An Insight Into Filipino Justice .....

THIS IS REPRODUCED FROM ANOTHER SITE....

I MAKE NO COMMENT AS TO THE STORY BELOW, I DID KNOW THE GUY IN PASSING WHEN I LIVED THERE, AND HE, TO MY ESTIMATION, WAS NOT ANYMORE THAN ANY OTHER SEX-ORIENTED EXPAT I MET IN MY TIME IN THE PHILLIPINES, YOUNG GIRLS SURE, BUT NOT A PEDO.

THE STORY THOUGH, GIVES AN INSIGHT INTO THE CORRUPTION AND POLICE MENTALITY ... A STORY MANY CAN DUPLICATE IN OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES.

AS THEY SAY, HE WITH THE PESOS HAS THE SAY SO ....

I was surprised in mid-September to see a news report on the TV in Ireland about the case against Barry Edwards being dismissed. I was more surprised that many people in Angeles City hadn't heard this news that was rebroadcast half a world away almost every hour, all day long.

RETIRED math teacher Barry Edwards has walked free from court in the Philippines, despite local police claiming they had video evidence of him abusing children. Police said they found Edwards in his bedroom with a 14-year-old girl and claim in his possession was a box of photographs and videos of him abusing underage girls.

Some of the video footage was even aired on television in the Philippines. The trial collapsed after a key witness failed to turn up to the trial, and video evidence was not submitted by the prosecution. Edwards was tracked down by anti-pedophile campaigner Father Shay Cullen, who claimed he had to pay police to assist him. Edwards denies the charges against him and says he has been framed by the police.

As of mid-September 2006, all charges against Barry have been dismissed. Barry has rarely commented on the case publicly, on the advice of his lawyers, since several of the interviews he did grant to various media outlets (BBC, Reuters, GMA-7 TV) were heavily edited and presented a rather biased, sensationalist point-of-view.

The info below was originally post by Big Al on the adult members site Asian Escapades http://www.asianescapades.com/ On 11 October Barry gave a copy of the comments below.

Here, then, are Barry's own comments and replies (in brackets, [ ]) to some of the statements and accusations that, to date, have gone unanswered and uncontested:

__________________________________________________ _______________

(1) On 24 July 2003, Barry Edwards trawled the bars on Fields looking for under-age girls [BE had not been to a bar for three days]

(2) He took three girls back to his hotel [Around 4 pm, three girls knocked on his apartment door, uninvited and unexpected. Two of them, E and R, he knew slightly as well-known street (that is, not from the bar) prostitutes. The third girl, M, he had never seen before. All three have since become notorious for set-ups]

(3) He raped M while E and R waited in another room for their turn to be raped [E and R asked him to give M money for sex. He said no but after a hard-luck story agreed to talk to her. E and R waited outside (below) with the police.]

(4) The police caught him in bed with M, aged 14. [After only about 5 minutes, he answered a knock and stepped outside, fully clothed, onto the walkway, where squatted R. Two men in ordinary clothes jumped on him from behind the door. He threw them off and called out for security. A third man, also in ordinary clothes, put his gun to BE's head and said "Let us in or I'll kill you." A dozen hotel staff finishing duty witnessed this from below.]

(5) A sex video featuring the girl E was showing "in plain view on a TV" [A complete invention and a coincidence worthy of Doctor Zhivago and a belief in fairies.]

(6) Many "sex videos" were found in the apartment [The police, who had not announced themselves as such and forgot in their excitement to arrest BE, had no arrest warrant and no search warrant. Many things were stolen from the apartment, such as TVs, a DVD player, a very pornographic electric fan (which even appears on the official list!) shoes and clothes (some of which were given to the girls!) through to about 200 pounds in cash (which strangely did not appear on the list).]

(7) BE was the center of a gang supplying Europe with "sex videos" [A fantasy from a repressed mind. Tens of thousands of people around the world make films of their love-making with a consensual partner. These are private and nobody else's business.]

(8) Thousands of "pornographic" photos of women were found. [Many normal remembrance photos were stolen. Millions of people around the world take glamour photos of willing models. Normal heterosexual men get pleasure from seeing an attractive female body nude. It is not "dirty" and no big deal. When private it is, again, nobody else's business; when commercial, such things are freely available in supermarkets and other places in the Philippines, where there is, in fact, no legal definition of "pornography".]

(9) BE faced charges of Pedophilia [The three charges were of rape (which then carried the death penalty) with all three girls, on separate occasions. They were dismissed at preliminary hearing. This was because the charges were preposterous, and there was no evidence of rape nor interest (by the girls) in pursuing them.]

(10) BE escaped justice by bribing the police to drop the case. [It was not an option for the police; the case was in court! In fact, soon after the dismissals, they were so frustrated that they raised new charges, using the same incident and personnel, completely at the other end of the scale. These were of "being in the company of a minor...in a public or private place" (amazing that such a bad law--Political Correctness gone mad, since its only logic is the presumption of an intended crime in a person's head--can exist) and "showing pornography to minors". Unlike rape charges, these are bailable.]

(11) He then ran away and hid. [BE lived openly in Puerta Galera for ten months and visited Angeles several times.]

(12) Expeditions to Palawan and Boracay failed to find him. [A simple message to his lawyer that new charges were extant was all that was needed for him to report to the Court.]

(13) A dramatic operation by fearless channel GMA 7, re-arrested him. [Melodramatic, unnecessary, and a waste of public money, but providing scenic footage for TV.]

(14) The last trial ended in a fiasco of provisional dismissal of all three charges on 14 September 2006. [It was the Prosecution case that was a fiasco. From June 2004 to September 2006 there were 42 Hearings over 27 months, all of which BE attended.
At only 3 did any business take place--the central witness, M, twice gave evidence for 5 minutes: it was so confused and contradictory (and obviously coached) that the judge ordered a site inspection of the apartment. It took 8 attempts to do this. Later, M repeatedly failed to turn up and her supposed mother told the court that she did not want to testify. She was at this time operating openly as a pick-up girl around Santos Street and twice stayed at BE's hotel with different men. The judge had the three policemen subpoenaed to give evidence, but three times they too failed to appear.]

Additionally, Barry had this to say:

Eventually, the judge announced that the defendant too had rights, including that of a speedy trial. It was clear that the prosecution had nothing to offer.

These set-ups are regular occurrences in Angeles but they are not intended to appear in the media or become trials. The foreigner victim, once a girl is inveigled into his room, is expected to open the door in a towel then, when told he is trouble, to hand over P50,000 or so and quietly leave the country. This one seems to have been bungled and the victim (BE) stood up to it.
He is still doing so despite a "Trial by Media" which is no less than a perversion of justice and a contempt for the Judicial Process.
How can it be lawful to hand over alleged evidence--illegally obtained-- to TV channels and NGOs who have nothing to do with the proceedings beyond their presumptuous, arrogant, bigoted and self-appointed importance?
This pressure on the Court is a ghastly and ugly mixture of political correctness, malice, sanctimonious prurience and sensationalism, in order to push political agendas and gain a gullible audience. Fair-minded people should oppose it and support due process.