Downfall of DJ complete after he is jailed for child sex abuse
MARK Page used to be hailed as local success story. The son of a Middlesbrough police officer, he got lucky very early on in life.
Page was offered his first radio gig while he was studying for his A Levels. He went on to host the breakfast show on Radio Tees – the station now known as TFM.
He headed down to London when in his 20s and landed himself a weekend slot at Radio 1.
In his 40s, Page found himself back up North as a divorced dad-ofthree; his children lived with him and he established Garrison FM.
But he was perhaps better known on Teesside for his work as Middlesbrough FC’S matchday announcer.
But Page, now 63, had a sordid secret. On the surface, his dating profile on Filipinocupid.com seemed legitimate. He said he was looking for a relationship with a woman aged 24-35.
In court, Page insisted he openly talked about being single with his staff at the army radio station; that they all knew he used the Filipino dating site.
But Page used the site as a means of meeting children, in the hope that he could rape them when he was next in the Philippines. Until then, he paid them to perform sex acts over his webcam.
He met women, some of whom were prostitutes, and he quickly moved on after paying them – asking one if she can “fix a schoolgirl” for him ahead of his visit to the Philippines in October 2016. The woman offered a schoolgirl of 15, but Page asked for younger, messaging “Girls 12 can do it OK”. Soon he was asking one girl to perform a sex act on a 12-year-old over Skype.
Page established himself as a radio consultant. He was registered with The Department of Trade and Industry and travelled to the Far East to help set up radio stations. In court he denied that these business trips were a cover to abuse children. But it was during these visits, in 2016 and 2019, that he met the Filipino children he had requested from women on the dating site.
During his week-long trial, Page took to the witness stand in an expensive grey suit, and continually protested his innocence.
He refused to talk to the waiting press outside Teesside Crown Court as he made his way into court through a back door. His legal team say “it is not appropriate to provide any details” about how or why he was able to use an entrance usually reserved for the victims of crime.
In a statement, Teesside Crown Court said: “Since the third day of the trial, the defendant has entered the court building using the main entrance in accordance with standard policy.
“On the first two days of the trial, the defendant was given permission to enter via a side entrance, and while this shouldn’t have happened, it was immediately rectified and has had no bearing on the trial itself.”
Page remained polite in court, but he came close to losing his temper in the face of the sordid reality put to him by the prosecution.
And he blamed everyone but himself, for what he had done.
Page claimed he frequently lent his mobile phone out while in the Philippines – and that someone else must have sent the texts asking how old a schoolgirl was; and the unreportable messages describing what
Your sole purpose was to engage children, as young as 12, in vile sexual activity
JUDGE PAUL WATSON
he wanted a young boy and girl to do once he met them and took them back to his hotel room.
Page pointed to a fake Twitter account that someone set up in his name. He said he had been followed by someone taking his picture in the street.
He talked about a Facebook account that appeared in his name – with photos of him with various women.
He tried to pin the blame on an exgirlfriend who had come to live in his family home in Ingleby Barwick.
Page insisted his computer was always on, and that she could have had access and made the Skype calls.
The court went through long records of Western Union transfers Page made to women in the Philippines.
Prosecutor Jo Kidd pointed out sums of £25 or £30 he transferred minutes after a sex chat with a prostitute.
Then Page told the court his works email associated with his Skype account was used by his employees at Garrison FM. Someone must have hacked his account and made the payments.
Ex-garrison FM workers have told The Gazette they are disgusted that he could try and blame them for his sordid sexual abuse of children.
Hal Stewart, a former DJ for the Forces station said: “I think it’s outrageous and a true reflection of how low he has sunk that he would try to pin this on staff he has not seen for almost a decade. Clutching at straws doesn’t cover it.”
Stuart Mccafferty was the Drivetime presenter: “His laptop was sometimes in his office which was locked when he was not in, and to say that staff had access to his passwords isn’t true”.
The charges Page has been convicted of – four counts of arranging the commission of child sex offences – perhaps do not adequately describe the horrific nature of what he did.
Page used child prostitutes and paid them paltry sums of money or topped up their mobile phones in exchange for seeing them naked and performing sex acts on Skype.
In the Philippines, in March 2019, Page met a boy of 13 and a girl of 13, and refused to pay the requested 3,000 pesos to have the boy involved; later transferring 2,000 pesos (abut £30).
Judge Paul Watson said on this occasion he “was satisfied the intended sexual activity did take place”.
He added: “Your sole purpose was to engage children, as young as 12, in vile sexual activity to satisfy your perverted appetites.
“You obviously delighted in their humiliation and the satisfaction of your own corrupt sexual desires. This was, in my view, the very embodiment of depravity.”
Page had stood in the witness box, complaining that he lost his Middlesbrough FC work after the police raided
his home; that he is destitute; that he plans to make a complaint against Cleveland Police over what he says was their refusal to give him his paperwork and records so he could prove his version of events.
He has sold his home on Rowallane Gardens in Ingleby Barwick and moved into a cheaper house in Stockton.
His barrister Trevor Burke QC was mentioned in court as one of the most expensive specialist legal representatives in the country.
Page’s downfall from that of a successful,
well-known, seemingly respectable business owner to a convicted sex offender, who targeted some of the poorest, most desperate children in the world, is complete.
As Page shook his head – still in denial about what he has done – when the guilty verdicts rang out; it is impossible not to think of the 13-yearold that Page sexually abused. The eldest of several children, whose father was absent, she left school aged just 10.
The court heard that she is now in a safe place.