(30 Jun 2006)
1. Exterior of Klong Prem Prison
2. Close up of sign reading: "Department of Correction"
3. Released Australian paedophile Bradley Pendragon walking out of prison gate
4. UPSOUND: (English) Bradley Pendragon, Released Prisoner:
(Question: "How do you feel now, what do you see in the future?")
"Prison"
(Question: "Are you going back to Australia?")
"Here first, then Australia"
5. Pendragon with a Thai policeman walking towards prison van
6. Pendragon climbing into back of prison van
7. SOUNDBITE: (English) Bradley Pendragon, Released Prisoner:
(Question: "Do you think you deserved a royal pardon?")
"I didn't get a royal pardon as such. When the judge gave the sentence he assumed I'd receive a pardon much earlier than that so the time I served was much longer than the judge actually intended."
8. Prison van driving away.
STORYLINE
Convicted child sex offender Bradley Pendragon could be deported from Thailand on Friday and flown home to Australia as one of thousands of prisoners released under a Thai royal pardon.
46-year-old Pendragon was the first foreigner jailed for child sex offences in Thailand after admitting to having sex with girls aged 9, 11 and 13 while on holiday in the early 1990s.
The Australian was arrested after staff at a photographic processing agency, in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, discovered pictures of him apparently raping the children and sent them to a Bangkok child protection agency.
He was convicted of the rape of a 13-year-old handicapped girl in Chiang Mai in 1993.
He was also found guilty of beating and brutally raping another two young girls in a Bangkok hotel room in October 1993.
He was given a 15-year sentence in 1995.
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej has pardoned a total of 25-thousand prisoners to mark his 60 years on the throne this year.
He is the world's longest reigning monarch.
But activists say many of those to be released under royal pardon, including Pendragon and other convicted paedophiles, still pose a danger if they are released into the community without adequate supervision.
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