In a video that was shown in the internet, the Australian man whipped and tortured children along with other horrific acts. It was described by police as the most shocking child pornography that has ever been discovered in the Philippines.
“You are looking at recruitment of children to then be abused, to perform sexual acts for offenders that are scattered all over the world. It is horrific,” said Margaret Akullo from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Scully, who fled to Manila from Melbourne in 2011 after being accused of 117 fraud and deception offenses, allegedly established a lucrative business of live-streaming videos in a ‘pay-for view’ scheme.
Police alleged Scully would undertake acts in response to requests from his clients from across the globe, who paid to live-stream videos of children being tortured and sexually abused.
The 51-year-old was allegedly paid between $US100 and $US10,000 for the videos.
Janet Francisco, head of the anti-human trafficking division of the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation, said that two people had been charged overseas in relation to the investigation.
They are believed to be of European nationality, reported The ABC. The Australian Embassy reportedly met to convene on the case, and the UNICEF’s chief of child protection in the Philippines, Sarah Norton Staal, said the case needed urgent attention.
Scully was arrested on February 20 after the body of a teenage girl was found buried under a house he rented in Malaybalay, Bukidnon, and he was formally charged on Friday.
It is claimed the father of two abused more than a dozen children during the three years that he was in the Philippines. He moved house frequently and assembled a team of more than four foreign accomplices and half a dozen Filipino workers for his ‘pay for view’ online child pornography business.
He is currently being held in a prison in Cagayan de Oro in the country’s south, and will be tried at the same location, facing life in prison if found guilty. (ABC News)