PAEDOPHILE TO ESCAPE JUSTICE ON THE RUN IN CAMBODIA

By Pual Bull

A Paedophile who is on the run from police in Derby remains at large abroad because British authorities have no powers to extradite him.

Former special constable Ian Bower, who lived in Ilkeston, has even faced fresh child sex charges while on the run in Cambodia, where he has been teaching English to youngsters.

But because the UK does not have an extradition agreement with the country, he has been allowed to stay in Cambodia after being cleared of the latest counts against him.

The pervert, who was sentenced in September 2004 to three years and nine months for offences against children and downloading child pornography in the UK, fled a Derby bail hostel in February last year.

Derbyshire police said he would be arrested if he ever returned to the UK because his decision to leave meant he was in breach of the terms of his prison release conditions.

The 42-year-old was arrested in Cambodia in January, on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, on suspicion of debauchery, which is the Cambodian legal term for sexual offences against children.

After being held in custody for several months, Bower was finally cleared at the end of June of abusing two boys, aged 12 and 14.

The Evening Telegraph understands that Bower, who was placed on the Sex Offenders' Register in the UK, has decided to stay in Cambodia, which will make it impossible for British police to catch him unless he is deported.

A Derbyshire police spokesman confirmed Bower was "wanted" for recall to prison for breaching his licence.

He said: "If he comes back to the UK, he will be arrested for that reason.

"With there being no formal process in place [between the UK and Cambodia], we can't force him to come back to this country."

Bower, who used to live in Ilkeston but whose last UK address was in Bramcote, Nottingham, was sentenced in 2004 for two counts of indecent assault on a male and two counts of gross indecency with a child.

He was also convicted of downloading scores of indecent images of children being sexually abused.

At his trial in 2004, the court heard that Bower had spent hours on his computer in a loft conversion office after moving in with his then girlfriend and her two children at their home in Derbyshire Drive, Ilkeston, in 1999.

The couple separated in July 2002 and police became involved in October of that year when they examined a computer found at Bower's mother's address.

They found 38 indecent images of children under the age of 16 and two films containing images of boys performing sexual acts.

Ninety one images of children were found to have been deleted from the computer but were recovered by the Computer Crime Investigation Unit.

Bower was eventually released on licence from prison on condition that he resided at the Burdett Lodge bail hostel in Bass Street, Derby.

But he went missing in February last year and, when he was arrested in Cambodia, it was discovered he had been teaching English to children in the country since April 2006.

Both the Prison Service and the Probation Service monitor an offender's release into the community.

The Probation Service has said that travel abroad is prohibited under standard licence conditions.

The Home Office has also said that sex offenders who are subject to notification requirements must tell police if they intend to travel abroad for more than three days.

A spokeswoman for the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, which acts as a focal point in tackling child abuse and monitors offenders abroad, said: "We do talk with authorities in Cambodia and non-government organisations.

"We would desire to get any individual that has gone missing from their registration back to the UK, where they can be managed appropriately within the community."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We have been asked by this individual not to discuss his case publicly and we will abide by his wishes."

An official at the Royal Embassy of Cambodia, in London, declined to comment.