Thread: Sgt Kevin Welch’s child porn shame

Sgt Kevin Welch’s child porn shame
Saturday 14th March 2009


Sgt Kevin Welch shields his face with his jacket after being handcuffed and led from court to a prison van

AN “outstanding” York soldier went straight from the Afghanistan front line to Thailand to mix with paedophiles, York Crown Court heard.

Police found hard-core child porn on Sgt Kevin Welch’s private computer in the sergeants’ mess at Imphal Barracks and unearthed his membership of an internet child sex ring. Now the 37-year-old NCO who made the Army his life so he could bury the memory of suffering child abuse himself, is starting eight months in jail, with his career in ruins. “I simply do not understand in this case why, when you were on leave from Afghanistan, you chose to contact the very men who are putting this vile material on the internet,” the Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, said after reading references from serving officers that described Welch as a “quite outstanding soldier”.

Welch, of 2nd Signals Regiment, pleaded guilty to 15 charges of downloading child porn from the internet, one of taking a picture of a Thailand-based paedophile in a suggestive pose with a boy, and one of possessing child porn computer images. He was jailed for eight months, placed on the sex offenders’ register and made the subject of a sexual offences prevention order, both for ten years, and banned indefinitely from working with children. A Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesman said: “All those who are found to fall from the Army’s high standards or who are found to have committed offences under the Army Act are dealt with administratively up to and including discharge or through the disciplinary process as appropriate.”

Matthew Bean, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said the Child Exploitation And Online Protection Centre tipped off the MoD about Welch’s activities. Police found 482 child porn images including 239 hard-core photos on his computer. Many had been deleted. They also found photos Welch had taken in Thailand in September 2007 when he visited the paedophiles behind a Belgian child porn website. Welch had joined the website and got to know fellow members. Several different agencies are investigating the Thailand-based paedophile ring.

For Welch, Adrian Strong said that for years he had buried his homosexuality and the abuse he suffered himself as a boy and devoted himself to the Army. Then he had gone on the internet to try to deal with his past.

The court heard that since his sex crimes became public knowledge, he had received death threats.

He had also tried to kill himself, partly to save the Army embarrassment.

thepress.co.uk

takes all types, doesnt it?

Originally Posted by Mid

Several different agencies are investigating the Thailand-based paedophile ring.

more good news for thailand's image

Thailand: Hub of paedophilia.

^ Fact



. . . and probably true

Originally Posted by EmperorTud

Thailand: Hub of paedophilia.

Very, very true.

Interesting how the US & UK police forces are able to extradite pedophiles with relatively little fuss & bother, to stand trial in their home country.

Contrast this to the Dutch pedophile Ceesthai who is still active in the Mukdahan region. It is beginning to look like certain governments manage such matters differently to others. No wonder there are so many Dutch & Belgian pedophiles in Thailand - there seems to be no contest.