500 baht gift certificates, always will be corrupt, and you are contributing to that mentality

In what Western countries would the giving of a token Christmas appreciation be considered "corruption"? Is it just police, or does it extend to all public officials? My Mom gives the mail man a tin of cookies at Christmas...you want to lock her (and him) up for corruption? What are you talking about, you bald old fool?

My reference was to the police. What your mother does with the mail man is, I'm sure, entirely between consenting adults in private. However, here's an excerpt from a Google search of "gift rules police"
I would think that a truly ethical person in power - whether it's a politician, a person above you in a job, a religious figure, or a police officer - would want to steer away from that kind of thing because ... the person who gave it is going to expect something back, whether it's specified or not. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0125/p13s01-lire.html

[cottmann]

My reference was to the police. What your mother does with the mail man is, I'm sure, entirely between consenting adults in private. However, here's an excerpt from a Google search of "gift rules police"
I would think that a truly ethical person in power - whether it's a politician, a person above you in a job, a religious figure, or a police officer - would want to steer away from that kind of thing because ... the person who gave it is going to expect something back, whether it's specified or not. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0125/p13s01-lire.html


Wait a minute: "....a religious figure, ..." I thought they called it "tithing" and made it obligatory?

Wait a minute: "....a religious figure, ..." I thought they called it "tithing" and made it obligatory?Yes, and I'm still waiting for your contribution to arrive

Well, I guess the old apple for the teacher is right out too then, in this PC, anti-corruption-in-all-forms worlds we apparently live in.

Wait a second...I just realized that I have an entire drawer full of little knicknacks that my Thai staff have given me for Christmas and birthday gifts over the years. Could I be considered *gasp* CORRUPT because I accepted them?

Do you think you could stop molesting yourself, boygeenyus? The whole issue of business ethics and corruption generally has moved on since your boyhood days in the good old US of A. The fact that you have spent your entire adult life in the Third World is showing through quite clearly. If you don't get it, try watching the Enron trials on CNN and start educating yourself instead of throwing tantrums because you don't like being called corrupt

[cottmann]

I have always taken the point of viewpoint that there is nothing wrong with corruption - if and only if I get my share! :geek:

I have always taken the point of viewpoint that there is nothing wrong with corruption - if and only if I get my share!My attitude exactly. I'm happy to acknowledge as a businessman in Asia that doing business in Thailand (as elsewhere in Asia) involves a complete lack of transparency, a total reliance on who you know not what you know, and lots of "tea money". I also know that that's not the norm in the First World which is so obsessed with transparency that we get overkill like Sarbanes-Oxley ( www.sox-act.org (http://www.sox-act.org) for boygenyus' benefit). However no First World country has yet come up with a set of rules that would allow 500 baht gift certificates to be given to the local cop on the beat in such a way that they would never be seen as an opportunity for corruption - hence the "no gifts" rules that are becoming universal there. Doing business in Asia always has involved thge exchange of gifts. It's a different culture

However I know from previous exchanges on the topic with boygeenyus that suggesting that his own practices are in any way corrupt is a sure way to get him foaming at the mouth, and having a few spare moments this week I decided to test his Pavlovian responses - with the inevitable but still gratifying result :bounce:

[cottmann]

I have always taken the point of viewpoint that there is nothing wrong with corruption - if and only if I get my share!My attitude exactly. I'm happy to acknowledge as a businessman in Asia that doing business in Thailand (as elsewhere in Asia) involves a complete lack of transparency, a total reliance on who you know not what you know, and lots of "tea money". I also know that that's not the norm in the First World which is so obsessed with transparency that we get overkill like Sarbanes-Oxley ( www.sox-act.org (http://www.sox-act.org) for boygenyus' benefit). However no First World country has yet come up with a set of rules that would allow 500 baht gift certificates to be given to the local cop on the beat in such a way that they would never be seen as an opportunity for corruption - hence the "no gifts" rules that are becoming universal there. Doing business in Asia always has involved thge exchange of gifts. It's a different culture

However I know from previous exchanges on the topic with boygeenyus that suggesting that his own practices are in any way corrupt is a sure way to get him foaming at the mouth, and having a few spare moments this week I decided to test his Pavlovian responses - with the inevitable but still gratifying result :bounce:

I am not familiar with no gift rules, though I know many companies now have them. I believe that until the late 1990s many OECD countries allowed bribes paid to foreign businessmen and politicians to be tax-deductible until the OECD anti-bribery convention of 1997.

I understand that, in Australia, overseas bribes were tax deductible until the late 1990s. Then the Income Tax Assessment Act (ITA) was changed when Australia ratified the OECD anti-bribery convention. The changes meant graft was no longer tax deductible, but ensured that "minor" facilitation payments remained. Under section 70.4 of the federal Criminal Code Act 1995, a person is not guilty of bribery "if the value of the benefit was of a minor nature" and if the transaction was about "expediting or securing the performance of a routine government action of a minor nature". The person doing the transaction is required to keep records. It is not clear what exactly is meant by "minor." The Criminal Code and the ITA Act do not state exactly how much a payment needs to be to earn this classification. The explanatory memorandum that came with the ITA Act said that the term minor applies "only to comparatively small payments, while at the same time overcoming the practical difficulty of specifying a monetary threshold". The idea is that these are for routine transactions, such as getting phones connected or visas granted.

On the other hand, the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act gives a clear and unambiguous definition. The areas for minor payments are obtaining permits, licences, or other official documents; processing governmental papers, such as visas and work orders; providing police protection, mail pick-up and delivery; providing phone services, power and water supply, loading and unloading cargo, or protecting perishable products; and scheduling inspections associated with contract performance or transit of goods across the country.

I guess that in Australia, a 500 baht gift certificate for a policeman might not be considered a bribe if one kept records and/or didn't try to get a tax deduction. What one might have to pay to get an Australian visa for a Thai BF is also not clear.

If Thailand is the "third world", what do you call Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, Angola, Guinea, etc., etc?

And for your information, Colonel dear, not even the US out-and-out prohibits gifts to police officers. I've just checked the policies of a number of large city police forces, and they all go pretty much as follows:

"According to department policy, Police Department employees are prohibited from accepting gifts from criminal suspects, any person of ill repute, and persons whose vocations may profit from information obtained from the department."

So if my new year's gift to the hard-working guy on the corner is not corruption in the US, I hardly think it would be categorized as such in Thailand.

And don't bother making any "person of ill repute" cracks -- that's far too obvious, even for you.

And for your information, Colonel dear, not even the US out-and-out prohibits gifts to police officers. I've just checked the policies of a number of large city police forces, and they all go pretty much as follows:

"According to department policy, Police Department employees are prohibited from accepting gifts from criminal suspects, any person of ill repute, and persons whose vocations may profit from information obtained from the department."

So if my new year's gift to the hard-working guy on the corner is not corruption in the US, I hardly think it would be categorized as such in Thailand.

And don't bother making any "person of ill repute" cracks -- that's far too obvious, even for you.

British man facing trial commits suicide

A British man committed suicide shortly before he was due to appear in court to face charges of sexually molesting a child....

He was lying on the bed in shorts but shirtless, his wrists and ankles handcuffed together and his head covered with a plastic bag. There was no trace of a struggle in the room.


Rather bizarre way to go. Having seen this method report several times, one wonders how completely voluntary this was.


www.pattayamail.com/current/news.shtml (http://www.pattayamail.com/current/news.shtml)

That's how it's done...you handcuff your wrists to your ankles so you can't get cold feet and pull the bag off your head before your pass out.

Anyway, he was a pedo...so who cares?

Humm, a balcony plunge might be a tad quicker.

Quicker, but messier and more painful. Bag on the head, you pass out pretty painlessly in a minute or so, and no one has to clean up a grease mark on the sidewalk.

As I've said, dear boy, the fact that you have spent your entire working life in a Third World country shows only too clearly. You can't even recognize where you are. Although the definition of what constitutes the "Third World" is open to debate, the following is as good a defintion as any - http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Trave ... World.html (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Travel/Def_Third_World.html)

As for researching what various US police forces find acceptable behavour ... the question of gifts is constantly evolving in the First World and it's only in the last ten years that major ethics and corruption investigations have started to home in on this issue. One of the characteristics of the Third World that you clearly inhabit both mentally and physically is that society is static, and nothing changes, whereas that is not the case in the First World - which is why its economic and political dominance will continue for the forseeable future

Mind you, after the US government's reaction to Cyclone Katrina there is some doubt as to where the US itself belongs (but to us Europeans that is hardly surprising)

As far as I am aware, things are not so very different in the UK. It was standard practice in my last job (even at my insignifant staff level) for suppliers to often want to take me out for lunch or dinner, offer tickets to Test Matches (cricket) and to drop off cases of wine at Christmas. I can assure you that it was not for my sintilating conversation or my wine appreciation! It was all a bribe and how business was/is done around the world. Ok, cash payments aren't as prominent but who can say that they have not paid that little bit extra to make sure that they get a plumbers attention and service that little bit quicker.

As far as I am aware, things are not so very different in the UKIt bears repeating - this is a recent trend. In the corporate world it was hastened by the Enron collapse and the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley. As far as police (in particular) and other government officials are concerned, ongoing police sorruption investigaions in various countries have resulted in a tightening of those rules - the Caesar's Wife syndrome, don't you know