Sex case teacher loses his Thai bride and his job

4:45pm Friday 21st December 2007

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By David Watkinson »

A CONVICTED child sex offender who was discovered teaching in a Thai school has split from his wife and lost his job.

Alan Smith, formerly of Carter Street, Accrington, said he was now planning to return to the town in the New Year.

The 53-year-old was jailed for sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl in August 2005 - but it was discovered this week that he was working at a school near the Thai capital Bangkok.

Despite being on the sex offenders register, which forbids him to work with children in this country, UK authorities could not stop him in his new role teaching 10 to 15-year-olds.

But now Smith has revealed that he had been told by the teaching agency that employed him that he must resign.

And he said that he has already packed his bags and is ready to return home, although he said it may not happen until late January when he has raised the funds for the flight.

Speaking from the home that he shared with his new bride Pach, 25, in the northern Bangkok suburb of Ratchadapisek, Smith said: "I have to come back to Accrington because I've got no money and no job.

"My wife won't come with me because she knows how I have been treated in England and hates the country.

"As far as she is concerned it is a vile and disgusting place.

"It is over between us. Maybe in the months and years to come I will be able to come back to Thailand and start my life again with her but for now my life here has been ruined."

Officers from the national Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre said they told the Thai authorities "several times" Smith was a convicted child sex offender when he wetn there last November but nothing was done.

Smith, who met his wife shortly after arriving in Thailand and married her in February, said he was not a paedophile and was "giving something back" by teaching disadvantaged children.

Speaking about his teaching role he said: "I did everything by the book.

"I was never left alone in my classes with the children and was doing a good job."

Hyndburn MP Greg Pope said the situation showed that tighter controls were needed to monitor sex offenders, especially as Thai authorities appeared not to act on British concerns about Smith.

Smith, who acted as Accrington Stanley's mascot Stan the Monkey before his conviction and also worked as a Butlins Redcoat, was teaching English at the Nongyai temple school set in the grounds of a Buddhist monastery 20 miles north of Bangkok.

He pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child after an incident in the kitchen of a pub where he worked in 2005.

He was sent to prison and was placed on the sex offenders register for seven years for pulling the girl's knickers from under her trousers and touching her on the back.

The register is intended to protect the public but cannot be enforced abroad by UK authorities.