Peter Gerard Scully (born 13 January 1963) is an Australian sex offender imprisoned for life in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

after being convicted of one count of

human trafficking Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extrac ...

and five counts of rape by sexual assault of underage girls. He is pending trial for other crimes against children, including the production and dissemination of

child pornography Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a chi ...

, torture, and the alleged murder of an 11-year-old girl in 2012.

Criminal activities

Peter Scully lived in the suburb of

Narre Warren Narre Warren is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 38 km southeast of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Casey local government area. Narre Warren recorded a population of 27,689 at the 2021 census. ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

with his wife and two children prior to fleeing to

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

in the

in 2011 before he could be charged with his involvement in a property scheme that cost investors over million. According to his own statement, he was sexually abused by a priest in Victoria when he grew up. Prior to leaving Melbourne, he operated an unlicensed online

escort service An escort agency is a company that provides escorts for clients, usually for sexual services. The agency typically arranges a meeting between one of its escorts and the client at the customer's house or hotel room (outcall), or at the escort's ...

which offered his

Filipina Filipinos ( tl, Mga Pilipino) are the people who are citizens of or native to the Philippines. The majority of Filipinos today come from various Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups, all typically speaking either Filipino, English and/or other ...

girlfriend as a

sex worker A sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry.Oxford English Dictionary, "sex worker" According to one view, sex work is d ...

. An investigation by the

Australian Securities & Investments Commission The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is an independent commission of the Australian Government tasked as the national corporate regulator. ASIC's role is to regulate company and financial services and enforce laws to pro ...

from 2009 found that Scully was involved in 117

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

and deception offenses relating to real estate scams.

Sexual abuse of children

From the island of

Mindanao Mindanao ( ) ( Jawi: مينداناو) is the second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the island is part of an island group of ...

, Scully is alleged to have built up a lucrative international

child sexual abuse Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (whet ...

ring that offered

pay-per-view Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast. Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program guid ...

video streams of children being sexually abused and tortured on the

dark web The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on ''darknets'': overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. Through the dark web, private computer networks can communi ...

. Among the victims who had their ordeals recorded and sold over the Internet was a five-year-old who was raped and tortured by Scully and two female accomplices. Victims were procured by Scully with promises to impoverished parents of work or education, or were solicited by his two

girlfriends, Carme Ann Alvarez and Liezyl Margallo Castaña, and other female acquaintances such as Maria Dorothea Chi y Chia. Both Alvarez and Margallo also abused children in Scully's videos. In 2016, prosecutors alleged that Scully and a girlfriend coaxed two teenage girls to come to Scully's house with the promise of food. Scully was alleged to have given the girls alcohol and forced them to perform sex acts between them, a scene the photographer filmed. The prosecutor alleged that when the girls tried to escape, Scully forced them to dig graves in the basement of the house and threatened that he would bury them there. After five days, the girls were released by the girlfriend, Carme Ann Alvarez, who began feeling remorse after coming home to see the two in pet collars and reported what had happened.

Dark web child pornography

Scully operated a secret

child pornography website known as "No limits fun" ("NLF"). The most notorious video Scully produced was ''Daisy's Destruction'', which he sold on his site to clients for up to $10,000. Made in 2012, the multi-part video is so extreme that it was for some time regarded as an

urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

. It features the torture and rape of three girls by Scully and two Filipina women. Urged on by Scully, some of the most severe physical abuse was carried out on the children by one of his girlfriends, then 19-year-old Liezyl Margallo, who was formerly trafficked as a child. Prior to the video gaining attention by the general public, Scully broadcast ''Daisy's Destruction'' privately on a pay-per-view basis. Due to the content, it quickly garnered attention by law enforcement and media. The Dutch National Child Exploitation Team was the first to open an investigation with the goal of locating the victims. Subsequently, an international manhunt for those responsible for the video's production was launched. Scully was tracked to

Malaybalay City Malaybalay, officially the City of Malaybalay ( ceb, Dakbayan sa Malaybalay; Bukid and Higaonon: ''Bánuwa ta Malaybaláy''; fil, Lungsod ng Malaybalay), is a 1st class component city and capital of the province of Bukidnon, Philippines. Accordin ...

in the Philippines and arrested on 20 February 2015. Investigators had six warrants for his arrest,Part 1

Part 2
all relating to the abduction and sexual abuse of the two cousins. While they searched for Scully in the Philippines, investigators tracked down the three primary victims in ''Daisy's Destruction''. Liza was found to be alive as was Daisy, who had lasting physical injuries from her severe mistreatment. According to Margallo, Scully recorded himself in a video with Cindy, in which he allegedly raped and tortured her, then made her dig her own grave before strangling her with a rope. Among those who acquired and publicized the ''Daisy's Destruction'' video was one of the biggest-ever purveyors of child pornography, Scully's fellow Australian Matthew David Graham, better known by his online pseudonym Lux. Apprehended at age 22, Graham ran a series of "

hurtcore Hurtcore, a portmanteau of the words "hardcore" and "hurt", is a name given to a particularly extreme form of child pornography, usually involving degrading violence, bodily harm and murder relating to child sexual abuse. The material is usually s ...

" child pornography sites. Graham claimed that he had published the video on his own website "in the name of freedom".

Criminal charges

Scully faced a total of 75 charges and, according to German television news channel

n-tv n-tv is a German free-to-air television news channel owned by the Bertelsmann Media's RTL Group. n-tv broadcasts news and weather every hour and half-hour in the morning. It also broadcasts magazine shows and documentaries. History n-tv beg ...

, was alleged to have sexually abused 75 children. He was on trial with others who assisted in the production of his pornography, including four men: German Christian Rouche, Filipinos Alexander Lao and Althea Chia, and Brazilian Haniel Caetano de Oliveira. Margaret Akullo, then-Project Coordinator for the

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC; French: ''Office des Nations unies contre la drogue et le crime'') is a United Nations office that was established in 1997 as the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention by combining the ...

and an expert on child abuse investigations, described the case as "horrific" and the worst she had ever heard of. His crimes were deemed so severe that some prosecutors supported the reintroduction of the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

as punishment for Scully, despite capital punishment being abolished in the Philippines since 2006. In a March 2015 interview with

Tara Brown Tara Brown (born 14 March 1968 in Sydney, New South Wales) is an Australian television presenter and reporter. Early life and career Brown attended Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, New South Wales, graduating in 1989 with a Bachelor of Ar ...

on ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...

'', Scully said that he is currently writing a tell-all journal in prison where he will reflect on his motivations for raping young children. In October 2015, a fire severely damaged the evidence room containing Scully's computer logs and videos, destroying key evidence. Some believe Scully may have bribed a local police officer, as

corruption in the Philippines The Philippines suffers from widespread corruption, which developed during the Spanish colonial period. According to GAN Integrity's ''Philippines Corruption Report'' updated May 2020, the Philippines suffers from many incidents of corruptio ...

was rife as of the 2010s. On 13 June 2018, Scully and his girlfriend Alvarez were sentenced to life in prison. Judge Jose Escobido also ordered Scully and Alvarez to pay 5 million

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...

(almost 87,000

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

) to the victims. Both Scully and his sister complained about the conditions in the jail Scully is held in. In November 2022, he received a second conviction and was sentenced to an additional 129 years in prison. Margallo was sentenced to 126 years, and two accomplices, Alexander Lao and Maria Dorothea Chia were given a 9-year sentence each. In total, there have been 60 cases filed against Scully.

References

External links