Dead paedophile suspect was ‘doing same thing in Cyprus’

CYPRUS police believe that a British paedophile suspect who died in custody last month was “doing the same thing in Cyprus”, it emerged yesterday.

British military police are investigating the apparent suicide in custody of a former army doctor deported last year from Cyprus on suspicion of child abuse.

Paul Morris, 46, was deported in November, following an application by British military police.

“We knew he was doing the same thing in Cyprus,” a police source told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.

Morris, who was being held in military custody in Colchester on suspicion of involvement in a paedophile ring, was found dead in his cell on December 20.

He had deserted from the army 17 years ago, after rumours that he had molested children during his running of a boys’ football team.

He showed up in Cyprus a year later, married a local woman and adopted two children from refugee camps in Lebanon.

In Cyprus, he taught at a private school in Limassol and was also coach for a school football team in Nicosia.

“As far as I’m aware, there were complaints from parents, but they did not wish to pursue the matter,” the police source said yesterday.

No formal complaints had been submitted to the police, he said, adding that parents had appeared reluctant to take the matter any further.

The British Ministry of Defence told the BBC on Sunday that the special investigations branch of the Royal Military Police was investigating the death, thought to be suicide.

The British Bases said yesterday they had not known of Morris’ presence on the island and had not in any way been involved in his case, which had been handled by military authorities in the UK and Cyprus police.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.