(Times Online) – A British teacher faces jail in Ethiopia after being convicted of defamation for her role in exposing paedophiles working in a children’s charity.
Jill Campbell and her husband Gary compiled a dossier of evidence that helped to convict a British sex offender who admitted having a sexual relationship with a child in his care. A second suspect committed suicide.
The Swiss charity Terre Des Hommes-Lausanne (TdH) admitted that abuse had taken place at its care facilities in the village of Jari, but denied the Campbells’ accusations that senior staff had covered up the scandal and had failed to inform the Ethiopian authorities. The charity successfully brought a defamation case against the couple.
Mrs Campbell, 45, will find out on Friday whether she will go to prison after a failed appeal. Her lawyers have told her that she will be found in contempt of court if she refuses to apologise and could be jailed for six months.
Yesterday friends said that she was distraught at having to tell her two adopted 10-year-old children that she might have to go to prison. Her husband has apologised to TdH so that one parent will be able to remain at home. In a statement published by the Ethiopian media last week, he apologised to the charity for alleging that it “knowingly removed their country director, David Christie (also known as David Allan) from Ethiopia in order to cover up a crime”.
The couple have lived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, for 14 years and are well known for their charity work. Friends have rallied to defend the Campbells and insist that without them paedeophile activity would not have been exposed. “Instead of TdH apologising to the victims, they are forcing Gary and Jill to apologise for blowing the whistle and stopping the chain of homosexual abusers victimising orphans in the care of this Swiss-based NGO,” said one.
Clare Rees, a teacher who works with Mrs Campbell at Sandford English Community School, said: “She’s seen as a saint. If you walk along the streets here you meet so many people she has helped. That’s why this whole thing is so unfair.”
Mrs Campbell became aware of the allegations of sexual abuse through a colleague at the school whose boyfriend worked at Jari. In December 1996 staff members saw a boy escaping from Christie’s bedroom window.
He was dismissed by the charity and left Ethiopia. He was subsequently arrested in 2001 as he travelled to Zambia. The Campbells had drawn up a dossier of evidence against him, which they circulated widely.
Christie, originally from Bournemouth, was eventually found guilty of abusing boys under 15 and of procuring children for his friends. In 2003 he was sentenced at a court in Addis Ababa to nine years in prison with hard labour.
One of his associates and a frequent visitor to Jari, Mark Lachance, committed suicide after posting a confession on the internet in 1999.
Colin Tucker, a spokesman for TdH, declined to discuss the charity’s motive in suing the whistle-blowers. “Read the judgment. That’s the best we can say,” he said. “They defamed us and we have successfully prosecuted them.”
7 thoughts on “British teacher faces jail in Ethiopia for exposing paedophiles”
There is no school named as “Sandford English Community School” in Addis. It is Sandford International School.
I can testify that Mr& Mrs Campbell are compassionate people. Gary is the chairperson of the Ethiopian National committee-UWC that recruits Ethiopian students for scholarships to study abroad. They have done what is morally expected from them-They should be rewarded and thanked for that not jailed!!!
Males should be jailed for killing 1000s of ethiopians
How anybody expect the colonisers protect their subjects ? Weyane is not ethiopian.If this things happened to one of the elite kids you might have seen different result.But this happened to the very ethiopians where weyane trying to destroy.So weyane kills them on the street while peadophils feed them from front and back.That is what weyanes gift for Ethiopians.Don’t blame ferenjis blame Weyane.As long as in power will kill us all.
who ever comment on nazret.com should be worry about his/her privacy.as long as I don’t know who run that web site I don’t feel it is ok to give my e-mail to.Nazret.com s/times is pro weyane.
Guys,
Thanks a lot Elias, You really have done a good job in publicizing several important issues…plz do also use your network of colleagues both at home and here to spread the news so that we pressure the ‘NG0’ to drop the charges…
There are very few foreigners who are sincerely working towards the betterment of our country and Mr&Mrs. Campbell two of those. They have worked so hard to change the lives of many including facilitating scholarship programs that has been producing hundreds of leading Ethiopian individuals in various fields both at home and internationally.They have just continued their good work by exposing those who were abusing the children!!!
Lets all, for a moment, put ourselves in the position of these couples and think about what we would do?
would you apologize for exposing such a scandal or would you disregard the two children that you are raising(adopted) and the whole family and go to jail?
what if they kept quite about the scandal..think about it
I think we can put pressure on the ‘NGO’ to drop its charge against these people and I would like to ask everyone to send e mails urging the ‘NGO’ to drop the charges with out any preconditions…
Protecting the children and exposing their abusers to the public media should not be by any means considered a crime. In this case, Jill Campbell and her husband Gary did the right thing in exposing the sex offenders but bad thing for covering up the crime committed by the country director, David Christie. Knowing his crime, and the shame of it, Christy had left the country and his collaborator in the crime had committed suicide.
Whistle blowing is not a common practice in Ethiopia but covering up a heinous crime such as child molestation is. In fact, the Meles regime stops from performing its duty if whistle blowers speak out about the every day crime Meles Seitanawi has been committing all these years. The Woyanne regime functions through cover up and clandestine activities, and the reason Jill Campbell and her husband are being accused of is that they are breaking the rules – the common practice – Meles uses every day – to cover up when a crime is committed within the same political groups, within the same crime family, and within the same institution.
Meles Seitanawi does not care about these orphan children’s charity; whether they live in an adopted care or charity care, Ethiopian children are most of the time victims of sexual crimes, neglect, and abandonment by their parents, by their adopters, by their religious denominations, and by their government. Therefore, the Woyanne regime is responsible for all the crimes committed at this children’s charity for failing to supervise this charity organization every month if not every day. Whenever children are put under someone’s care, that some one must be supervised by government officials about the safety and medical conditions of the children, for it is possible to find out easily whether or not the children are well-fed, protected or abused and neglected by simply looking at their innocent faces or by asking them individually.
Of course, the Woyanne political gangs are too busy collecting or stealing money from the charities or any organizations by black-mailing them in order to supervise the children’s charity. Even if they do, their supervisions will not be complete until it is approved by an outsider agency on which the public depends for its integrity.
It is very easy in Ethiopia to bribe the auditors, the food inspectors, the charity supervisors, the school administers, the army generals, the church officials, and the Woyanne’s political gangs. So, any body that works at children’s charity must be scrutinized, fingers printed, and tested for previous crimes he/she may have committed – sexual crimes or something else. Generally, most children trust their parents, their guardians, and their teachers from their hearts, and they never think their guardian or their teacher will abuse them. Gullible as they are, most children never say no to any question their guardian or their teacher asks, and that is why they are vulnerable to sex offenders.
Sexual immorality committed using children, adults, animals, objects, and other things as a sexual gratification is offensive in the eyes of God and in the eyes of his saints and his angels. A person who commits such things has no right to teach children at children’s charity or at any organization. In fact, St. Paul warns us: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you…. Expel the wicked man from among you” (1Corinthians 5:1, 13). Therefore, Jill Campbell and her husband Gary did the right thing by expelling David Christie from the children’s charity, I think.