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Police to seek out paedophile Huckle's victims to provide assistance
Published:  Jun 8, 2016 1:21 PM
Updated: 7:56 AM

The police will work with UK law enforcement authorities and a Malaysian ministry to locate and assist local victims of recently convicted British paedophile Richard Huckle.

"With the cooperation of the (UK) National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Women, Community and Family Development Ministry, the police will endeavour to seek out the children preyed upon by Huckle, for the purpose of providing psychological support services as well as assistance," they said in a statement.

The police appealed for the cooperation and support from all quarters in trusting it to do whatever was best for the children involved.

The police joins the Women, Community and Family Development Ministry and the Health Ministry which have declared it will seek out Huckle's local victims to provide aid.

UK authorities have already expressed their desire to cooperate with Malaysian authorities in such cases, noting that there was information flow between the authorities in both countries in the Huckle case.

In the same statement, the police said that the 22 counts of life imprisonment, with at least 25 years in jail, meted out by Judge Peter Rook, was proportionate to the crimes that Huckle had committed.

Although such a heavy sentence was rarely dispensed in serious crimes, this was deserved as Huckle had destroyed the futures of the children he preyed upon, the statement added.

Huckle came to Malaysia posing as a social worker to purportedly work with disadvantaged children in 2005. His sexual abuse of them was discovered only in recent years by UK authorities, as part of their investigation into a major paedophile site on the Dark Web.

He was convicted by the UK court on June 6 after he was arrested by UK police when he returned to England for Christmas in 2014. Huckle had admitted to 71 counts of abusing 23 children in Malaysia and Cambodia.

Also found in his possession were thousands of photos of him abusing his victims as well as a how-to manual for paedophilia, which he wrote, detailing how others could use social work in poor communities as a means to find victims.

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