Man charged in Thai sex-tourism case convicted in Canada on similar charges

Former Calgarian lied about losing company, selling house to settle civil suits

Toronto Globe & Mail

17 December 17, 2008

A decade ago, a 50-something John Wrenshall went to Bangkok to teach English, stating in his résumé that he had left his Calgary software company to pursue "travel and personal development goals."

In fact, he had lost his company and had to sell his house and his car to settle civil suits by five Albertans who said he had molested them when they were minors.

Mr. Wrenshall, the 62-year-old Canadian charged this week with running a pedophile sex-tourism business in Bangkok, had already been convicted twice in Canada on sex-related charges involving young boys.

At least 20 boys as young as nine were indecently assaulted by Mr. Wrenshall, from 1961 to the mid 1980s, according to court evidence in Calgary.

A former scoutmaster and Anglican choir member at Calgary's Cathedral Church of the Redeemer, Mr. Wrenshall has a master's degree in sociology. He lured his victims on the pretense that he was conducting a study on preteen boys' sexuality, the court was told.

After receiving a suspended sentence in 1970, he undertook two years of counselling. After he reoffended, a judge sentenced him in 1997 to one year in jail and two years probation, saying that would be a "satisfactory deterrent."

The period he was behind bars is described on his CV as "study/travel in Thailand" while being a consultant for the firm he founded, Rinax Systems.

Afterward, Mr. Wrenshall got a teaching certificate from Vancouver's Columbia College and moved to Thailand in 1998.

Two years later, he was pimping young Thai boys, charging up to $400 a boy and recruiting his johns in an Internet chat room called Boy Love and Chat, according to testimony in a New Jersey case.

Mr. Wrenshall kept a connection with his country of origin, the evidence in the U.S. case alleges: The revenues were wired to a Canadian bank.

In Canada, news of the arrest shocked a former acquaintance who remembered him as a well-read, conscientious man with a fondness for his very old dog.

"This is a shocking revelation," said business consultant Vasile Zamfirescu. "Professionally, he was outstanding."

Already in 1991, Mr. Wrenshall had mentioned that he enjoyed travelling to Asia, Mr. Zamfirescu recalled.

A former software developer like Mr. Wrenshall would have had an edge over less cyber-savvy law-enforcement officials in Thailand, said Paul Gillespie, a retired Toronto police child-exploitation detective.

"We never dreamed he would be involved in this kind of thing. He was very meticulous, and so polite and quiet," said school director Adul Pinsuvana, who remembered Mr. Wrenshall as a soft-spoken instructor who bowed in a respectful manner, similar to the way of Thai people.

Mr. Wrenshell was arrested after Norwegian police discovered computer pictures of a middle-aged man sexually abusing three boys.

 The man, an American named Wayne Nelson Corliss, a minor actor often hired as a Santa Claus at children's parties, pleaded guilty this fall to sex charges and identified Mr. Wrenshall to investigators.

Lack of publicity, central record-keeping and international information-sharing is giving repeat offenders opportunities to get into trouble elsewhere, said Rosalind Prober, president of Beyond Borders, a Winnipeg-based group that aims to stop global child prostitution.

"The reason we're out of the loop in Canada is we don't have a national agency that is really overseeing these child sex tourism cases. They are falling through the cracks."

Charges against Mr. Wrenshall include aiding and abetting sex tourism and production of child pornography, for which he could be sentenced to life in prison. He was arrested at London's Heathrow International Airport and faces extradition to the United States.