Police to question Orphanage paedophile over rape claim

By Darren Devine A LIFELONG friend of paedophile Nick Griffin has told Wales on Sunday she became suspicious after he took a teenage boy who has since accused him of rape on a camping trip alone. Janet De Selincourt allowed Griffin to live on the trout farm she one ran in North Wales and spoke out after we revealed the teenager’s allegations last week. Following our exclusive story, North Wales Police have also promised to quiz Griffin, 53, about the alleged two-year campaign of abuse against a teenager in the Llangollen area when he is released from jail in Cambodia. The orphanage-founder is serving a year behind bars for abusing boys younger than 15 at his charity institution in South East Asia. Mrs De Selincourt, 69, admitted that despite her suspicions about Griffin she has written to him in Cambodia and will stand by him because “a friend is a friend”. She said: “I know he’s been convicted, but I find it very difficult to believe what I’ve heard. “I did write to him. I sent a letter to the British Embassy in Cambodia and enclosed a birthday card for him. “In the birthday card I said: ‘We’re with you all the way whatever.’ A friend is a friend regardless.” Mrs De Selincourt has known Griffin since the mid 1980s when he became her lodger in Addlestone, Surrey. In the early 1990s Griffin went to live in Shepherd’s Bush, London, where he set up his own business and employed Mrs De Selincourt’s daughter. In 1996 Mrs De Selincourt came to Glyn Ceiriog, near Llangollen, to run the Upper Mill’s trout farm. About two years later Griffin joined her in North Wales, from where he ran the Ives Management Services property firm, met his alleged Welsh victim and became a scout leader. The alleged victim last week told Wales on Sunday Griffin wormed his way into his confidence for two years before abusing him for two years between the ages of 13 and 15. The man, who is now 23, has since been convicted of possessing child porn and is on the sex offenders’ register. But Mrs De Selincourt said despite her unease over the camping trip she is certain the alleged victim was never abused at the trout farm. She said: “There was nothing going on at the house – I can guarantee that. “There was one occasion when I sort of didn’t like the idea that Nick had gone camping (with the boy). But I wasn’t (the boy’s) mother. His mother and father were the people who had the say.” When the police began looking into the allegation in 2009 she told them the alleged victim slept on the floor in Griffin’s room only once at the trout farm. The alleged victim told WoS last week he originally complained to police about the abuse in 2004, but his allegation was not properly investigated. A spokesperson for the force confirmed they had been investigating since 2009, but said there was no record of a complaint going back to 2004. Detective Inspector Arwyn Jones said they hoped to arrest and interview Griffin once he is released from his Cambodian jail. The pervert will be thrown out of the country he left for in 2006 once he is released in about 12 months’ time. Cops here will immediately arrest him if he returns to the UK or goes to a country with which there is an extradition treaty in place. Mr Arwyn Jones said the force had been in regular contact with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOPS) throughout the investigation. North Wales Police put Griffin on the police national computer as a wanted man before being told by CEOPS he was under investigation in South East Asia. Mr Arwyn Jones added: “The enquiry will be pursued and brought to a conclusion once Griffin is released from custody.”