Sydney - For 30 years Paul Dean appeared to live a saintly life tending to orphans and helping heal lepers in impoverished villages in India. Dean, who has been arrested on child sex charges, was in fact a failed businessman who fled Australia in 1976 on a forged passport owing creditors hundreds of thousands of dollars, news reports said Monday.
Dean wandered the subcontinent for 30 years, passing himself as a university professor, medical practitioner, Catholic brother and priest.
He amputated limbs and performed eye operations and said Mass for Mother Teresa's missionaries, national broadcaster ABC alleged.
Dean wheedled his way into the affections of local people and, according to one mayor in Orissa province, was a "walking god" who had devoted his life to prayer and the care of others.
"I saw him perform cataract operations," former Belgian volunteer Nathalie Nellens told to the ABC. "And I saw him perform operations on leprosy patients, cutting off toes, fingers and even a limb."
The ABC noted that no one had complained of botched surgery. Indeed, it quoted leper Kailash Das, who had a toe amputated, praising the bogus doctor.
"I had an ulcer in my foot. I used to be in a lot of pain. He operated on me, took out the bone, after that I felt better," Das was quoted as saying.
There have been calls for Dean, who is out on bail after his court appearance, to be extradited.
"I would like to see him brought back to Australia through extradition and prosecuted in Australia," said Bernadette McMenamin, head of child protection lobby group Childwise.
