Concerns are being aired about hiring private English teachers and how the decision to send your children to private language schools can put them in dangers since the arrest of Thomas Andrew Ericson, a US rape suspect who fled to Thailand where he worked as an English language instructor.
The man was arrested last Wednesday night at the Moo Ban Klang Muang in Samut Prakan’s Muang district. The Crime Suppression Division wanted parents and school administrators to take this as a warning. According to reports he man from the USA was using a fake UK passport to apply for teaching jobs in the area, all the time he was on the run from rape charges in his home country.
The CSD were contacted by the US embassy on the 15th of September when they were asked to search for a dangerous person wanted by the authority in Denton Country and Harris County Texas. The 47 year old is considered dangerous due to the nature of his crimes, and due to mental illness. It is thought the man is suffering from bipolar disorder. The illness could be responsible for his ability to pass off as a reliable English teacher on the one hand and a sexual predator on the other.
It has been reported that the man has also committed crimes in the nation’s capital Bangkok. He has been accused of raping and injuring a Thai woman in a jewellery shop in Bangkok in 2011 and is wanted by the Hua Mak police who were granted a warrant for his arrest by the Criminal Court.
The search for the man’s whereabouts progressed slowly to start off with, as the man had covered up his identity, but two months into the investigation a woman suspected of being his friend was located and accounts from the woman shed light on the man’s activities in Thailand. Allegedly the suspected used his teaching skills as a front to lure many Thai women, including university lecturers and private company staff.
Mr. Erickson worked in Nakhon Si Thammarat before moving to another school in Rangsit in Pathum Thani province near northern Bangkok, later he was admitted at a teacher in a private school in the Prawet area of Bangkok. The police said that he frequently changed jobs, he was also found to be working for an online media agency.
It has been alleged that over the last few years he used forged passports to work as a language teacher in Nakhon Si Thammarat. The police have said that if he is found guilty of sex crimes in Thailand he will serve time here but may later be extradited to face charges in the US.
http://www.samuitimes.com/concerns-arise-hiring-private-english-teachers-may-run/