Bangkok: An Australian teacher and head of an international school in China charged over the alleged sex abuse of four Filipino children as young as nine has been found hanged inside a jail on the Philippine island of Cebu.
"Help me pass quietly," Hilton Reece Munro, 46, wrote on a piece of paper hours before his body was found in his cell.
In another undated handwritten letter to a friend in jail, Mr Munro wrote: "Help me find a painless end to my life."
Mr Munro had been a teacher at Melbourne's prestigious Scotch College and head of the Zhuhai International School in Zhuhai City in China's Guangdong province, leaving that position shortly before he was arrested in the Philippines in July 2013.
Police alleged Mr Munro used a 14-year-old boy to recruit younger boys who were sexually abused at a beach resort hotel in Cebu. The island has been identified as a centre for international paedophile rings.
Police alleged the boys, aged nine to 14, were brought to Mr Munro's room by local taxi driver Gilbert Andrada, 42, who has also been charged with child sex offences.
Police alleged Mr Munro paid the boys between $12 and $25 in Philippine pesos.
"According to the rescued minors, the suspect would take nude photos of them . . . and have sexual relations with them," said Sheryl Bautista, deputy head of the Philippines' anti-human-trafficking taskforce.
Last year Mr Munro wrote two letters to Mr Andrada, who was being held in another cell, one declaring the driver innocent of any involvement in the alleged offences and a second telling him he had given a lawyer money to pay for his defence and the care of his family.
Mr Munro denied the charges on the day of his arrest, telling police: "The kids are my friends who were contacted by another friend here in Cebu."
Mr Munro said in September last year he believed he had a "fighting chance" to beat charges that included human trafficking, adding: "I'm taking responsibility for what I did."
He declined to elaborate.
Mr Munro was transferred to an isolation cell in December after he had threatened other inmates, prison officials said.
He was a successful hockey player who had represented both Australia and New Zealand. He toured India with the Australian Universities hockey team and captained the New Zealand indoor hockey team in South Africa.
He was at Scotch from April 1999 to December 2000 and was heavily involved in boarding life at another private Melbourne school, coaching hockey teams, refereeing matches, organising father-and-son working bees and "cooking up feasts" for groups on weekends away in the bush.
Mr Munro was found not guilty of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in the dorm of a Melbourne boarding school in 2003, which was not Scotch College.
He had just completed a three-year stint at the Zhuhai International School when he was arrested in the Philippines in July 2013. On the school's website at the time of his arrest Mr Munro said he had been teaching in south-east Asia, Europe and the Middle East "and so have a strong global perspective".
"I bring a depth of knowledge regarding education because I have worked across all levels of schools as a classroom teacher ... curriculum co-ordinator, program leader and principal," he added.
The website said Mr Munro was "an active and sports-minded person, having played field hockey to an international level".
Australian Federal Police revealed last week that 250 convicted Australian child sex offenders travelled to the Philippines last year. Authorities there are struggling to contain a booming cyber-sex industry with an estimated turnover of more than $1 billion a year.
Australia routinely notifies countries of the impending arrivals of the offenders in foreign countries, but few if any are refused entry to the largely impoverished Philippines.
Philippine and Australian police are continuing investigations into Melbourne man Peter Gerard Scully, who is accused of the worst child sex abuses in recent Philippine history, including the alleged torture and sexual abuse of a one-year-old that was streamed online to international paying clients.
Mr Scully is facing charges of murder, human trafficking, child sex offences and cyber-crimes. He faces life in jail if convicted.
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