Australian man jailed for 10 years for child sex

Jakarata, Feb 27: An Indonesian court jailed an Australian man for 10 years for sexually abusing street children.

Judges at a Jakarta court yesterday found Peter William Smith guilty of sexually assaulting under-age children between 2003 and 2006.

The 48-year-old language teacher was arrested in Jakarta in August after seven children complained he had sexually abused them.

Smith had lived in Indonesia since 1999 and worked as an English teacher.

Child protection groups say Lombok island and nearby Bali have been the bases for Australian paedophile rings operating in Indonesia.

A former Australian aid diplomat, William Stuart Brown, 52, hanged himself in a Bali jail cell in May 2004 after he was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for assaulting two boys, aged 12 and 16.

Reuters