An Australian and his Filipino girlfriend were sentenced on Wednesday by a Philippine court to life in prison for trafficking and sexually abusing minors, and filming the abuse to sell to clients overseas.
According to the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), in 2011, Peter Gerard Scully, now 55, fled from Australia to the Philippines to escape fraud charges against him, AFP reported.
From 2011 to 2014, Scully sold videos of himself sexually abusing children to clients abroad and posted them on pornography websites.
In February 2015, Scully was arrested in Malaybalay, Bukidnon province, by the NBI. He was charged with trafficking at least eight girls, including an 18-month-old baby, and sexually abusing them for pornography.
One of the victims, a 13-year-old girl, said she had been hired as a domestic worker in Scully’s apartment but was forced to perform sexual acts with other girls. She said Scully took nude photos of her for an American client.
On Wednesday at a court in Cagayan de Oro, a city in Northern Mindanao, Scully was found guilty of one count of human trafficking and five counts of rape. He and his partner Carme Ann Alvarez were sentenced to life imprisonment for qualified trafficking.