A British child sex offender who has been on the wanted list after fleeing the UK five years ago has been arrested in Cambodia and now faces deportation.

Former scoutmaster Paul Edward Prestidge, 35, from Plymouth, was taken away from his rented house in Phnom Penh to be interviewed by police over the weekend amid claims he had had sex with a minor in the city.

Police have yet to decide whether to charge him or deport him to Britain, where he is wanted after failing to return to the UK from a holiday in Spain - breaking the conditions of a court that allowed him to travel, providing he returned from the trip.

But Prestidge, who in 2010 was given a three year suspended jail sentence at Exeter Crown Court for bribing boys aged nine and 10 with sweets to strip on Scout camping trips and keeping hundreds of child abuse images on his computer, did not return...

...Mr. Prestidge first came to the attention of the authorities last month when the British Embassy requested that local police detain him, said Major General Uk Heisela, the chief investigating officer for the immigration department...

... British national Paul Edward George Prestidge, 35, had been teaching at Hope International School, a private school in Phnom Penh providing pre-school to Grade 12 education, for the last 14 months. Despite his record, and a UK court ruling forbidding him from working with children, Mr. Prestidge found a job at Hope International School in August 2014, one month after arriving in Cambodia...

General Mackevili wrote: Paul Evans-Prestige was HARD at work with a HANDFUL OF CHILDREN? That doesn't sound good at all.

takeoman wrote:Is it just me or does he bear a striking resemblance to someone many of you know?

... The Crimestoppers record reads: “Paul Prestidge is a Registered Sex Offender who notified the Police on May 28, 2010 that he was going on holiday with his parents and brother to Spain. He failed to return. Paul has failed to comply with the conditions of his order and is being sought by officers.”

In 2007, Prestidge faced a trial which included evidence from 33 witnesses – among them 13 boys...

...Speaking after the trial, a mother of one of the victims said: “Prestidge has put us all through 15 months of hell waiting for this trail to end.
“But at least we’ve stopped him from doing it to anyone else...