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Published on October 18, 2007

A young man yesterday emerged as the first known local victim of alleged Canadian child molester Christopher Paul Neil, the subject of a global manhunt by Interpol and local police.

Speaking after an interview with police, the man, now 18, said he frequently visited Neil's room at an apartment in Bangkok's Din Daeng area four years ago. Neil performed oral sex acts on him on four occasions, paying him between Bt500 and Bt1,000 a time.

The unidentified man said he learned Neil had sex with two of his male friends, also under age at the time, and filmed these acts. The man was unaware if Neil had ever filmed him.

He said Neil let the boys play computer games in his room while he caressed them openly.

A source said the man could have been among several Asian boys recorded having sex with Neil, who then posted these images on the Internet.

According to the man, Neil hired his father, a taxi driver, to drive him around Bangkok and elsewhere. Among the places Neil visited were Patpong in Bangkok and Pattaya in Chon Buri.

A source at the Crime Suppression Division, who located the unnamed man, said another victim was currently undergoing drug rehabilitation in the South after being arrested earlier this year.

Police were trying to locate the second man to interview him.

Immigration police records show Neil flew into Bangkok last Thursday, arriving from South Korea where he worked for several years as an English teacher in Seoul.

Airport security cameras captured him and Interpol was able to match that to a photograph from Neil's website that had been digitally reconstructed by a special crimes unit in Germany.

The picture taken at the airport shows him as balding and with glasses, although previous pictures had him with more hair and no glasses. Interpol says 200 photos have circulated on the Internet, showing the man assaulting 12 different young boys.

Meanwhile, officials at Ram-khamhaeng Advent Inter-national School - a Christian school in the Hua Mark area - said Neil taught there from August 2003 to January 2004.

"He didn't pass probation," said Poramit Srikureja, an assistant chairman of the school.

Poramit said the school gave Neil verbal and written warnings about his performance, in particular sloppy lesson plans and instances where he left students unsupervised in the classroom.

Rajdeep Takeuchi, who was the principal of the school during Neil's tenure, said he was an ineffectual teacher, but never caused any problems.

"As far as I remember, he is quiet and keeps to himself. We monitor newcomers closely but he never created any problem with the students," she said.

Both said there were no complaints of abuse by parents or students during the time he was at the school.

Poramit said it had been much easier for schools to recruit teachers before the high-profile case of John Mark Karr, who claimed he killed six-year-old American child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey in 1996.

Karr was arrested in Bangkok last year and deported to the United States, where he was freed for lack of evidence. He had worked as an English teacher in Bangkok, South Korea and other places.

"It is very good now that we have the police help us screen teachers to make sure there is no previous record" of wrongdoing or criminal activity, Poramit said. "It is a lot more difficult now to get teachers."

The Nation