Australian surgeon held for paedophilia

Bhubaneswar, November 14: A 65-year-old Australian man working as a volunteer in a home for Orissa supercyclone orphans in Puri has been sent to jail on charges of sexually abusing minors. Paul Allen, an eye surgeon from Bunbury in Western Australia, was sent to Puri jail on Friday on charges of abusing the children in the orphanage run by Mary Ellen Gerber (MEG) Foundation, USA. He was arrested from Visakhapatnam on Tuesday.

Puri SP Asit Panigrahi said the crime came to the fore after the orphanage’s founder, a French national called Mary Gerber, lodged a complaint with the police. The SP said Allen had been working with the orphanage since its inception in 2002 and lived in the campus guesthouse.

“In October, when Mary was in Puri, she came to know that Allen was indulging in sexual activities with some of the inmates,” he said. Mary lodged a complaint with the Sadar police against Allen but by then he had fled. The Puri SP then sent a police team to Vishakhapatnam to nab Allen.

D P Dash, the officer-in-charge of Sadar police station, said many children had testified against Allen. Police said he was in India illegally and was facing a case in Vishakhapatnam as well. During interrogation, Paul had confessed that he was arrested in a similar case in Andhra in 2001 and jailed for a month. He was released as no one testified against him in the court.

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