China arrests US teacher for alleged molestation

BEIJING — Chinese authorities have arrested an American teacher on suspicion of molesting six children at an international school in Shanghai.

Prosecutors in the Pudong district of Shanghai approved the arrest of a 32-year-old man from the United States named David McMahon on charges of child molestation, the city's prosecution office said in a brief notice on its website late Thursday.

McMahon is suspected of molesting four girls and two boys, aged 6 to 10, who are all foreign nationals, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. No further details about McMahon were released.

Shanghai police said earlier McMahon had been detained May 13, the day after one of the children and her parents reported to police that she had been molested by McMahon several times.

Police said in a statement on their official microblog that an investigation showed McMahon was suspected of taking the children alone to the school library or open, empty areas on the pretext of checking their homework, then forcing them to take their clothes off and molesting them.

Another 6-year-old child reported having seen McMahon allegedly molesting the child's classmates, the statement said.

China has been grappling with a recent spate of child sex abuse cases allegedly involving school teachers or employees. The cases — whose victims have mostly been young girls — have triggered public fury and a pledge by the country's Supreme People's Court to crack down on crimes against children.