By Bob Allen
A former British Baptist pastor serving time in prison in the United States for child sex crimes now faces similar allegations at home.
London’s Daily Mirror reported April 28 that seven men claim they were raped as teenagers by Robert Dando, 48, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Virginia. Dando pleaded guilty in November 2010 to four counts of sexual battery involving two U.S. male victims under the age of 13.
Alan Collins, a partner with the British law firm Pannone Solicitors, confirmed May 1 he is acting on the alleged victims’ behalf and pursuing a case to obtain compensation. He declined to comment on details, saying he does not want to run the risk of his clients being identified.
The Daily Mirror cited a High Court of Justice writ that alleges multiple rapes and sexual assaults between 1996 and 2008. Dando resigned as senior minister at Worcester Park Baptist Church in suburban London at the time of his arrest in Oakton, Va., on July 24, 2010.
Previously, he was the minister at Orchard Baptist Church in Bicester from 1995 until 2006; Grangetown Baptist Church in Cardiff from 1990 until 1994 and associate minister at Ararat Baptist Church from 1988 until 1990. From 2005 until 2007, Dando served as a volunteer traveling assistant to David Coffey, who at the time was president of the Baptist World Alliance.
According to British media, Dando also had personal contact with boys through work with the Boys’ Brigade, a popular Christian youth organization that involves 60,000 children in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and that he also worked for a children’s charity in India.
Dando’s arrest in the U.S. came after two males, ages 17 and 21, told police that the minister sexually abused them over a period of five years, beginning when they were ages 7 and 8, during visits to a family friend. According to the Daily Mirror, a police investigation involving Dando is underway in Britain.
Collins is one of the country’s best known solicitors in the field of child-abuse law. He acted in high-profile cases including Jimmy Savile, an English disc jockey and television personality accused after his death in 2011 of sexual abuse of an unprecedented 450 alleged victims.
Collins also represented nine victims at Green Field House, a children’s home in Berkshire, who settled out of court for more than 300,000 British Pounds, equal to about $467,000 in U.S. currency. They claimed abuse by a pedophilia ring between 1964 and 1970. The case was widely considered one of the worst to come to public notice.
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