James Warren
POLICIA Nacional agents have arrested an Irish alleged paedophile who was on the run for three months.
The 54-year-old man was being traced by the British Authorities for his involvement child exploitation and child pornography.
Acting on a tip-off, officers located the fugitive in an urbanization in Malaga, after a European Arrest and Surrender warrant was issued by UK authorities.
The Irishman, known only as M.M., from Dublin, escaped to Spain in a bid for anonymity but a joint operation by UK and Spanish police tracked the man down to a secluded housing development in Axarquia’s La Viñuela.
The arrest warrant has been in place since October 2019 for crimes committed against minors, exploitation and child pornography.
He is currently in custody and has been made available to the Central Court of the National Court of Justice and is facing up to 14 years in prison.
This latest arrest comes after a 77-year-old British man was arrested in nearby Velez Malaga for uploading child porn images to several fake Facebook profiles.
The UK’s treatment of convicted paedophiles has recently been under scrutiny after the Inquiry released shocking figures of the number of predatory expats that are able to flee to Spain and continue to abuse children, away from the UK legal system.
In 2018, five British expats were convicted of sex crime against minors in Spain, with five more convicted of holding indecent images of children.
The enquiry has put under scrutiny the procedures of travel restrictions for convicted paedophiles in the UK.
Currently only 0.2% of the 58,637 convicted paedophiles in the UK have international travel bans imposed on them.
