CTV Atlantic
Published Monday, February 16, 2015 8:57PM AST
Last Updated Tuesday, February 17, 2015 12:29PM AST
Click here to access external link to video with New details about MacIntosh’s arrest
Yet another chapter in the life of former Nova Scotia businessman Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh.
In the latest turn for this 71-year-old, he finds himself waiting for the wheels of justice to turn in the country of Nepal.
He’s currently in a Nepalese jail, awaiting trial for allegedly trying to have sex with a young boy in Katmandu.
It all started December 15, when police knocked on his door at the hotel he was staying in that city.
It was here at the Café Brazil Guest House and Coffee Shop that police allege MacIntosh lured a nine-year-old boy with promises of money in exchange for sex.
In an email, the hotel’s manager told CTV News he was shocked when police arrived on that fateful day.
“Police came (into the) Guest House, search his room, and then took him for enquiry . . . he didn’t come back.,” says hotel manager Sushil Tamang.
Local media reports say MacIntosh arrived in Nepal mid-August. He promoted himself as a director of the Spice Journal, an online publication dedicated to enhancing the world’s knowledge of spices.
While in Katmandu, MacIntosh met the head of a Jesuit-run centre for homeless and impoverished kids.
The St. Xavier’s Social Service Centre has been around since 1970. This Christian-run facility is a standout in this predominantly Hindu country.
Fr. Bill Robins was the Canadian priest who ran St. Xavier’s from 1998 to 2004. He says he didn’t know who MacIntosh was until he read about him after he was charged.
He says on MacIntosh’s first trip to the centre, he was escorted by the Jesuit priest currently in charge. Apparently MacIntosh was looking for an educated former student who could help him with his work at the Spice Journal. The priest was said to have helped make the connection.
On subsequent trips to the centre, MacIntosh showed up and signed the guest book. That’s how, Fr. Robins says, he knows how many times MacIntosh visited the centre. A media report say he visited more than 15 times, which if true meant he wasn’t signing in.
After his alleged offence came to light, and the connection to the centre brought to the attention of one of St. Xavier’s main benefactors — Toronto-based Canadian Jesuits International. Fr. Robins, who lives in Nepal, was asked to carry out an investigation.
“I sat down with the appropriate people, did my homework quickly and I was much relieved to know that our social service centre staff and administration did the right thing all the way along,” says Fr. Robins.
Fr. Robins admits he has no training in investigating these sorts of things, but he says he’s sure the staff were not being sloppy.
“The boys were never alone with this man, except maybe that one boy, without permission, saw the man during games time,” he added. “They go out to play games and he could’ve snuck off.”
This case has put sex tourism in Nepal under the microscope. It is a very poor country, rife with legal loopholes that have made it an attractive country for foreigners.
“They can give what is a small amount of money to them, which is a very huge amount of money for someone who is very impoverished,” Jonathan Rosenthal said.
This Toronto-based lawyer and professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, represented MacIntosh’s victims here in Nova Scotia.
“When he was a fugitive from justice, in India, he was thrown out of a number of schools and a number of orphanages for again,” Rosenthal said.
This case has challenged Nepalese authorities to come up with new ways to deal with alleged foreign child predators.
Local media reports say MacIntosh’s alleged victim was allowed to testify in another room so he wouldn’t be intimidated by the accused — a first for the country.
Another report says MacIntosh took and failed a polygraph test, something again that is relatively new in Nepal.
The new charges in Nepal are no surprise to Bob Martin, once a victim of MacIntosh’s and now an advocate against sexual abuse.
“Even though he’s almost 72 years of age, it’s what he always did,” Martin said.
“He would go after the young boys in the afternoon in our community, and he would get us, the young teenagers, at night,” he said. “He was serial and it’s pathetic.”
CTV News has learned that another individual has come forward with allegations similar to those laid in 1995.
RCMP will not confirm or deny the existence of these new allegations.
If he is convicted in Nepal, it’s unlikely MacIntosh will be back to face a complaint in a Nova Scotia court anytime soon.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Bill Dicks
If you don’t remember the case of Fenwick MacIntosh click the link. A terrible travesty of justice from start to finish. The added travesty however is that had MacIntosh been put behind bars here in Canada where he belongs he never would have laid hands on that child in Nepal. The one small comfort perhaps is that McIntosh may finally have to answer for his crimes.
A reminder too that years ago, when there was a warrant out for his arrest here in Canada , MacIntosh, then a fugitive from justice, was able to renew his passport and travel to and fro with ease.
Ditto, it seems, Father Anthony Onyenagada? I think passport is a non issue with him, but the ‘wanted’ priest had no problem getting back into Canada.
Consistently, due diligence comes by way of more human sacrifice. The apathy in dealing with these criminals is astounding.
There is an online site collecting money for McIntosh, so he can eat healthier while in jail…if anyone knows the name of the site…please publish it online so we can boycott this site as the funds should go to his victim in Nepal…I bet the young man would love to have fresh fruit to eat on a regular basis.! ⅝ I just learned this information on CTV news at 6 pm in Halifax, NS.