On Monday, a former Scout leader and school housemaster was found guilty of 54 child sex offences, having already pleaded guilty to 43 crimes at an earlier hearing.
Chester Crown Court heard how, between 1968 and 1995, Richard Burrows had systematically abused 24 young boys across the Cheshire, West Midlands and West Mercia areas.
But that reckoning came some 27 years after Burrows – now aged 80 – had initially been due in court following his arrest in April 1997. Rather than attend his hearing that December, Burrows – who had been bailed – fled abroad under the stolen identity of a terminally ill acquaintance named Peter Smith.
For decades, Burrows lived as “Peter Smith” – equipped with successive British passports using the stolen name – on the Thai island of Phuket, not only evading justice, but reportedly rubbing shoulders with community leaders and officials in his new identity as a successful salesman, with one acquaintance describing the notorious paedophile as having been “treated like a VIP” by unsuspecting ex-pats.
He did so despite numerous police reviews of his case and four BBC Crimewatch appeals aired on national television, which included photographs of him being digitally altered to show how he could look as an old man.
But these extensive efforts to trace Burrows would ultimately prove fruitless – that is, until a fresh effort in April 2023 involving AI technology and an insider tip-off finally led to his arrest some 11 months later.
The breakthrough finally came when detectives from Cheshire Police used “specialist software to search for any possible images of Burrows online”, a police statement said.
After searching through billions of images, the system came back with a match for a man using the name of Peter Smith in Phuket, who “had an active interest in sailing” and previously worked at an advertising firm on the Thai island, where he had even featured in a local news report upon retiring in 2019, according to Cheshire Police.
Once his identity was confirmed, officers began the process to extradite him to the UK. But before that process had formally commenced, detectives became aware that Burrows was intending to return to the UK under his stolen identity.
According to police, the National Crime Agency then informed Thai authorities and monitored his travel back to the UK, and he was arrested as soon as he landed at Heathrow on 28 March 2024.
A report in the Daily Mail now claims that detectives were tipped off as to Burrows’ intention to return to the UK by one of his relatives.
Upon his arrest, detectives are reported to have found a print-out of an email exchange between Burrows and his relative, which made clear the paedophile had watched Crimewatch appeals to find him on YouTube while in Thailand.
The email reportedly concluded with Burrows – who is believed to have had developed cancer and a heart condition – telling his relative: “Again, thank you so much for coming to my aid to get back to UK after almost 30 years in paradise.”
The Mail also reports that the “specialist software” used by detectives to hunt down Burrows was the mass facial recognition search engine PimEyes, through which they ran the mugshot digitally altered to show how Burrows may look as an older man. The Independent has approached the force for confirmation.
PimEyes has been subject to controversy in its usage among police forces, given that as an online platform it is not subject to the same controls as official facial recognition tools, whose usage is limited to watchlists of wanted people and subject to approval by senior officers.
The online software was reported in April 2024 to have been banned by the Met Police, after a freedom of information request by rights group Liberty found that the force accessed PimEyes some 2,337 times from its computers in the space of just 90 days.
More widely, Home Office data obtained by Liberty in January 2024 revealed that police forces conducted more than 300 facial recognition searches using the UK’s 46 million-strong database of British passport holders in the first nine months of 2023 alone.
In recent years, police forces have also been encouraged to routinely use facial recognition technology to search the Police National Database, which according to Liberty holds around 16 million images of people who have been arrested – including hundreds of thousands who were either never charged or were cleared of an offence.
Police leaders argue that using facial recognition software expedites investigations and frees up officer time, and point to YouGov polling from 2023 in which 57 per cent of respondents said they either somewhat or strongly supported police use of the technology in public spaces, while 28 per cent were opposed.
In the case of Burrows, Detective Inspector Eleanor Atkinson said in the wake of Monday’s verdict that she hoped his case “acts as a warning to any other wanted suspects – demonstrating that no matter how long you hide, we will find you and you will be held accountable”.
His offending in Cheshire occurred between 1969 and 1971 while he was employed as a housemaster looking after vulnerable children at Danesford Children’s Home in Congleton.
His victims in the West Midlands and West Mercia areas were also all young boys who were abused between 1968 and 1995, the majority through local Scout groups where Burrows worked as a leader.
In each case, police said Burrows befriended the victims by using his position of trust over them and their personal interests, such as radio communications or boating. After gaining their trust, and in many cases the trust of their families, Burrows then went on to sexually abuse the boys.
It was not until the 1990s, following revelations in relation to offences at other children’s homes and institutions, that many of the victims had the confidence to come forward, and Cheshire Police launched a large-scale investigation in 1994.
Ms Atkinson said: “Following his initial charges in 1997, Burrows knew he was guilty but rather than face the consequences of his actions, he acted like a coward and fled the country using a stolen identity taken from an unwell man.
“In emails that we have found since his arrest, Burrows described how he has spent the past three decades ‘living in paradise’, while his victims have all been left to suffer as they struggled to try and rebuild their lives.
“Thankfully, following our determination, he has finally been held accountable for his actions and is now behind bars where he belongs.”
