‘He Liked Girls’: Accused Paedophile Silk Mark Dennis’s Years Inside Celebrated Australian-Backed Cambodian Orphanage Exposed as Cross-Border Police Probe Deepens
- Barrister Mark Dennis SC chaired children’s charity Sunrise Cambodia from 2018 to 2020. He was later charged with possessing and transmitting child abuse material, and died before his case went to trial.
- A former Sunrise worker says Dennis offered her $300 to watch him have sex with a ‘virgin’. She also says he asked her to find him a ‘young’ Cambodian bride.
- Internal documents show a Sunrise bus driver given a ‘final warning’ for sexualised behaviour towards children was later accused of raping a 16-year-old girl.
- Australian and Cambodian police are still investigating Dennis’s network under the codename Operation Queenstown.
Warning: This article contains references to child sexual abuse and suicide.
He was one of Sydney’s most respected senior counsel. He was also, for years, a familiar and welcome face inside a Cambodian orphanage full of vulnerable children.
Mark Dennis SC’s sudden fall has now exposed questions that go far beyond one man. They reach into how Australian money, Australian goodwill and Australian adults gain access to some of the poorest children in Southeast Asia.
Dennis was arrested at Sydney Airport in January and charged with possessing and transmitting child abuse material. Weeks later, before he had entered a plea, he was found dead in his home.
He was never convicted.
But his death has not closed the case. Australian and Cambodian national police are jointly examining his network, including his links to Sunrise Cambodia, under Operation Queenstown, an ABC investigation has revealed.
Dennis chaired Sunrise from 2018 to 2020. Over many years he sponsored several children there and visited them regularly.
He also stayed close to some former residents after they left the orphanage as adults.
One former worker, given the pseudonym Akara, says she noticed how much time he spent with the ‘pretty girls’. Years after she left the charity, messages began arriving from the phone number Dennis used for his legal practice.
The ABC verified that number through the messages’ metadata.
He sent her a Dropbox link to a video of himself having sex with a Cambodian person. He then asked whether she knew a young, English-speaking Cambodian woman seeking a husband, adding that he ‘preferred’ a virgin.
He offered to ‘reward’ her for help. Finally, he offered her $300 to spend an hour watching him.
Akara sent a barking-dog emoji in a desperate bid to end the exchange. She never reported the messages.
She says she still asks herself why he sent them, and calls them disgusting.
Other former staff allege that Dennis sexually harassed an employee, touched teenage girls excessively and entered children’s dormitories. None of these claims were reported to the charity.
Sunrise says police have told it no current or former Sunrise child has been identified among his alleged victims.
The charity’s roots go back to the 1990s.
Founder Geraldine Cox built it on land gifted by then-prime minister Hun Sen, at a time when Cambodia was still scarred by the Khmer Rouge era and genuine orphans were everywhere.
Documents obtained by Background Briefing and ABC Investigations now reveal a troubling history. In 2004, a long-serving bus driver was given a ‘final warning’ for ‘abnormal sexualised behaviour’, including watching girls undress in the toilet.
Years later, a 16-year-old girl alleged he had driven her to a quiet plot of land and raped her. She fell pregnant and had an abortion.
The driver was sacked but vanished before police could arrest him.
Social worker Rob Madsen, operations manager from 2008 to 2012, wrote at the time that the man should have been ‘instantly dismissed’ years earlier. He also warned of ‘serious gaps’ in how the charity had handled him.
Madsen says he was shocked to arrive and find busloads of tourists watching children perform dance shows. Sponsors felt entitled to take children off-site.
He also discovered that many ‘orphans’ in fact had living parents, some of whom had placed their children there simply because they were poor.
In 2010, a teenage boy who had admitted to forced sex with a young girl was selected for a coveted exchange at an elite Australian boys’ college.
Madsen warned the board that the decision sent other children a message that wrongdoing could be rewarded.
A 2020 resignation letter alleged that another employee took children to his home and shared a bed with them. Sunrise says the bed-sharing claim was unsubstantiated.
It confirms the man took children home with other people present and showed favouritism, and says he was warned about this. The employee strongly denies any inappropriate conduct.
Analysis: What This Means for Australia
This is not just a Cambodian story. It is an Australian one.
Australian donors fund many overseas children’s charities. Australian boards govern them, and Australian sponsors fly in to meet the children they support.
When safeguarding fails, Australian names, money and reputations are tied to the damage.
The Australian Federal Police has long warned that Australians travelling to offend against children in the region remain a persistent threat. Operation Queenstown shows how complicated the hunt for evidence becomes once it crosses borders.
Prosecutions cannot proceed against a dead man, but potential victims still need to be found and supported.
The case also raises questions about child protection laws at home. Sunrise operates under Cambodian, Australian and international standards and says it passed its last three audits with full compliance.
Critics argue that compliance alone does not prevent harm when sponsors hold power over children.
Until recently, sponsor reports carried children’s photos, weights and heights. One included a 10-year-old girl’s history of sexual abuse.
Sunrise says current leadership ended that practice immediately.
Child protection analysts say the episode should prompt Australian regulators and donors to scrutinise how overseas charities use children in fundraising.
Industry observers point to UNICEF’s long-standing warnings that institutional care harms child development. M’Lop Tapang co-founder Maggie Eno has argued there should be ‘zero contact’ between sponsors and children, because sponsors are strangers holding power over them.
Former Sunrise director Peter Winkler, uninvolved since 2015, has said Australian-funded charities reflect Australian values and require due diligence. Madsen is calling for an independent investigation led by Cambodian experts.
Sunrise says residential care is no longer its core program. It says its safeguarding has ‘evolved significantly’ and that it takes child protection extremely seriously.
For the children who once lived there, the questions remain.
If you or anyone you know needs help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831.