Richard Huckle, who was given 22 life sentences after pleading guilty to abusing babies and young children, boasted about kissing a girl in a newly revealed diary
Britain’s worst paedophile, who backpacked around the world preying on youngsters in Asia, has admitted that he kissed a ‘little girl’ while he was working as a Sunday school teacher in Britain.
Sex tourist Richard Huckle, who was given 22 life sentences after pleading guilty to abusing babies and young children, boasted about the assault in his diary.
‘I’ve been given my own Sunday School class,’ he wrote. ‘The kids have really taken to me as their giant playmate. I got a kiss from a little girl.
‘I went to stay with the pastor and got to know his boys.’
Huckle’s admission was uncovered by BBC journalist Bronagh Munro, who has made a documentary about the former poster boy for the British Council in Malaysia.
She obtained the diary for BBC Three’s Gap Year Paedophile during a year-long investigation into the 31-year-old former grammar school boy from Kent.
Retired police officer James Gamble, who resigned as head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre after it was merged with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, called for a new investigation into Huckle.
‘He was absolutely prolific,’ he told the programme. ‘I would be shocked if there were no victims of his in this country.
Huckle’s(left) admission was uncovered by BBC journalist Bronagh Munro,(right) who has made a documentary about the former poster boy for the British Council in Malaysia
‘If you were to really focus on him – and had the resources to focus in depth on him for a significant period of time – there would be more.
‘I would say that within the next ten to 15 years, other young people, who are young now and who were abused by Huckle, will come forward.’
Huckle was a 19-year-old gap year student when he arrived in Malaysia in 2005.
But, instead of returning to Britain at the end of his gap year, to go to university, he remained in the Far East for nearly a decade.
During that time, he worked as an English teacher, infiltrating impoverished communities, targeting care homes and orphanages, filming himself raping babies and children and awarding himself ‘Pedo Points’ for his depravity.
Huckle was a 19-year-old gap year student when he arrived in Malaysia in 2005
But, according to Ann Jones, who worked for World Challenge, the organisation which arranged his gap year, first in a local school and later as a Sunday school teacher, his reign of terror could have been stopped.
She revealed that she had informed the vicar that parents had been complaining about his behaviour and insisted they fired him and sent him back to England.
But a week later they re-employed him, making him feel untouchable.
‘I didn’t like him,’ she said. ‘There was something about him that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
‘I couldn’t put a finger on it. He always looked dishevelled. He always looked dirty.
‘He just had a really bad attitude. I actually felt he was going to be trouble from the beginning and he was.’
According to Jones, Huckle wanted to work at an orphanage but mercifully they were unable to take him. Instead she placed him in a local school, where he began posting ‘disrespectful’ remarks about a fellow challenger.
Gap Year Paedophile goes live on BBC Three at 10am Monday. Pictured: Reporter Bronagh Munro
Finally, after he told her that he was a committed Christian, she found him a new placement at a church.
By October he was working as a Sunday school teacher but soon began causing concern.
‘Very soon after Huckle was placed there we had a complaint from a parent about Huckle smacking their child,’ Jones revealed.
‘I believe ‘he was smacking children’ was the phrase that was used and that he was manhandling them out of the classroom, physically removing them. He also was, I guess, a little violent towards some of them.
Huckle worked as an English teacher, infiltrating impoverished communities, targeting care homes and orphanages
‘There was no way Huckle could continue. I met with one of the elders, the pastor and his wife.
‘Their request was that he be removed. We set up a meeting and Huckle was called into the meeting.
‘I asked him to leave the Gap Challenge programme, to pack his bags and to remove himself from the area and to organise an immediate flight home to the UK.’
However, a week later, unbeknown to Jones, Huckle was reinstated. ‘I’m incredibly angry,’ she said. ‘Very upset. In many ways I feel responsible for those children.’
- Gap Year Paedophile goes live on BBC Three at 10am Monday.