How Richard Huckle ingratiated himself with Malaysians — Mahi Ramakrishnan
It was a shock to read their brief. I have done many news pieces and films on difficult subjects but this was horrifying.
Huckle was certainly cunning, manipulative and devious but he did raise a flicker of alarm wherever he went.
The people who knew and housed Huckle were uncomfortable with him hanging around children all the time. They found him creepy but continued to give him access to their homes and lives.
Even Maria’s (not her real name) family didn’t react strongly. She was only three years old when he befriended her mother in a church, got close to the family and stayed for weeks on end in her grandmother’s home.
My investigations revealed that Maria’s two other cousins were also his victims. One of Maria’s cousins told her grandmother that Huckle filmed them while they were urinating. The old woman had kept quiet not quite trusting what the little girl was telling her.
She didn’t chase Huckle out of the house when he asked to marry Maria, who was then 10 years old.
Huckle continued having access to all three girls, sexually abusing and filming them in his apartment, which he frequently changed.
Where did all these people go wrong? Why didn’t anyone listen to the children? Who do we really blame here?
The word paedophile is not a common vocabulary in Malaysia. Many children have been abused and yet there is no legal framework to look at paedophilia as an offence.
We find it difficult to comprehend the fact that this is a mental perversion and at many a time, the perpetrator may himself or herself have been a victim.
Being emotional prevents us from looking at paedophilia from a mental health standpoint, which cuts off access to counselling for both the victim and perpetrator.
We are not even matured enough to put in place regulations that make it mandatory for screening of both men and women, before they start working with children, and we are a long way off from coming up with a sex offender’s registry, which makes monitoring impossible.
Maria is a very smart girl. She is 14 years old now and lives in a shelter home. Both Angus Crawford, the BBC correspondent, and myself didn’t just want to be journalists who walked away after getting an interview.
We arranged for counselling for Maria. But it took a lot of convincing to get the owner of the shelter home to agree because she believed there was no need to bring back “bad” memories. She said Maria had forgotten her “ugly past”.
This is the second shelter home that Maria is at. She was sent to this place when the owner of the first shelter found her kissing a boy. The owner was disgusted and angry that Maria had acted “immorally”.
After much persuasion the counselling sessions were arranged. But it went bust after the first session as the counsellor was forced to sit in a corner on the driveway. There were other curious children who tried to listen in on the conversation. Maria, who was willing to seek help, told the counsellor she didn’t want to talk to her anymore when she went for the second session.
I have already lost Maria’s trust because I promised her the counselling sessions would be private and in a safe space.
She has been betrayed one too many times by the people who were supposed to keep her protected. She told her father about the sexual abuse by Huckle. He told her to keep quiet. When he went to prison following a fight, Maria didn’t think about telling anyone else because her family members found Huckle to be caring and funny.
She knew no one would believe her.
Maria and her cousins have no access to counselling now because the family and the owner of the shelter home do not understand the gravity of the problem, despite me explaining about the thousands of photos and videos on the dark net.
They believe the children would grow out of it, without any scar.
Maria has no access to any form of skills training because the owner of the shelter does not believe in allowing the children to go out of the home. Her plan for Maria is to marry her off when she turns 18.
Maybe, just maybe her family and caretaker would have understood about counselling and creating a safe environment for the children if we had talked openly about paedophilia, if we had proper legal and mental health framework and if there is an ongoing social campaign to educate and create awareness.
Maria’s family members are now terrified that the media would come to know of her identity and that of her cousins. I assured them I would not divulge any information.
And I will keep my promise for I owe Maria and her cousins that much, at the very least.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
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