child porn ring, Australia children’s home, Jersey care scandal

from http://ritualabuse.us

Austria smashes child porn ring 3/13/09 Austrian police say they have broken an internet child porn ring that spanned 170 countries and involved nearly 1,000 people, including teachers and doctors. Police say they have charged nearly 190 men in Austria and confiscated 14,000 computers, drives and disks. The images showed naked children aged nine to 12 from the US and Paraguay. It is one of the biggest crackdowns on indecent images of children in Austria, and was assisted by police in Croatia, where the site was registered. Police identified a total of 935 suspects as part of an international investigation, code-named Operation Sledgehammer. So far, 189 Austrians have been charged with downloading and dealing in child pornography and another 97 are under investigation, the police said. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7941935.stm


Home of broken trust - Caroline Overington 3/13/09 articles describes abuse "The full name of the home was the Church of England North Coast Children's Home," he says. "The home was on the church grounds. Clergy worked there. Nuns worked there. It was a Church of England home."....Campion says his goal was always to get the Anglican Church to admit responsibility for the abuse, as well as obtain a settlement. In April 2007, the church agreed to make a one-off payment of $825,000 to the 41 complainants, to be divided up on a scale of suffering. The worst abused would get $22,000, while others would get $10,000. There was a catch, however. The payment was not compensation for suffering, but an "act of compassion". The church would not, and does not, agree that the North Coast Children's Home was a church-run facility. Yes, it had a Church of England sign out the front, and yes, clergy worked there, but legally speaking, it was merely "connected" to the church, and therefore, the church was not "responsible" for the abuse....Campion's Gold Coast flat is papered with evidence of his obsession: there are hundreds of letters and files and documents from the former department of child welfare. One example, from 1951, clearly shows that the home where Campion was raised was known as the Church of England North Coast Children's Home. Another document, from 1939, describes the home as being controlled by a "local Church of England committee". Under "Person in charge" it says: "Sister Bertha, Anglican Nun". http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25177776-28737,00.html


Home to something evil - What really happened at Haut de la Garenne, the children's home at the centre of the Jersey care scandal last year? Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy report on a building that still houses some very dark secrets - Cathy Scott-Clark The Guardian, 3/14/09 Among the thousands of statements that still line the shelves of Harper's old incident room, and in the testimony of former residents and workers at Haut de la Garenne and other institutions across Jersey, many of whom we tracked down and interviewed, harrowing stories are buried. Over a period of three decades, residents of the care homes made repeated complaints that they were being sexually and physically abused. A series of damning reports was produced, following confidential inquiries into these institutions, most of which went unheeded. Few prosecutions ensued....Over a period of three decades, residents of the care homes made repeated complaints that they were being sexually and physically abused. A series of damning reports was produced, following confidential inquiries into these institutions, most of which went unheeded. Few prosecutions ensued. It is true to say there were no corpses. However, the testimony provides compelling evidence of a catastrophic failure within Jersey's children's services that ran a regime so punitive, they preferred to lock up problem children en masse than deal with them in their own homes: four times more children, proportionately, are imprisoned in Jersey than in its nearest neighbour, France. And what happened to them once in care was something that Harper's team, had they not been distracted by murder plots, came close to exposing....Meanwhile the child abuse investigation, which had already identified 160 alleged victims, was, Harper claimed, taking flak. Http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/mar/14/haut-de-la-garenne