ANDREW DRUMMOND, BANGKOK,
June 20 2012
A Briton, who was accused of child sexual abuse in Thailand, then acquitted at a trial in Bangkok, is suing the Serious Organised Crime Agency for damages after successfully taking action against the SUN newspaper.
George Stanley Gibbs was deported from Thailand on visa irregularities but was acquitted of child sexual abuse. He sued the SUN and is understood to have received a £70,000 pay out. He is now suing SOCA, reports the Press Gazette in London.
Gibbs, a retired musician, says The Sun wrongly claimed he was a paedophile after SOCA supplied the paper with his name and passport photo.
The article led him to fear for his life, he says, claiming the false allegations had caused him distress, anxiety and humiliation.
News Group Newspapers (NGN) later accepted the allegation was untrue and agreed to publish a correction and pay the damages to Gibbs. He is now wants to make a statement in open court claiming SOCA breached his human rights.
Gibbs, 67, now living on Merseyside, was targeted in a world-wide operation against child sexual abusers and put under surveillance in Pattaya. SOCA was working with the Thai Police Women and Children’s Department.
Two Swedes were arrested at the same time. In this case Warina Punyawan the editor of the Pattaya Daily News reported some Machiavellian activity surrounding the bailing of one of the defendants involving alleged cash payments to a judge. The activities behind the scenes, said, Warina, cast a ‘cloud of collective gloom’ over the Thai justice system.
The Press Gazette reports that SOCA replied to his solicitors in March 2012 saying he had recently been charged with possessing indecent images, and querying how these criminal proceedings would impact on his civil claim.
“Gibbs says he had not been charged with any offence, and that the suggestion he had been was extremely upsetting and distressing. SOCA, he argues, has never apologised or retracted the allegations,” reported the Press Gazette.
Many years ago I made the decision that I would never babysit children or be alone with them at any time. At that time there was a rash of cases in the UK where 70 or 80 years old men were being hunted down in the courts for sex offences which happened many years before. One thing which surprised me at the time was that all these old men pleaded guilty. Knowing old people and aware of their various memory/dementia type problems, I often wondered if everything was gospel. In more than one case, the man was released after the "victim" retracted their statements, but the damage was done. Many newspapers in the UK jumped on the paedophilia bandwagon, many cases were genuine, but I wondered about all these old men pleading guilty, first time in couert etc. So here we have another man whose life was destroyed by the SUN, aided and abetted by the Serious Organised Crimes Agency. For those who are unaware, these guys are like the Secret Service of UK policing and nothing is allowed to stand in their way.
Although UK papers can be made to print an retraction and apology, it is usually to be found near the Classified Ads section.
SOCA is neither secret nor a service. It is a multi resourced, inter disciplinary agency set up as a non departmental public body within the Home Office. It's tasked with tackling serious crime utilising the powers shared by the police,HMRC,CEOP,CPS,the intelligence services and the UKBA. It will soon be absorbed into the new National Crime Agency ( a quasi FBI ) expected to be operational from 2013. They have no new powers as such and operate judicially in exactly the same way as any enforcement body under the existing rule of law.
Talk of " nothing can stand in their way " is gibberish.
Westerby: That seems to have summed it up quite well. Some are taken from police as well btw. Just how all these guys get on together is quite interesting and may account for the new body.