Australian wanted on Indian child sex charges
Updated
An Australian man with no medical qualifications has performed surgery and sexually abused dozens of medical trainees in India.
West Australian con man Paul Henry Dean claimed to be a doctor. He amputated the fingers and toes of leprosy patients, and attempted to perform eye surgery.
Presenter:Sally Sara, South Asia correspondent
Speakers: Nathalie Nellens, Belgian aid volunteer; Kailash Das, former patient; Mahi Dhar Patra, victim; Bernadette McMenamin, child protection group Childwise; Maggie Nolan, New Hope's Australian fundraiser; Dr Ben Saul, Director of the Sydney Centre for International Law
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SALLY SARA: For more than 30 years, Australian con man Paul Henry Dean has been working among the poorest of the poor in India.
Dean pretended to be a doctor, even though he had no medical qualifications.
Four Corners has obtained graphic photographs of Paul Dean performing surgery at a leprosy colony in the remote Indian town of Titilagarh.
The pictures were taken by former Belgian aid volunteer Nathalie Nellens.
NATHALIE NELLENS: I saw him perform cataract operations. And I saw him perform operations on leprosy patients, cutting off toes, fingers and even a limb.
SALLY SARA: None of Paul Dean's patients knew that he was actually a real estate agent from Bunbury.
He'd fled Australia on a false passport in 1976 and Interpol had issued an alert for his arrest in connection with a $100,000 fraud.
But when he arrived in Titilagarh in 1982, the leprosy patients thought of him as a walking god.
Kailash Das had his toe amputated by Paul Dean.
KAILASH DAS (translated): I had an ulcer in my foot. I used to be in a lot of pain. He operated on me, took out the bone; after that I felt better.
SALLY SARA: Dean also managed to obtain funds from foreign donors by signing letters as Doctor Brother Paul.
But, the worst was yet to come. Paul Dean recruited local teenage boys and young men as medical trainees. They were lured by the promise of jobs and salaries. But, they have now revealed they were sexually abused by Dean.
The men are now aged in their 40s. Mahi Dhar Patra was one of the victims.
MAHI DHAR PATRA (translated): There were about 25 boys doing training. He used 20 to 25 boys for sex.
SALLY SARA: One of Paul Dean's youngest victims in Titilagarh was a deaf mute boy called Anil Kumar.
The teenager used crude sign language to raise the alarm that he too was being abused. But no action was taken and Anil Kumar hanged himself in July 1985. After the boy's suicide, Paul Dean was forced to move on.
Since then there have been new allegations of abuse. In 2001, Dean was charged with abusing boys and young men at an Indian charity called 'New Hope'.
But New Hope's Australian fundraiser, Order of Australia recipient Maggie Nolan, says Dean has pleaded not guilty and is loved by children.
MAGGIE NOLAN: He is absolutely beautiful with them and in all that time of being in an organisation, some child would have spoken up by now.
SALLY SARA: The 2001 case against Paul Dean became stuck in India's painfully slow legal system, and there's been no verdict in eight years.
Four Corners has obtained documents which show the Australian Federal Police and the Department of Foreign Affairs knew of the 2001 sex charges.
But Dean was given bail, and in November last year he was arrested and charged with allegedly abusing yet another group of boys and young men, this time at a charity called the Mary Ellen Gerber Foundation.
Bernadette McMenamin from child protection group Childwise says it is time for Australian authorities to stop Paul Dean.
BERNADETTE MCMENAMIN: I would like to see him brought back to Australia through extradition and prosecuted in Australia.
SALLY SARA: Dr Ben Saul, Director of the Sydney Centre for International Law, says there is enough evidence to prompt action.
BEN SAUL: It does seem that there is credible and compelling evidence available that Paul Dean is suspected of certain serious offences.
SALLY SARA: Paul Dean has been granted bail in the latest case by again falsely claiming to be a doctor. The Indian court believed him and no-one bothered to check.
Dean still has unsupervised access to children in India and witnesses have again seen unaccompanied boys at his apartment in the past week.
