This advice came from a pastor who had first-hand dealings with convicted paedophile Richard Huckle.

“Always do proper background research on who you are trusting your children with,” said Paul Pakianathan, a senior pastor at the Community of Praise.

He said this was one of the oversights of an impoverished community in Kuala Lumpur where Huckle found many of his victims.

“I’ve observed that when someone suddenly takes an interest in a community that is impoverished and has no one who cares about it, the members of that community will become very happy and relaxed around that individual,” he said.

“And with the Indian community, they generally have no time to take the children out. When someone walks in and offers to take on that role, that makes them happy.”

He said parents should never neglect to check the background of anyone new to their community before allowing him to tend to their children.

“This is important because sexual predators look like everybody else. Unless you study carefully those handling your child, you’ll never know what they are capable of.”

Pakianathan’s comments came days after news broke about of an alleged American sexual predator who taught theatre for two decades in Malaysia.

Rey Buono was named by Boston’s Milton Academy as having sexually assaulted 12 of his students while working at its performance arts school between 1973 and 1987. He has denied the accusation. His lawyer said the alleged incidents apparently occurred more than 30 years ago but no criminal complaint was made against him during his tenure at Milton Academy and none in the last 30 years.

Recalling his encounters with Huckle, Pakianathan said nothing about the Briton struck him as odd.

“I first met him some time in the early 2000s, and there was nothing about him that could help me identify him as a paedophile.

“When he brought children to my church, once or twice, I asked him if their parents knew they were coming. He said, ‘Yes’.

“But after some time, I didn’t feel comfortable about it and I told him I wanted to talk to the parents. You can call it a gut feeling or whatever. There really was nothing about him that suggested he was a paedophile.”

After the request to meet the parents, he said, Huckle stopped going to his church.

Almost a decade later, Pakianathan and his congregation were surprised with the news that Huckle was suspected of sexually abusing around 200 children, including 71 in Malaysia.

Last year, after a British court handed Huckle 22 life sentences for these offences, Pakianathan made an earnest appeal to his congregation.

“I told them if they noticed anything inappropriate happening to those close to them, or if someone was behaving differently with them, and they didn’t like it, they should come and talk to me,” he said.