Source:
https://scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3033394/philippines-justice-slow-british-paedophile
Post Magazine/ Long Reads

British paedophile Douglas Slade’s victims in the Philippines still waiting for justice

  • Slade abused young boys in the Philippines for decades and repeatedly paid his way out of trouble.
  • Now, in a landmark ruling, he has been ordered by the British High Court to pay US$162,000 in compensation
British paedophile Douglas Slade was ordered to pay five Filippino victims US$162,000 in compensation. They are still waiting. Photo: Shutterstock

The boys running around the neighbourhood in grubby shorts and flip-flops called it the “magic door” – a plain metal gate in the garden wall of a friendly foreign businessman, whose incongruously grand two-storey home stood opposite their primary school in Angeles City, in the Philippines.

From a wicker chair on his first-floor balcony, overlook­ing the school’s playground, the British businessman would shout greetings to passing youngsters as they filed out of class in the afternoons, throwing down sweets and bars of chocolate, enticing selected boys into his house with the promise of money and more treats.

Children would queue excitedly outside the property’s perimeter wall until the grey-haired, obese white man shuffled downstairs and appeared at the gate, which opened only from the inside, and ushered in three or four boys at a time. What lay inside, however, was anything but magical. Rather, it was the stuff of nightmares – horrors that haunt those boys to this day.

Over a period of almost 10 years at that address alone, he abused scores of children, brazenly paying off police and victims, donating money to the school to stifle any threat of prosecution before the determined work of a child welfare group finally saw him arrested and deported to Britain, in 2015. Then, in December last year, in a landmark ruling with implications for foreign sex offenders across Southeast Asia, he was ordered by the High Court in London to pay £127,000 (US$162,350) in compensation to five of the boys lured into his house in Angeles City and abused.

A child walks past the “magic door” of Douglas Slade’s house in Angeles City, in the Philippines. Photo: Red Door News
A child walks past the “magic door” of Douglas Slade’s house in Angeles City, in the Philippines. Photo: Red Door News

But in a series of interviews with the victims and their families, as well as investigators who helped snare one of the most prolific and remorseless paedophiles of modern times, Post Magazine has discovered that justice has been unforgivably slow to arrive, and the victims have received only a fraction of the compensation they were awarded.

The man behind the “magic door” was Douglas Slade, now 78, and the most cursory of online searches by anyone concerned would have identified him as a danger to chil­dren from the moment he arrived in the neighbourhood.

A serial child abuser, Slade was at the forefront of a move­­ment to legalise child sex in Britain in the 1970s, branded one of the “vilest men” in the country when an organi­sation of which he was a member, Paedophile Action for Liberation, was exposed by a Sunday newspaper more than 40 years ago. The Sunday People’s investigation caught him telling fellow deviants at a meeting: “If you want to have sex with children, don’t bottle it up – do it.” His group, and another with which he was closely associated, Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), openly campaigned for legal sex between adults and children and counted a certain Jimmy Savile among its supporters.

In an era of shocking complacency over child sex offen­ces, PIE successfully allied itself to Britain’s burgeoning gay rights movement, won support from advocacy group the National Council for Civil Liberties and senior politicians and even received government funding for its activities before it was exposed.

His movement in disgrace, Slade emigrated to the Philippines in 1985 and set up a food import business in Angeles City, distributing meat to restaurants and hotels across northern Luzon, earning a sizeable fortune in the process in a country where rampant corruption allowed him to indulge his interest in underage boys.

Arrogant and overbearing, the 140kg widower operated with ruthless and shameless impunity. In 1995, he was arrested at a previous residence in Angeles City for allegedly molesting three boys aged around 12. He denied the charges and claimed he had given the boys only “grandfatherly kisses”.

Slade, in the Bicutan immigration detention centre, in Manila, where he was held for months before being deported to Britain, in 2015. Photo: Red Door News
Slade, in the Bicutan immigration detention centre, in Manila, where he was held for months before being deported to Britain, in 2015. Photo: Red Door News

After a court appearance over the allegations, Slade was filmed boasting to an undercover television reporter from London that he could pay off prosecutors or pay the children’s families to withdraw the charges, saying his lawyer would discuss terms with the families “like Michael Jackson discussed terms”.

He was released on bail and the charges were dropped, leaving Slade, originally from Aylesbury, in Buckingham­shire, central England, to continue running his food business, Homebase.

Around 2005, Slade built his two-storey villa overlook­ing Angeles City’s Amsic Elementary School – for children aged eight to 12 – where, over the next decade, he would lure boys into his home and make them perform sex acts in return for sweets, chocolates and money.

A neighbour, Cassidy Medina, told me in an interview just before Slade’s arrest in December 2014 that the Briton gave money to the school whose pupils he preyed on, paying for a new entrance gate.

“Children around here are poor and hungry and they went there because he gave them food and toys and money,” the then-42-year-old Medina said. “Some of the parents didn’t know what their children were doing. Some of them knew but they didn’t care.”

Slade’s house overlooking Amsic Elementary School. Photo: Red Door News
Slade’s house overlooking Amsic Elementary School. Photo: Red Door News

The school’s deputy principal, who asked not to be named, confirmed that Slade was a benefactor who gave money to support the school, and when asked about the allegations against him insisted, “In our school, we have not received any complaints.”

By the end of 2014, however, the law was finally catching up with Slade, as child welfare groups, including the Preda Foundation, run by missionary Father Shay Cullen, began gathering evidence of his assaults. Earlier that year, Slade had already been arrested and bailed after pornographic images of boys were found on his computer.

One of his final victims would be the then-10-year-old Christian (not his real name), who Slade picked from a line-up of boys outside his house and molested five times in the weeks leading up to his December arrest.

“The first time I went to his house,” Christian told me, “he gave me 500 pesos [about HK$75]. Then he gave me 150 pesos every time I visited after that. Two or three boys would visit each time.”

Slade would sit the boys in front of a giant television set in his living room to settle in, then make them take baths with him in the adjacent bathroom. Sometimes he would take them to the shops and a fast-food restaurant before taking them home, where he had video cameras fitted to the wall in both the living room and bedroom to film the abuse.

Father Shay Cullen (second from left) with colleagues at the Preda Foundation. Photo: Red Door News
Father Shay Cullen (second from left) with colleagues at the Preda Foundation. Photo: Red Door News

“Mr Douglas told us to do things to him and he told us we had to do it right because it was all going on video,” Christian recalled. “He had a shotgun hanging on the wall of his bedroom and a handgun that he kept on his bed. He showed us the guns before we left the house and told us not to report what happened to anyone and to keep it a secret, otherwise he said something would happen to us. I was very scared.”

The threats were underscored by a sinister sign on the front door of Slade’s house that read: “Warning: Trespassers will be shot! Survivors will be shot again and again.”

One day that December, Christian was passing Slade’s house when the Briton emerged from the back door and tried to grab him and drag him inside. “I was frightened and I bit his arm and ran back home,” Christian said. “When I got home, I was afraid he would come after me with his gun.”

When he tearfully told his mother what had happened, she reported Slade to the police, who raided his house on December 26, confiscating his computer containing scores of videos of the assaults.

“Mr Douglas is still in my dreams when I am sleeping,” said Christian. “In my dreams, he is grabbing me and trying to drag me into his house.”

A sign on the front door of Slade’s house. Photo: Red Door News
A sign on the front door of Slade’s house. Photo: Red Door News

Two days after Slade attempted to grab Christian, alerted to the situation by the Preda Foundation, I confronted Slade as he sat in his balcony chair overlooking the school play­ground. When I asked to speak to him about the allegations, he shouted down at me: “The more I say the worse it gets […] Nothing good ever comes of talking to journalists. I’ve been bothered by a***holes like you for 35 years.”

As I took photos of him from the street between his home and the school, he bellowed, “I don’t want my picture in the papers. I’m 73 years old. You’re an evil b*****d,” before storming back into the house.

He was arrested four days later.

Slade would spend nine months in the Bicutan immi­gration detention centre, in Manila, bragging to fellow inmates that he would escape justice by getting a connec­ting flight to Cyprus as soon as he touched down in London.

“Slade hardly ever stopped talking and boasted about having many influential political friends in the Philippines and the UK who would help him out,” said one fellow detainee at the time. “He claimed he was good pals with Cyril Smith [the British politician against who, after his death in 2010, numerous allegations of child sexual abuse emerged] in the 1970s and 1980s and that he would regularly go sailing with him.”

Slade bellows from his balcony at journalist Simon Parry days before his arrest in December 2014. Photo: Red Door News
Slade bellows from his balcony at journalist Simon Parry days before his arrest in December 2014. Photo: Red Door News

But Slade had run out of both luck and influential friends. He was deported in 2015 and, in 2016, Slade was jailed for 24 years for a string of sex-abuse offences in Britain between the 60s and 80s. His deportation meant he would never face trial for any of his offences during his three decades in the Philippines. Before his arrest, 33 boys aged eight to 15, all living within half a kilometre of Slade’s home, lodged police complaints against him.

“We believe there are probably many more victims,” said Trinidad Maneja, of Manila-based Ecpat Philippines, another anti-child-abuse group that helped collect evidence against Slade after his arrest. “It was going on for years and the community was silent about what was happening.

“This is a very poor area and parents here allowed their children to go there. They knew Slade was abusing them but they are in denial. They do not understand the terrible psychological effect these attacks have on children.”

And that is where the story might have ended – Slade effectively jailed for the rest of his life in Britain, leaving behind the scores of boys he had abused in a poor suburb of Angeles City as the police, teachers and parents who should have protected them looked the other way.

But last year, the Preda Foundation engaged British law firm Hugh James to seek civil damages in the High Court in London on behalf of Christian and four other abused boys who had agreed to come forward. Lawyer Alan Collins flew to the Philippines to take the boys’ statements. A hearing was held at which the five gave evidence by video link.

10-year-old “Christian” at a police station in Angeles City giving a statement against Slade soon after he was abused by him. Photo: Red Door News
10-year-old “Christian” at a police station in Angeles City giving a statement against Slade soon after he was abused by him. Photo: Red Door News

Their testimony was compelling and horrifying, detail­ing the sordid acts they were forced to perform and the sexually transmitted diseases Slade had passed on to them. One of the boys, Joshua (not his real name), was 13 when Slade invited him into his home with other boys and abused him on three occasions, giving him 150 pesos each time.

“After the information about Slade and what he did to me came out I was bullied at school and I needed therapy to help me recover from the abuse,” he testified. “I was called Boy Douglas [at school].”

The High Court judge ordered Slade to pay compensa­tion ranging from £20,000 to £35,000 to his victims – a total of £127,000 – plus costs. The highest award went to a victim abused by Slade from the age of 10 over a four-year period from 2009 to 2013.

Collins said the case was the first of its kind in which sex-abuse victims from abroad had been able to sue their attacker through the British courts. “The decision creates a welcome avenue for victims of sex tourism to hold their abusers to account, and is a warning to travelling sex offenders that their illegal actions are not immune from the reach of the English courts.”

Describing the ruling as a “great victory”, Cullensays he hopes it will encourage more victims of sex abuse in Southeast Asia to pursue their tormentors overseas, even if prosecutions against them have not been completed in their own countries. He also hopes more foreign govern­ments will help bring offending nationals to justice.

The problem is so many paedophiles from Europe, America and Australia come to the Philippines and sexually abuse boys and girls with impunity Father Shay Cullen, Preda Foundation

“The problem is so many paedophiles from Europe, America and Australia come to the Philippines and sexually abuse boys and girls with impunity,” Cullen says. “Some are convicted paedophiles in their own countries and should be stopped from leaving, as they do in Australia.

“It is vital that all paedophiles are convicted for child abuse but it is also important to file civil cases and sue them for compensation for the terrible crimes they have committed. We would appeal to everyone to report abuse and for governments to assign a federal police officer to investigate their nationals who are abusing children in the Philippines.”

On a stiflingly hot autumn afternoon in Angeles City, the five victims of Slade who won the High Court case in London gathered to meet me in the simple single-storey home of one of their fathers, a rickshaw driver, to reflect on the events of the past year. Besides Christian – the youngest of the five – the others are in their late teens and early 20s, their shat­tered childhoods now behind them but far from forgotten.

Nevertheless, they remain boyish, excitable and almost euphoric as they pose happily together and describe the experience of testifying by video link against Slade and seeing their tormentor behind bars. “I felt happy when I gave evidence against him,” one of them says, “because I wasn’t afraid of him any more and happy because he is in prison where he belongs.”

“I had to leave school because I was so affected by what happened,” says another. “I work as a waiter now. I still remember what happened and feel very angry about what Mr Douglas did to me.”

Christian, accompanied by an official from the Preda Foundation, gives evidence by video link to London’s High Court, from Angeles City. Photo: Red Door News
Christian, accompanied by an official from the Preda Foundation, gives evidence by video link to London’s High Court, from Angeles City. Photo: Red Door News

So why did only five boys come forward to seek com­pensation when 33 had complained to police of abuse? Christian’s mother explains that most of the victims accepted settlements of 50,000 pesos from Slade to drop their complaints against him, deals apparently brokered by his lawyer as he sat sweating in the Manila immigration detention centre doing every­thing he could afford to avoid deportation. “He offered us 50,000 pesos too, but we said no – we wanted justice,” Christian’s mother says.

A small measure of justice came their way this June, six months after the High Court ruling, when the London lawyers passed on 130,000 pesos to each of the five boys – roughly one-tenth of the size of the smallest of the awards.

Collins, whose firm did not charge any upfront fees for bringing the High Court action, refused to answer questions from Post Magazineabout how much money had been re­ceived from Slade so far, whether any legal fees or expenses had been withheld from the amount received, or whether the victims could expect to receive their full compensation awards at a later date.

In a series of emails, he said enforce­ment proceedings against Slade had not been completed and suggested reporting on the case could be “to the detri­ment of the boys” even though the settlement itself was reported in Britain. “I don’t want the boys hassled because folk think they have money,” he wrote in one email.

The Preda Foundation, which engaged Collins’ law firm, is understood to have so far received no statement of account and is speaking to the families to try to clarify the situation regarding the compensation payments, which Cullen still hopes they will receive in full.

The five victims of Slade who won £127,000 in compensation. Photo: Red Door News
The five victims of Slade who won £127,000 in compensation. Photo: Red Door News

It is unclear how much money Slade still has and how much money is being withheld from his victims. He still owns his house in Angeles City, according to neighbours who say it is now rented out to expatriates, and his food business in a building nearby appears to be thriving. When I visited as a customer late last month, one of its managers told me it employed 15 people and was still owned by Slade, who he said was in Britain now and “gives us instructions by phone”.

Christian’s mother is sanguine about the way things have turned out and says she is just relieved that her son, who was intensely withdrawn after being abused by Slade and ended up leaving school with few qualifications, appears to have put the worst of his ordeal behind him.

“We never wanted Slade’s money,” she says. “We just wanted justice for our children. We’re happy that he is in prison and can’t hurt any more children, but we do still hope the boys get the compensation they were awarded. It will at least help them to move on with their lives.”