Scully, a father of two, was described as "dodgy" by former neighbours in Narre Warren, where he lived a decade ago. Since leaving his wife and the suburb, rumours would reach them of ill-gotten wealth and sexual deviancy. Peter Gerard Scully. The 52-year-old was on Friday charged with human trafficking, murder, child abuse and rape in the Philippines after his arrest last week. "Does it surprise me?" a former business associate said. "Yes and no. The signs were always there for him, but it's gone to a dark place."

This associate, who did not want to be named, said he lost more than $200,000 to Scully in the dodgy property scheme and he became obsessed with tracking him. "I traced him to the Philippines, but he'd disappeared," he said. Scully fled Victoria before he could be charged with 117 fraud and deception offences, the result of an Australian Securities and Investment Commission investigation that started in 2009. Charges were laid on Scully and a co-accused, who cannot legally be named, in 2012 but Scully had already left the country. A warrant was issued for his arrest triggering warnings at Australian airports to nab him when he returned.

But Scully remained in the Philippines, where he allegedly established a paedophile network so vile some of the country's lawmakers have called for the return of the death penalty. Police allege Scully, who used the aliases of Peter Ridell and Peter Russell, orchestrated a scheme where paedophiles paid to live stream videos of children as young as one being tortured and sexually abused as per their requests. Police data shows the Philippines is one of the top 10 producers of child pornography in the world, a place where predators exploited poverty and turned children into commodities. Melbourne forensic psychologist Dr Lisa Warren called it "true predatory behaviour". "These men know the wrongfulness of their act and they are not ill," Dr Warren said.

"And when you are using a child as a commodity, it says a lot about an individual." It is understood Scully had never been charged with child sex crimes in Victoria, but numerous former associates said he has a sordid sexual history. This included using his much younger Malaysian girlfriend as a sex worker in his online escort service. Scully was also behind another website solely used to advertise his girlfriend, known as Ling, and Fairfax Media has seen an online forum where her clients discussed in detail the services they obtained from her. "Well apparently anything goes for this girl for the right price," one wrote. "I've gotta say, she was qutie [sic] a bit more attractive than I expected, but not nearly as passionate/lively/intimate or playful as her profile/the reviews had me believe," another said.

The sex-for-hire business appeared to be an underground operation as there is no record of Scully ever having a licence to operate an escort service. One former associate recalled a distressing scene when Scully locked out a completely naked Ling from their North Melbourne residence and she had to be let in to their nearby office. Former associates said the escort operation stemmed from Scully's main obsession. "Peter is driven by one thing: money," one said. This motive seemingly goes to the heart of the financial fraud he is charged with in Victoria with ASIC alleging that Scully and a business partner siphoned off $1.8 million of investors' money in a property investment scheme for their own use while the rest was funnelled into keeping the scheme going.

This came after Scully's investment in an earlier real estate scheme that targeted home buyers with credit problems and one that resulted in adverse findings by ASIC and Consumer Affairs Victoria. "There was evidence that Mr Scully is a person who is prepared to push the boundaries of commercial morality and, if liability results, to embrace bankruptcy," Supreme Court Justice Kim Hargrave found. Scully has morphed from a skillful financial fraudster used to pushing the boundaries of commercial ethics to a man accused of crimes so heinous it belies basic morality in a seemingly short space of time. Dr Warren, who would not comment on the case, said there was always something in a person's history that leads to abusing and exploiting children. "All behaviour has a purpose to it. There is no such thing as random behaviour," she said.

"I've worked with people who have killed others and it's a very, very different thing when you meet someone who is driven by delusions and psychosis. But these men know the wrongfulness of their act."