A court hearing for a suspected Australian pedophile in Cambodia has been delayed because authorities cannot figure out how to access the hundreds of pornographic photos that are allegedly on his computer, a court official said yesterday.
"We cannot see anything. So we're trying to get an expert at the interior ministry to look at it," said an unnamed municipal court official as Damien Walker's court hearing was postponed until later that day.
Walker, 26, was arrested after the Non-Governmental Organization Action Pour les Enfants (Action for Children) tipped off police that he had fondled the genitals of at least six young boys.
The former Christian school teacher is also accused of taking obscene photos of the boys, aged 11 to 14, as well as snaps of himself and his alleged victims in sexually explicit poses, police said.
Walker is expected to be formally charged with debauchery, which covers some child sex offenses.
If convicted, he faces a lengthy prison sentence amid a wider Cambodian crackdown on foreign sex criminals.
Walker spent some of his time in the capital Phnom Penh teaching at the Light of Hope Children's Village, a school for orphaned and abandoned children run by Christian education group International Children's Care Australia, based in Warragul, Victoria.
ICC Australia director Merilyn Beveridge said yesterday that Walker had only worked for the group for "a couple of months" before the arrangement ended.
Beveridge said the organization was "in shock" after hearing of the allegations.
"We were not confident in his work and so he left us before the middle of the year and came back to Australia, and subsequently we have learned he returned to Cambodia to work," Beveridge said.
"He didn't seem to fit in well with the people there. He seemed more friendly with the kids than with the adults, but we did not feel untoward about that happening," she continued.
"He didn't like to follow the rule that no adult should be with children without the supervision of a leader," she added.
Walker had first arrived in Cambodia in February and had been in the country again for three months before being arrested, said Keo Thea, deputy chief of the police anti-human trafficking unit.
Beatrice Magnier, country director of Action Pour les Enfants, said Wednesday that they tipped police off after having monitored Walker for around two weeks, during which they interviewed his alleged victims, who she said were all street children.
At least 22 other foreigners have been jailed or deported to face trial in their home countries for child sex crimes since 2003 as Cambodia attempts to clean up its image as a haven for pedophiles.
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