Nur Jazlan: Lessons to be learned from Huckle’s case

PETALING JAYA: The successful conviction of Richard Huckle in Britain serves as a lesson on how perpetrators can be prosecuted for sex crimes even without the presence of victims to provide testimony, says Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed.

Although there are existing local laws to protect victims, including children, he said these measures may not be enough to coax reluctant witnesses to come forward.

He pointed out that the British legal system allowed its police to gather evidence which didn’t require witnesses to testify, adding that Malaysia can learn from this.

Incriminating evidence including videos and photos from Huckle’s dark web activities, Nur Jazlan said, was good enough to convict him, together with his admission of guilt.

“There was no need to identify the victims, who were in another country,” he added.

While pursuing Huckle, Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre Command conducted a detailed analysis of over 20,000 indecent images of children recovered from his cameras and computers.

This was done, according to the National Crime Agency: “To identify the time, date and locations of abuse, as well as securing enough evidence to prove who the victims were and the acts committed against them.”

Huckle was eventually charged with 71 offences, including raping a 13-year-old and the sexual assault of a baby.

Nur Jazlan said it would be good for Malaysian police to be equipped with similar resources and powers to stop online sexual predators.

This is important, particularly in the dark web that allows criminals to hide their activities via passwords, encryption and specialist software.

“There was a conviction of a sex offender (overseas) who had befriended a woman on a dating website before meeting and killing her on the first date. The evidence from his Internet activity was used against him,” said Nur Jazlan.