- Charles Mozdir Killed In NYC Shootout That Started With Child Abuse Allegations
- Britain’s Crime of Complicity With the Savile Sex Abuse Scandal
- DNA changes linked to health effects of childhood abuse
- Associations Between Early Life Stress and Gene Methylation in Children
Charles Mozdir Killed In NYC Shootout That Started With Child Abuse Allegations
AP By JAKE PEARSON and TOM HAYS 07/29/2014
NEW YORK (AP) — A California man who skipped town after being accused of molesting a boy was killed and three law enforcement officers trying to arrest him were wounded in a daytime shootout inside a small smoke shop in one of New York's most bustling neighborhoods, officials said.
The man, Charles Richard Mozdir, was recently featured on a CNN show about fugitives. He was wanted in a San Diego case and was charged with lewd acts upon a child younger than 14, a criminal complaint said.
The shootout Monday between Mozdir and members of the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force happened just after 1 p.m. in Greenwich Village not far from New York University in a highly trafficked tourist area bounded by jazz clubs, restaurants, a subway station and a basketball court.
Mozdir's handgun was recovered at the scene, and 20 extra rounds of ammunition were found in his pocket, Police Commissioner William Bratton said....
A $1 million bench warrant was issued for Mozdir's arrest in June 2012 after he skipped an arraignment in San Diego Superior Court on child sexual assault charges, a spokesman for the San Diego County district attorney said.
Mozdir, a wedding photographer, also had been charged with attempting to dissuade a witness from prosecution, the criminal complaint said. He had posted $250,000 bail.
Mozdir's case had recently been featured on CNN's "The Hunt with John Walsh." Mozdir was accused of abusing the boy while babysitting him, and authorities later found evidence of child pornography and bestiality on his cellphone and computers, according to the show's website, quoting federal authorities.
Authorities had searched for him in Coronado, Georgia, California and Mexico, the show said....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/29/abuse-suspect-dead-2-mars_n_5629699.html
Britain’s Crime of Complicity With the Savile Sex Abuse Scandal
By LAURIE PENNY JULY 30, 2014
LONDON .... The Westminster inquiry will investigate not just the rape and assault of children at group homes going back decades but also accusations that child abuse by politicians and other public figures was deliberately covered up or even facilitated by members of the elite. The same Parliament has, it seems, spent 30 years failing to catch the pedophiles in its own house. Before the inquiry was even announced, it emerged that 114 files concerning allegations of abuse against children involving senior political figures had mysteriously disappeared. ....
In Britain in 2014, it is no longer a shock to see the face of a once beloved celebrity or well-known politician on the news in connection with pedophilia. During the past two years, the press has been peppered with reports of allegations and prosecutions of all manner of public figures, from politicians and pop stars to television hosts and senior staff members at exclusive private schools....
Worse, it became clear that a large number of people in show business knew about this abuse and did nothing because of Mr. Savile’s power and prestige. The entertainer, who was a friend of Margaret Thatcher, used his status to gain access to vulnerable young people in schools and even hospitals.
The posthumous disgrace of Jimmy Savile was just the beginning. A series of other public figures have now been accused or convicted of sexual offenses involving children. Among them was a once respected Liberal member of Parliament who died in 2010, Cyril Smith, who abused boys in a children’s home in his constituency. Those boys grew up into traumatized men who told the police about the “fat man” they were forced to sexually service before they were 10 years old.
What links all these convicted or alleged predators of children is not background or upbringing. Mr. Smith started out as a clerk in a tax office, while Mr. Savile first worked as a miner. Paul Gadd, previously convicted but now facing fresh charges, found fame as the singer Gary Glitter, but was brought up by an unmarried mother who worked as a cleaner. Rolf Harris, recently jailed, was an Australian animator who became a successful performer in Britain. What united them was power and access — and a sense of entitlement, acquired from Britain’s traditional elite, that came from the knowledge that their reputations were too great for them to be held accountable....
In many cases, investigation by the authorities was deliberately deflected. Nowhere is this truer than at Britain’s top “public schools,” as the private secondary, usually boarding, schools are known. In these, a culture of bullying and sexualized violence has been understood for more than a century as part of the process of training young men to be leaders. Teachers at 130 of these schools have been implicated; several schools are under criminal investigation by the police....
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/opinion/Britains-Crime-of-Complicity-With-the-Savile-Sex-Abuse-Scandal.html
DNA changes linked to health effects of childhood abuse
By Krystnell Storr NEW YORK Thu Jul 31, 2014
(Reuters Health) - Trauma has lasting effects on mental and physical health that may stem from changes to DNA which undermine a person’s ability to rebound from stress, according to new research.
The small study of abused children adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that experiences can alter gene activity, explaining how mental anguish can translate to lingering physical effects, and possibly opening new avenues for treatment, study authors say.
“This could explain why children with stressful childhood experiences have a different range of problems like not doing well in school, having academic problems, or problems with judgment and decision making,” said senior study author Seth Pollak, a psychologist and child development researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
For example, one of the affected DNA sites Pollak’s team focused on is involved in responding to a nerve-cell growth factor that “is what allows the brain to grow and heal during childhood and to develop,” he told Reuters Health.
The findings, Pollak said, support research showing that “genes aren’t fixed and stable” as was once thought. Scientists have long known that a person’s genes interact with their environment, but this kind of finding helps to illustrate how that actually works, he notes.
The study looked at the blood cells of children who had been abused to examine changes in methylation - a chemical code along the DNA strand that helps control when genes are activated. More or less methylation can silence a gene or boost its activity....
After adjusting for differences associated with socioeconomic status, the researchers found that children who had been abused had extra methylation at three sites along the DNA and had less than the other kids at a fourth site. The changes suggest the GR gene might be silenced when it should normally be active and might be over-active in certain other circumstances....
“If this gene isn’t turned on and you are not able to actually use (cortisol), then you experience emotions like any other individual - you get upset, you get angry, you get aroused but you can’t shut down,” Pollak said.
“It would lead to high levels of stress, arousal, anger, irritation but kind of an inability to regulate and come back to a calmer state,” he said.
“These are the kind of behavioral problems that have been associated with child abuse for a very long time.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/us-dna-stress-child-abuse-idUSKBN0G02AJ20140731
Associations Between Early Life Stress and Gene Methylation in Children.
Romens SE, McDonald J, Svaren J, Pollak SD.
Child Dev. 2014 Jul 24. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12270
Children exposed to extreme stress are at heightened risk for developing mental and physical disorders. However, little is known about mechanisms underlying these associations in humans. An emerging insight is that children's social environments change gene expression, which contributes to biological vulnerabilities for behavioral problems. Epigenetic changes in the glucocorticoid receptor gene, a critical component of stress regulation, were examined in whole blood from 56 children aged 11-14 years. Children exposed to physical maltreatment had greater methylation within exon 1F in the NR3C1 promoter region of the gene compared to nonmaltreated children, including the putative NGFI-A (nerve growth factor) binding site. These results highlight molecular mechanisms linking childhood stress with biological changes that may lead to mental and physical disorders.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25056599
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
FGM affects 137,000 women in England and Wales, reveals shocking new study
FGM affects 137,000 women in England and Wales, reveals shocking new study
A new study - published today, ahead of the UK's first Girl Summit - shows a significant increase in the number of girls and women undergoing female genital mutilation and forced marriage. Radhika Sanghani reports By Radhika Sanghani 22 Jul 2014
The number of women living in the UK who have experienced female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) has risen dramatically, a new report suggests. It shows that the practice has been carried out on 137,000 women and girls living in England and Wales. The City University London and Equality Now study comes as the Prime Minister today hosts the UK’s first ever Girl Summit, which aims to end FGM/C and forced marriage.
It shows that there are around 103,00 FGM/C survivors aged 15-49 in the UK, 24,000 women aged 50 and over, and 10,000 young girls aged under 15. These women and girls are thought to have migrated from countries where the practice of cutting girls’ genitalia – illegal in the UK - is carried out in the name of culture, tradition and religion.... More than 700 million women alive today were married as children, according to UNICEF, and more than 250 million of these before the age of 15....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10980268/FGM-affects-137000-women-in-England-and-Wales-reveals-shocking-new-study.html
Britain has looked the other way for too long over FGM
The fear of offending culture and tradition is preventing us from treating FGM for what it is - appalling sexual abuse
By Emily Dyer 30 Jul 2014
The Prime Minister’s Girl Summit showed that the Government is slowly waking up to the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM). Yet this encouraging step forward stands in the shadow of a much larger question: how is it that our fear of offending “culture” has allowed 137,000 girls living in England and Wales to have their genitals cut off? These hundreds of thousands of girls living in Britain – whose quality of life has been sacrificed to an ancient ritual of sexual control – deserve a clear answer.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11000437/Britain-has-looked-the-other-way-for-too-long-over-FGM.html
A new study - published today, ahead of the UK's first Girl Summit - shows a significant increase in the number of girls and women undergoing female genital mutilation and forced marriage. Radhika Sanghani reports By Radhika Sanghani 22 Jul 2014
The number of women living in the UK who have experienced female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) has risen dramatically, a new report suggests. It shows that the practice has been carried out on 137,000 women and girls living in England and Wales. The City University London and Equality Now study comes as the Prime Minister today hosts the UK’s first ever Girl Summit, which aims to end FGM/C and forced marriage.
It shows that there are around 103,00 FGM/C survivors aged 15-49 in the UK, 24,000 women aged 50 and over, and 10,000 young girls aged under 15. These women and girls are thought to have migrated from countries where the practice of cutting girls’ genitalia – illegal in the UK - is carried out in the name of culture, tradition and religion.... More than 700 million women alive today were married as children, according to UNICEF, and more than 250 million of these before the age of 15....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10980268/FGM-affects-137000-women-in-England-and-Wales-reveals-shocking-new-study.html
Britain has looked the other way for too long over FGM
The fear of offending culture and tradition is preventing us from treating FGM for what it is - appalling sexual abuse
By Emily Dyer 30 Jul 2014
The Prime Minister’s Girl Summit showed that the Government is slowly waking up to the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM). Yet this encouraging step forward stands in the shadow of a much larger question: how is it that our fear of offending “culture” has allowed 137,000 girls living in England and Wales to have their genitals cut off? These hundreds of thousands of girls living in Britain – whose quality of life has been sacrificed to an ancient ritual of sexual control – deserve a clear answer.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11000437/Britain-has-looked-the-other-way-for-too-long-over-FGM.html
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Christian Assemblies International: Former members detail abuse, Official campus statistics for sexual violence mislead
Christian Assemblies International: Former members detail abuse handed out by CAI leader Scott Williams ABC By Caro Meldrum-Hanna July 29, 2014
A four-year investigation by the ABC has uncovered shocking claims of abuse and torment in relation to NSW-based registered charity and religious group Christian Assemblies International (CAI).
Four Corners has revealed that self-styled religious guru Pastor Scott Williams was using his warped brand of evangelical Pentecostalism to run a clandestine homosexual sex ring while allegedly misusing vast amounts of member donations for personal use.
Courageous former members broke their silence and told of their torment living inside the group, which they said is not a Christian church but a horrendous cult run by one man.
The ex-members have remained in the shadows until now out of fear and shame. They detailed shocking acts of abuse ranging from spiritual abuse, financial abuse, verbal and physical abuse, and the sexual abuse of adult men.
They said bizarre sexual rituals were carried out in secret by Williams, who described himself as "The Anointed One" with the Lord's authorisation to sidestep biblical commands against homosexuality and sexually train his male members into submission and obedience....
Former members say they were recruited by Williams as teenagers and young adults, with many still at school. They say they were brainwashed into believing Williams was The Anointed One, filled with the Holy Spirit and gifted with the divine power of healing.....
Katja's husband, Steve, says women were treated as less than men.
"Women were second-rate citizens," he said. "They were there to have children and stand in the kitchen and make food."
Using biblical scripture, Williams also preached that children were born evil and that the evil had to beaten out of them with an iron rod.
Four Corners spoke to many children who were born into the cult who are now adults. They detailed disturbing policies of punishment, including children being publically beaten for making any noise during a Sunday sermon or for moving off a mat laid out at the front of the Assembly....
https://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/a/24564053/christian-assemblies-international-former-members-detail-abuse-handed-out-by-cai-leader-scott-williams/
Official campus statistics for sexual violence mislead
A school with a lower rate may just be better at discouraging students from reporting assault
July 14, 2014 by Jennifer J. Freyd
Last month, The Washington Post released a compilation of reported rates of campus sexual assault nationwide. Such reports, which colleges and universities are required to release each year, are generally thought to be useful to the public. Parents of college-bound high school students who read that School A has a higher rate of reported sexual violence than School B can make more informed decisions about where their children will be safest. And they might very reasonably think that School A is a more dangerous school. However, the higher rate of reported sexual violence at School A likely indicates the opposite: that it is actually safer than School B. It means that School A is making it possible for — even encouraging — students to report sexual violence.
As a social scientist researching campus sexual violence, I know that even the highest rates of official reported victimization on campuses are substantially lower than what social science data suggest are the real rates of sexual assault. The best national estimate is that approximately 1 in 5 women experience sexual violence in college. But the reported rates are nothing like this, even at those colleges with the highest rates.
Why? Victims of abuse are often reticent about making official reports because they fear the consequences, including being stigmatized or not being believed. This tendency to remain silent is then amplified by institutional barriers to reporting. Colleges and universities have a perverse incentive to discourage sexually victimized students from reporting assault, due to the reputational hit colleges experience if their reported rates of violence are higher than those of their competitors. It’s a profoundly dangerous status quo, because encouraging reporting is one of the key ways colleges can make campuses safer.
Institutional cover-ups
Part of the challenge of tackling campus sexual assault is that sexual abuse typically starts in adolescence, prior to the beginning of college. Perpetrators have often been victimized themselves. Many college victims also have a prior history of abuse. These are important factors that my laboratory has studied for years. Ultimately we must address the underlying society-wide problem of child sexual abuse that contributes to college sexual violence. But in the meantime, college campuses offer a remarkable intervention point for sexual assault: They have resources. They are limited in number (thousands of institutions of higher education versus millions of families, for instance). They influence young people on the cusp of adult responsibility.
But only when such violence is reported can victims access services and colleges hold perpetrators accountable. For most colleges and universities, however, discouraging reporting appears to remain the norm. Colleges can make it difficult to determine how to report; they can also make life harder for students who do report by shaming, invalidating and even punishing them. This is why the reported rates likely tell us more about the campus climate than about underlying rates of sexual violence.
When schools discourage reporting, they collude with many societal forces to cover up sexual violence. Sexual violence thrives on secrecy; if students do not feel they can safely report, the assaults will continue unchecked....
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/college-campus-sexualassaultsafetydatawhitehousegender.html
A four-year investigation by the ABC has uncovered shocking claims of abuse and torment in relation to NSW-based registered charity and religious group Christian Assemblies International (CAI).
Four Corners has revealed that self-styled religious guru Pastor Scott Williams was using his warped brand of evangelical Pentecostalism to run a clandestine homosexual sex ring while allegedly misusing vast amounts of member donations for personal use.
Courageous former members broke their silence and told of their torment living inside the group, which they said is not a Christian church but a horrendous cult run by one man.
The ex-members have remained in the shadows until now out of fear and shame. They detailed shocking acts of abuse ranging from spiritual abuse, financial abuse, verbal and physical abuse, and the sexual abuse of adult men.
They said bizarre sexual rituals were carried out in secret by Williams, who described himself as "The Anointed One" with the Lord's authorisation to sidestep biblical commands against homosexuality and sexually train his male members into submission and obedience....
Former members say they were recruited by Williams as teenagers and young adults, with many still at school. They say they were brainwashed into believing Williams was The Anointed One, filled with the Holy Spirit and gifted with the divine power of healing.....
Katja's husband, Steve, says women were treated as less than men.
"Women were second-rate citizens," he said. "They were there to have children and stand in the kitchen and make food."
Using biblical scripture, Williams also preached that children were born evil and that the evil had to beaten out of them with an iron rod.
Four Corners spoke to many children who were born into the cult who are now adults. They detailed disturbing policies of punishment, including children being publically beaten for making any noise during a Sunday sermon or for moving off a mat laid out at the front of the Assembly....
https://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/a/24564053/christian-assemblies-international-former-members-detail-abuse-handed-out-by-cai-leader-scott-williams/
Official campus statistics for sexual violence mislead
A school with a lower rate may just be better at discouraging students from reporting assault
July 14, 2014 by Jennifer J. Freyd
Last month, The Washington Post released a compilation of reported rates of campus sexual assault nationwide. Such reports, which colleges and universities are required to release each year, are generally thought to be useful to the public. Parents of college-bound high school students who read that School A has a higher rate of reported sexual violence than School B can make more informed decisions about where their children will be safest. And they might very reasonably think that School A is a more dangerous school. However, the higher rate of reported sexual violence at School A likely indicates the opposite: that it is actually safer than School B. It means that School A is making it possible for — even encouraging — students to report sexual violence.
As a social scientist researching campus sexual violence, I know that even the highest rates of official reported victimization on campuses are substantially lower than what social science data suggest are the real rates of sexual assault. The best national estimate is that approximately 1 in 5 women experience sexual violence in college. But the reported rates are nothing like this, even at those colleges with the highest rates.
Why? Victims of abuse are often reticent about making official reports because they fear the consequences, including being stigmatized or not being believed. This tendency to remain silent is then amplified by institutional barriers to reporting. Colleges and universities have a perverse incentive to discourage sexually victimized students from reporting assault, due to the reputational hit colleges experience if their reported rates of violence are higher than those of their competitors. It’s a profoundly dangerous status quo, because encouraging reporting is one of the key ways colleges can make campuses safer.
Institutional cover-ups
Part of the challenge of tackling campus sexual assault is that sexual abuse typically starts in adolescence, prior to the beginning of college. Perpetrators have often been victimized themselves. Many college victims also have a prior history of abuse. These are important factors that my laboratory has studied for years. Ultimately we must address the underlying society-wide problem of child sexual abuse that contributes to college sexual violence. But in the meantime, college campuses offer a remarkable intervention point for sexual assault: They have resources. They are limited in number (thousands of institutions of higher education versus millions of families, for instance). They influence young people on the cusp of adult responsibility.
But only when such violence is reported can victims access services and colleges hold perpetrators accountable. For most colleges and universities, however, discouraging reporting appears to remain the norm. Colleges can make it difficult to determine how to report; they can also make life harder for students who do report by shaming, invalidating and even punishing them. This is why the reported rates likely tell us more about the campus climate than about underlying rates of sexual violence.
When schools discourage reporting, they collude with many societal forces to cover up sexual violence. Sexual violence thrives on secrecy; if students do not feel they can safely report, the assaults will continue unchecked....
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/college-campus-sexualassaultsafetydatawhitehousegender.html
Friday, July 25, 2014
Probe launched by Foreign Office into allegations of child abuse on British territory of St Helena
Probe launched by Foreign Office into allegations of child abuse on British territory of St Helena after claims were revealed by child protection charity
Foreign and Commonwealth Office promise independent investigation
Comes as social worker on island claims she was forced to resign
Said she was shocked over sheer volume of sexual abuse allegations
Claims she was harassed and threatened when she blew the whistle
By Louise Eccles 24 July 2014
A social worker on St Helena who claims she was forced to resign after authorities failed to tackle ‘appalling’ child sexual abuse on the island will have her shocking allegations probed by an independent investigation, Mail Online can reveal.
The social services manager, who has asked not to be named, said she was shocked when she arrived on the British overseas territory by the sheer volume of sexual abuse allegations.
But she claims she was harassed and threatened when she blew the whistle on the alleged failure of police to properly investigate such crimes.
Now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has promised an independent investigation will be launched into her claims.
The probe comes after Mail Online revealed that a report by UK child protection charity The Lucy Faithfull Foundation found St Helena was rife with child sexual abuse, domestic violence and sexual exploitation.
The charity was sent to the remote South Atlantic island by the British government, although the report was never released.
A spokeswoman for the FCO said: ‘These are extremely worrying allegations which we take very seriously....
‘Paedophiles were found to be private foster carers. Staff were allowed to have sexual relationships with vulnerable adults. Reported rapes were not dealt with.
‘Paedophilia was not being tackled if it involved public officials or connected people. They were not being investigated or charged.’
She claims that she was constructively dismissed on 8 July 2014.
The manager said she had ‘no choice’ but to resign because she had been targeted by officials ever since whistleblowing to the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in March.
She was also threatened with perjury charges in relation to an adoption case – something she believes was done to ensure she would leave the island....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2704718/Probe-launched-Foreign-Office-allegations-child-abuse-British-territory-St-Helena-claims-revealed-child-protection-charity.html
Foreign and Commonwealth Office promise independent investigation
Comes as social worker on island claims she was forced to resign
Said she was shocked over sheer volume of sexual abuse allegations
Claims she was harassed and threatened when she blew the whistle
By Louise Eccles 24 July 2014
A social worker on St Helena who claims she was forced to resign after authorities failed to tackle ‘appalling’ child sexual abuse on the island will have her shocking allegations probed by an independent investigation, Mail Online can reveal.
The social services manager, who has asked not to be named, said she was shocked when she arrived on the British overseas territory by the sheer volume of sexual abuse allegations.
But she claims she was harassed and threatened when she blew the whistle on the alleged failure of police to properly investigate such crimes.
Now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has promised an independent investigation will be launched into her claims.
The probe comes after Mail Online revealed that a report by UK child protection charity The Lucy Faithfull Foundation found St Helena was rife with child sexual abuse, domestic violence and sexual exploitation.
The charity was sent to the remote South Atlantic island by the British government, although the report was never released.
A spokeswoman for the FCO said: ‘These are extremely worrying allegations which we take very seriously....
‘Paedophiles were found to be private foster carers. Staff were allowed to have sexual relationships with vulnerable adults. Reported rapes were not dealt with.
‘Paedophilia was not being tackled if it involved public officials or connected people. They were not being investigated or charged.’
She claims that she was constructively dismissed on 8 July 2014.
The manager said she had ‘no choice’ but to resign because she had been targeted by officials ever since whistleblowing to the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in March.
She was also threatened with perjury charges in relation to an adoption case – something she believes was done to ensure she would leave the island....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2704718/Probe-launched-Foreign-Office-allegations-child-abuse-British-territory-St-Helena-claims-revealed-child-protection-charity.html
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Effects Of Child Abuse And Neglect On The Brain, Man Charged With Child Abuse in Kenya
Effects Of Child Abuse And Neglect On The Brain Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Hundreds of thousands of children suffer from neglect, abuse and trauma during their early years. Many of the psychological consequences are well known, but it’s becoming increasingly clear just how damaging they are to the developing brain.
Today in the final part of our series from WBUR called “Brain Matters: Reporting from the Frontlines of Neuroscience,” Iris Adler looks at a key issue in brain development: the biological consequences of early childhood neglect and trauma.
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/07/23/child-abuse-brain-effects
Man Charged in Oklahoma With Child Abuse in Kenya
OKLAHOMA CITY — Jul 22, 2014
By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press
An Oklahoma man has been charged with sexually abusing boys and girls while volunteering at an organization in Kenya that assists neglected children.
Matthew Lane Durham, of Edmond, is accused of engaging in sex acts with as many as ten children aged from 4 to 10 years while volunteering at Upendo Children's Home in Nairobi from April to June 2014.
The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Western Oklahoma last week says the 19-year-old Durham has volunteered with Upendo since June 2012.
Durham wrote and signed a confession that an Upendo official provided to the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, according to an affidavit filed by FBI agent Scott Lobb.
In it, he admitted to sexually abusing boys and girls in a bathroom at the children's home. At least one of the victims is HIV positive, according to the affidavit....
Durham's attorney Stephen Jones said Tuesday the affidavit is riddled with inaccuracies and that his client is innocent....
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/man-charged-oklahoma-child-abuse-kenya-24662622
Hundreds of thousands of children suffer from neglect, abuse and trauma during their early years. Many of the psychological consequences are well known, but it’s becoming increasingly clear just how damaging they are to the developing brain.
Today in the final part of our series from WBUR called “Brain Matters: Reporting from the Frontlines of Neuroscience,” Iris Adler looks at a key issue in brain development: the biological consequences of early childhood neglect and trauma.
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/07/23/child-abuse-brain-effects
Man Charged in Oklahoma With Child Abuse in Kenya
OKLAHOMA CITY — Jul 22, 2014
By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press
An Oklahoma man has been charged with sexually abusing boys and girls while volunteering at an organization in Kenya that assists neglected children.
Matthew Lane Durham, of Edmond, is accused of engaging in sex acts with as many as ten children aged from 4 to 10 years while volunteering at Upendo Children's Home in Nairobi from April to June 2014.
The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Western Oklahoma last week says the 19-year-old Durham has volunteered with Upendo since June 2012.
Durham wrote and signed a confession that an Upendo official provided to the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, according to an affidavit filed by FBI agent Scott Lobb.
In it, he admitted to sexually abusing boys and girls in a bathroom at the children's home. At least one of the victims is HIV positive, according to the affidavit....
Durham's attorney Stephen Jones said Tuesday the affidavit is riddled with inaccuracies and that his client is innocent....
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/man-charged-oklahoma-child-abuse-kenya-24662622
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Chilling day Special Branch swooped to seize ANOTHER dossier on VIP abusers: 16 MPs' names mentioned in 1984 report on paedophile lobby's influence in Westminster
Chilling day Special Branch swooped to seize ANOTHER dossier on VIP abusers: 16 MPs' names mentioned in 1984 report on paedophile lobby's influence in Westminster
Police raided newspaper offices of Don Hale, editor of Bury Messenger
He'd recently been given sensitive files by Labour politician Barbara Castle
Documents included typewritten minutes of meetings that had been held at Westminster in support of paedophile agenda
Included details of a host of Establishment figures who had apparently pledged support to their cause
Also mentioned multiple times was Tory minister Sir Rhodes Boyson, a well-known enthusiast for corporal punishment, and Education Secretary Sir Keith Joseph
By Guy Adams 18 July 2014
The knock on the door came early one day in the famously dry summer of 1984. It was just after 8 am, and Don Hale, the young editor of the Bury Messenger, was reading the daily papers at his desk as his reporters were beginning to arrive at the office.
As Hale, then 31, answered the door, a trio of plain-clothes detectives barged in, followed by a dozen police officers in uniform.
What happened next was, in Hale’s words, ‘like something out of totalitarian East Germany rather than Margaret Thatcher’s supposedly free Britain’.
The detectives identified themselves as Special Branch, the division of the police responsible for matters of national security.
‘They began to flash warrant cards and bark questions,’ says Hale. ‘It was as if they were interviewing a potential criminal rather than a law-abiding newspaper man.
‘The officers told me that I should abandon plans to print a story that was scheduled to run in our next edition. If I didn’t, they told me to expect a long jail sentence.’
Initially bewildered by their threatening tone, Hale soon worked out the purpose of the police visit.
The focus of their attention was an incendiary dossier he had been handed a few days earlier by long-serving Labour politician Barbara Castle. A powerful feminist and stalwart of the traditional Left, who served in Harold Wilson’s Cabinet, she was for years the MP for nearby Blackburn.
One of her lifelong interests, as a principled advocate for the vulnerable and powerless, was child protection. To that end, she had become concerned at the rising influence of the paedophile lobby, which was then infiltrating the political Establishment, developing links with senior public figures, including MPs, peers, civil servants and police officers....
At this point, the officer produced a document, signed by a judge. It showed that his previous remark about not printing the story had not been a request, but an order. The document handed to Hale was a D-notice — a relic of wartime censorship that could be served on newspaper editors, allowing the Government to block any story that threatened national security.
‘If you don’t comply with this notice, we will arrest you for perverting the course of justice,’ the detective barked. ‘You will be liable for up to ten years in prison.’
At this point, Hale’s resistance collapsed. He had been plunged into a situation for which he had little experience.
In his first editorship and married with two children, he says he couldn’t afford to casually put his family and career at risk.
The papers from Mrs Castle were swiftly confiscated, as were Hale’s notes and even his typewriter....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2697947/Chilling-day-Special-Branch-swooped-seize-ANOTHER-dossier-VIP-abusers-16-MPs-names-mentioned-1984-report-paedophile-lobby-s-influence-Westminster.html
WATCH: The prison threat that stopped high profile child abusers being revealed
An investigative journalist claims he was threatened by the former MP Cyril Smith, and then raided by police, to stop him revealing the names of politicians who were trying to legalise sex with children.
Don Hale was editor of the Bury Messenger in the 1980s.
He says he was told he'd go to prison if he printed a story based on a dossier of Westminster documents.
He's given his first broadcast interview on the revelations to Ashley Derricott:
http://www.itv.com/news/granada/story/2014-07-21/the-prison-threat-that-stopped-high-profile-child-abusers-being-revealed/
Police raided newspaper offices of Don Hale, editor of Bury Messenger
He'd recently been given sensitive files by Labour politician Barbara Castle
Documents included typewritten minutes of meetings that had been held at Westminster in support of paedophile agenda
Included details of a host of Establishment figures who had apparently pledged support to their cause
Also mentioned multiple times was Tory minister Sir Rhodes Boyson, a well-known enthusiast for corporal punishment, and Education Secretary Sir Keith Joseph
By Guy Adams 18 July 2014
The knock on the door came early one day in the famously dry summer of 1984. It was just after 8 am, and Don Hale, the young editor of the Bury Messenger, was reading the daily papers at his desk as his reporters were beginning to arrive at the office.
As Hale, then 31, answered the door, a trio of plain-clothes detectives barged in, followed by a dozen police officers in uniform.
What happened next was, in Hale’s words, ‘like something out of totalitarian East Germany rather than Margaret Thatcher’s supposedly free Britain’.
The detectives identified themselves as Special Branch, the division of the police responsible for matters of national security.
‘They began to flash warrant cards and bark questions,’ says Hale. ‘It was as if they were interviewing a potential criminal rather than a law-abiding newspaper man.
‘The officers told me that I should abandon plans to print a story that was scheduled to run in our next edition. If I didn’t, they told me to expect a long jail sentence.’
Initially bewildered by their threatening tone, Hale soon worked out the purpose of the police visit.
The focus of their attention was an incendiary dossier he had been handed a few days earlier by long-serving Labour politician Barbara Castle. A powerful feminist and stalwart of the traditional Left, who served in Harold Wilson’s Cabinet, she was for years the MP for nearby Blackburn.
One of her lifelong interests, as a principled advocate for the vulnerable and powerless, was child protection. To that end, she had become concerned at the rising influence of the paedophile lobby, which was then infiltrating the political Establishment, developing links with senior public figures, including MPs, peers, civil servants and police officers....
At this point, the officer produced a document, signed by a judge. It showed that his previous remark about not printing the story had not been a request, but an order. The document handed to Hale was a D-notice — a relic of wartime censorship that could be served on newspaper editors, allowing the Government to block any story that threatened national security.
‘If you don’t comply with this notice, we will arrest you for perverting the course of justice,’ the detective barked. ‘You will be liable for up to ten years in prison.’
At this point, Hale’s resistance collapsed. He had been plunged into a situation for which he had little experience.
In his first editorship and married with two children, he says he couldn’t afford to casually put his family and career at risk.
The papers from Mrs Castle were swiftly confiscated, as were Hale’s notes and even his typewriter....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2697947/Chilling-day-Special-Branch-swooped-seize-ANOTHER-dossier-VIP-abusers-16-MPs-names-mentioned-1984-report-paedophile-lobby-s-influence-Westminster.html
WATCH: The prison threat that stopped high profile child abusers being revealed
An investigative journalist claims he was threatened by the former MP Cyril Smith, and then raided by police, to stop him revealing the names of politicians who were trying to legalise sex with children.
Don Hale was editor of the Bury Messenger in the 1980s.
He says he was told he'd go to prison if he printed a story based on a dossier of Westminster documents.
He's given his first broadcast interview on the revelations to Ashley Derricott:
http://www.itv.com/news/granada/story/2014-07-21/the-prison-threat-that-stopped-high-profile-child-abusers-being-revealed/
Monday, July 21, 2014
Jersey historical child abuse inquiry to begin, ‘has information on Westminster child abuse’
Jersey historical child abuse inquiry to begin 21 July 2014
An inquiry looking into historical child abuse allegations in Jersey's care system will begin later.
The year-long £6m inquiry will probe reports of abuse in the island's children's homes and fostering services from 1960 to the present day....
A three-year, £7.5m investigation by Jersey police into historical child abuse in the island's care homes began after allegations of abuse at former children's home Haut de la Garenne.
From September 2007, police took 1,776 statements from 192 victims, identifying 151 alleged abusers. Seven people were successfully prosecuted.... http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-jersey-28408981
Bradford paedophile ‘has information on Westminster child abuse’ 21 July 2014
A CONVICTED paedophile in West Yorkshire had his sentencing adjourned because he claims to have information on child abuse allegedly being covered up in Westminster in the 1970s.
According to his barrister, Michael McAuliffe says he is also able to provide information about further child abuse and paedophile rings.
James Bourne-Arton QC, defending McAuliffe, asked the court whether his client’s case could be adjourned for police investigations into his claims to be made.
Mr Bourne-Arton told Bradford Crown Court today that his client “has information to the abuse covered up in the 1970s in Westminster”.
“He also said there was other evidence of child abuse and paedophile rings he was able to give information of,” he added.
McAuliffe was in court to be sentenced for a string of child porn image charges after an off-duty policewoman spotted him in London - where he had tried to escape justice by changing his name.
The 50-year-old, who changed his name to Ashley Peters, was registered with West Yorkshire Police and legally bound to notify the force of any change in address following child porn convictions....
Today Michael Smith, prosecuting, told the court their position “is one of deep scepticism” regarding McAuliffe’s recent claims....
McAuliffe then said “Can I just say the names I’ve got...” before Judge Benson cut him off and sent him down to the cells. http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/general-news/bradford-paedophile-has-information-on-westminster-child-abuse-1-6740888
An inquiry looking into historical child abuse allegations in Jersey's care system will begin later.
The year-long £6m inquiry will probe reports of abuse in the island's children's homes and fostering services from 1960 to the present day....
A three-year, £7.5m investigation by Jersey police into historical child abuse in the island's care homes began after allegations of abuse at former children's home Haut de la Garenne.
From September 2007, police took 1,776 statements from 192 victims, identifying 151 alleged abusers. Seven people were successfully prosecuted.... http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-jersey-28408981
Bradford paedophile ‘has information on Westminster child abuse’ 21 July 2014
A CONVICTED paedophile in West Yorkshire had his sentencing adjourned because he claims to have information on child abuse allegedly being covered up in Westminster in the 1970s.
According to his barrister, Michael McAuliffe says he is also able to provide information about further child abuse and paedophile rings.
James Bourne-Arton QC, defending McAuliffe, asked the court whether his client’s case could be adjourned for police investigations into his claims to be made.
Mr Bourne-Arton told Bradford Crown Court today that his client “has information to the abuse covered up in the 1970s in Westminster”.
“He also said there was other evidence of child abuse and paedophile rings he was able to give information of,” he added.
McAuliffe was in court to be sentenced for a string of child porn image charges after an off-duty policewoman spotted him in London - where he had tried to escape justice by changing his name.
The 50-year-old, who changed his name to Ashley Peters, was registered with West Yorkshire Police and legally bound to notify the force of any change in address following child porn convictions....
Today Michael Smith, prosecuting, told the court their position “is one of deep scepticism” regarding McAuliffe’s recent claims....
McAuliffe then said “Can I just say the names I’ve got...” before Judge Benson cut him off and sent him down to the cells. http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/general-news/bradford-paedophile-has-information-on-westminster-child-abuse-1-6740888
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Matt Sandusky's Oprah interview is a seminar in child sexual abuse, Italian court acquits Berlusconi in sex case
Matt Sandusky's Oprah interview is a seminar in child sexual abuse that's difficult to watch -- but we all should
By David Jones July 18, 2014
It is hard to watch. But just think of how much harder it was to experience.
Matt Sandusky's interview with Oprah Winfrey, aired last night, is wrenching and disturbing and visceral in the worst ways. It is not particularly graphic. It is just difficult to view a victim of child abuse try to put words to such horrific acts.
So, why would anyone want to watch this? That's a good question. I avoided it for most of the day, even knowing that it had made news. I just didn't want to put myself through it. It was easier not to.
And that's why I think it might help if everyone watched it....
Because it puts a very specific description to what child sexual abuse is, how it is germinated, how victims are groomed and what the effects are. Knowing can prevent it. Just looking at Matt Sandusky's face as he struggles to find the terms to articulate his memories and emotions during various stages of his childhood with a pedophile as his adopted father is enough to bring those effects home. In that way, it's similar to Jeremy Schapp's interview with MLB pitcher R.A. Dickey who was similarly abused as a kid.
Part of the reason these sick people so often get away with what they do is that their acts are so repugnant that it's our natural inclination to turn away. We just don't want to know that such a thing is possible....
The best part about what Matt Sandusky does is the way he keeps himself together – though it's clear how difficult that is – and explains in simple and clear detail without being lurid exactly how the progression of grooming was made....
http://www.pennlive.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/07/matt_sanduskys_oprah_interview.html
Italian court acquits Berlusconi in sex case
Associated Press By COLLEEN BARRY July 18, 2014
MILAN (AP) — An Italian appeals court on Friday acquitted former Premier Silvio Berlusconi in a sex-for-hire case, reversing a lower court conviction that had carried a seven-year prison sentence and a lifetime ban on holding political office.
The case has grabbed global attention, offering an unseemly peek into the 77-year-old three-time premier's private life with witness testimony revealing raunchy, sex-fueled bunga-bunga parties at his private villa attended by a bevy of aspiring showgirls.
The prosecution alleged that Berlusconi had paid for sex with underage Moroccan prostitute Karima el-Mahroug, better known as Ruby, and then used his influence to cover it up.
He denied the charges, saying the case was politically motivated by magistrates trying to drive him from power. Both he and el-Mahroug, who was 17 when she frequented the then-premier's villa, denied ever having had sex....
Berlusconi's defense lawyer, Franco Coppi, said the decision "goes beyond the rosiest predictions," adding that he would have been satisfied with an acquittal for lack of evidence. But the court went further, saying that no crimes had been committed....
Berlusconi also is on trial in Naples accused of political corruption, and under investigation in Milan accused of witness-tampering in the sex-for-hire trial and in another related case involving three aides who were convicted of procuring prostitutes for his parties....
http://news.yahoo.com/italian-court-acquits-berlusconi-sex-case-111848165.html
By David Jones July 18, 2014
It is hard to watch. But just think of how much harder it was to experience.
Matt Sandusky's interview with Oprah Winfrey, aired last night, is wrenching and disturbing and visceral in the worst ways. It is not particularly graphic. It is just difficult to view a victim of child abuse try to put words to such horrific acts.
So, why would anyone want to watch this? That's a good question. I avoided it for most of the day, even knowing that it had made news. I just didn't want to put myself through it. It was easier not to.
And that's why I think it might help if everyone watched it....
Because it puts a very specific description to what child sexual abuse is, how it is germinated, how victims are groomed and what the effects are. Knowing can prevent it. Just looking at Matt Sandusky's face as he struggles to find the terms to articulate his memories and emotions during various stages of his childhood with a pedophile as his adopted father is enough to bring those effects home. In that way, it's similar to Jeremy Schapp's interview with MLB pitcher R.A. Dickey who was similarly abused as a kid.
Part of the reason these sick people so often get away with what they do is that their acts are so repugnant that it's our natural inclination to turn away. We just don't want to know that such a thing is possible....
The best part about what Matt Sandusky does is the way he keeps himself together – though it's clear how difficult that is – and explains in simple and clear detail without being lurid exactly how the progression of grooming was made....
http://www.pennlive.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/07/matt_sanduskys_oprah_interview.html
Italian court acquits Berlusconi in sex case
Associated Press By COLLEEN BARRY July 18, 2014
MILAN (AP) — An Italian appeals court on Friday acquitted former Premier Silvio Berlusconi in a sex-for-hire case, reversing a lower court conviction that had carried a seven-year prison sentence and a lifetime ban on holding political office.
The case has grabbed global attention, offering an unseemly peek into the 77-year-old three-time premier's private life with witness testimony revealing raunchy, sex-fueled bunga-bunga parties at his private villa attended by a bevy of aspiring showgirls.
The prosecution alleged that Berlusconi had paid for sex with underage Moroccan prostitute Karima el-Mahroug, better known as Ruby, and then used his influence to cover it up.
He denied the charges, saying the case was politically motivated by magistrates trying to drive him from power. Both he and el-Mahroug, who was 17 when she frequented the then-premier's villa, denied ever having had sex....
Berlusconi's defense lawyer, Franco Coppi, said the decision "goes beyond the rosiest predictions," adding that he would have been satisfied with an acquittal for lack of evidence. But the court went further, saying that no crimes had been committed....
Berlusconi also is on trial in Naples accused of political corruption, and under investigation in Milan accused of witness-tampering in the sex-for-hire trial and in another related case involving three aides who were convicted of procuring prostitutes for his parties....
http://news.yahoo.com/italian-court-acquits-berlusconi-sex-case-111848165.html
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Rape, hunger and nameless kids at squalid children's home in Mexico, Appeal by elderly Radisson woman's slayer in satanic killing denied
Rape, hunger and nameless kids at squalid children's home in Mexico
Reuters
A child playing a ball is seen through a barred window, inside a home known as "La Gran Familia", in the western city of Zamora.
7/18/14 By Lizbeth Diaz of Reuters
ZAMORA Mexico (Reuters) - Children in a squalid home for abandoned and troubled kids run by a controversial mother figure in western Mexico said hunger and regular beatings drove them to offer sex for food and get high by sniffing paint.
Mexican police raided the refuge known as "La Gran Familia" (The Big Family) in the state of Michoacan on Tuesday, finding more than 450 kids in squalid rooms filled with trash and cockroaches.
Many of the children, skinny and listless, described enduring years of abuse at the hands of home administrators including 79-year-old "Mama" Rosa Verduzco, who ran the home in the town of Zamora and has been detained on charges of deprivation of liberty and abuse....
The home was founded in 1947 and provided kids with schooling, workshops and youth orchestras. It received financial backing from individuals, the government and businesses, according to its Facebook page.
Verduzco had won praise from politicians and respected academics for spending more than four decades sheltering children in Michoacan, one of the poorest states in Mexico and ravaged by some of the worst violence in the country's drug war.
But the raid this week revealed filthy conditions at the home....
Some residents described youngsters being raped by a caretaker in a bathroom that was known as "pinocho". Others said they were confined there as a form of punishment....
The allegations could not be independently confirmed but children at the home on Thursday said the abuse drove some kids to seek refuge in drug use, sniffing paint to get high. They faced beatings if they were discovered, they said.
Authorities launched the raid after receiving five complaints from parents who said administrators would not return their children to them. The plan is now to reunite children with their families where possible and find other homes for orphans....
(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz, Writing by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Kieran Murray) http://news.msn.com/in-depth/rape-hunger-and-nameless-kids-at-squalid-childrens-home-in-mexico
Appeal by elderly Radisson woman's slayer in satanic killing denied
By AP and Leader-Telegram staff 7/16/14
A state appeals court on Tuesday agreed with the homicide conviction of a man who brutally stabbed a 93-year-old woman to death in northern Wisconsin.
The 3rd District Court of Appeals in Wausau rejected the argument of Christopher L. Roalson of Radisson. He was convicted in 2012 of first-degree intentional homicide in the May 3, 2009, death of Irena Roszak in Sawyer County. Roalson, 32, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors said Roalson shouted satanic references as he stabbed Roszak while she prayed and begged for her life in her Radisson home. She was stabbed about 15 times.
Investigators said Roalson told them he is the “son of Satan,” and he had a crucifix in his house turned upside down, a sign the devil is “occupied and happy.”....
Davis, 20, was with Roalson at the time of the murder, saying he saw Roalson stab the woman and beat her with a chair. Davis was convicted in 2010 of being party to second-degree intentional homicide. He originally was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but that was reduced to eight years after his testimony.
Walsczak testified Roalson told her about the stabbing three days before the woman’s body was found.
Roalson’s attorney, Tim Provis of Madison, said he would appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court. State Department of Justice spokeswoman Dana Brueck had no comment. http://m.leadertelegram.com/news/daily_updates/article_cecce74c-0ca7-11e4-8904-001a4bcf887a.html
Reuters
A child playing a ball is seen through a barred window, inside a home known as "La Gran Familia", in the western city of Zamora.
7/18/14 By Lizbeth Diaz of Reuters
ZAMORA Mexico (Reuters) - Children in a squalid home for abandoned and troubled kids run by a controversial mother figure in western Mexico said hunger and regular beatings drove them to offer sex for food and get high by sniffing paint.
Mexican police raided the refuge known as "La Gran Familia" (The Big Family) in the state of Michoacan on Tuesday, finding more than 450 kids in squalid rooms filled with trash and cockroaches.
Many of the children, skinny and listless, described enduring years of abuse at the hands of home administrators including 79-year-old "Mama" Rosa Verduzco, who ran the home in the town of Zamora and has been detained on charges of deprivation of liberty and abuse....
The home was founded in 1947 and provided kids with schooling, workshops and youth orchestras. It received financial backing from individuals, the government and businesses, according to its Facebook page.
Verduzco had won praise from politicians and respected academics for spending more than four decades sheltering children in Michoacan, one of the poorest states in Mexico and ravaged by some of the worst violence in the country's drug war.
But the raid this week revealed filthy conditions at the home....
Some residents described youngsters being raped by a caretaker in a bathroom that was known as "pinocho". Others said they were confined there as a form of punishment....
The allegations could not be independently confirmed but children at the home on Thursday said the abuse drove some kids to seek refuge in drug use, sniffing paint to get high. They faced beatings if they were discovered, they said.
Authorities launched the raid after receiving five complaints from parents who said administrators would not return their children to them. The plan is now to reunite children with their families where possible and find other homes for orphans....
(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz, Writing by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Kieran Murray) http://news.msn.com/in-depth/rape-hunger-and-nameless-kids-at-squalid-childrens-home-in-mexico
Appeal by elderly Radisson woman's slayer in satanic killing denied
By AP and Leader-Telegram staff 7/16/14
A state appeals court on Tuesday agreed with the homicide conviction of a man who brutally stabbed a 93-year-old woman to death in northern Wisconsin.
The 3rd District Court of Appeals in Wausau rejected the argument of Christopher L. Roalson of Radisson. He was convicted in 2012 of first-degree intentional homicide in the May 3, 2009, death of Irena Roszak in Sawyer County. Roalson, 32, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors said Roalson shouted satanic references as he stabbed Roszak while she prayed and begged for her life in her Radisson home. She was stabbed about 15 times.
Investigators said Roalson told them he is the “son of Satan,” and he had a crucifix in his house turned upside down, a sign the devil is “occupied and happy.”....
Davis, 20, was with Roalson at the time of the murder, saying he saw Roalson stab the woman and beat her with a chair. Davis was convicted in 2010 of being party to second-degree intentional homicide. He originally was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but that was reduced to eight years after his testimony.
Walsczak testified Roalson told her about the stabbing three days before the woman’s body was found.
Roalson’s attorney, Tim Provis of Madison, said he would appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court. State Department of Justice spokeswoman Dana Brueck had no comment. http://m.leadertelegram.com/news/daily_updates/article_cecce74c-0ca7-11e4-8904-001a4bcf887a.html
Friday, July 18, 2014
Everything you missed from Matthew Sandusky’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, UConn to pay $1.3M in sex assault handling lawsuit, Online child abuse reports surge, says US watchdog
Everything you missed from Matthew Sandusky’s interview with Oprah Winfrey By Soraya Nadia McDonald July 18, 2014
....In an interview aired Thursday night on “Oprah Prime” on Winfrey’s OWN network, Matthew told Winfrey he felt it would have been better for his children and wife if he’d kept everything to himself instead of coming forward. Matthew initially offered grand jury testimony that Sandusky was not a child molester, but recanted during trial. After he told police he had also been abused, Matthew said his family, not just him, became the target of vicious character attacks.
“I can handle it,” Matthew said, even though the abuse drove him to attempt suicide shortly after he moved in with the Sanduskys when he was 16. “I can handle people attacking me. I handled the abuse. I can take it. My wife is an innocent. My children — they’re innocent. For people to attack them — yes, absolutely, the simpler answer would have been for me to keep it, to deal with it on my own.”
Matthew said he came forward about the abuse because he didn’t want to be a “coward.” When he heard the testimony of victim No. 4 during Sandusky’s criminal trial, Matthew said he was astonished at how similar the details were.....
More than 30 boys eventually came forward to say Sandusky molested them. To avoid further litigation, Penn State agreed to a $60 million settlement with 26 victims, including Matthew, and the university disbursed payments of varying sizes. Matthew said he had no knowledge of the settlement when he came forward.
Matthew met Jerry and his wife, Dottie Sandusky, when he was seven years old through Sandusky’s Second Mile charity camp. According to The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach:
Prosecutors say that the Second Mile became a tool for harvesting children for abuse. Sandusky, they said, was a classic predatory pedophile, a man who befriended the most vulnerable boys, the ones needing a father figure, who became appreciative that someone would bring them to football games and make them feel special.
Matthew told Winfrey how he resigned himself to being molested almost as a tradeoff for being around an otherwise stable and loving family. He came from a broken home, he said, where there was physical abuse and even running water wasn’t something that could be taken for granted. He often lived with his grandparents....
Matthew began to act out when he was a young teenager. He tried to cut Sandusky out of his life altogether, but Matthew told Winfrey the coach would come to his biological mother’s home unannounced. He would pull Matthew out of school. There was no escaping him, and Matthew became a truant. He started doing drugs and stealing, and was eventually arrested.
Matthew had a choice: Move in with the Sanduskys, or go to juvenile detention.
The Sanduskys moved him into their home with five other children, all adopted. Matthew so dreaded Sandusky’s nighttime visits he tried to kill himself. He said after that, the sexual abuse largely stopped. The family legally adopted him when he was 18 and pressured him to take the family name so he would be privy to a tuition break thanks to Sandusky’s employment at Penn State....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/18/everything-you-missed-from-matthew-sanduskys-interview-with-oprah-winfrey/
UConn to pay $1.3M in sex assault handling lawsuit
Jul 18, 2014 By PAT EATON-ROBB Associated Press
STORRS, Conn. (AP) - The University of Connecticut will pay $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit by five women who alleged the school did not take seriously their claims of sexual assaults on campus.
The bulk of the settlement, $900,000, will go to Silvana Moccia, a former UConn ice hockey player who alleged she was kicked off the team after reporting she had been raped by a male hockey player in August 2011.
The other four women will receive payments ranging from $25,000 to $125,000.
University officials adamantly denied that they have been indifferent to reports of assaults and did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement. They said the legal fight would be costly and bad for UConn's image.
http://www.knoe.com/story/26052588/apnewsbreak-uconn-settles-sex-assault-lawsuit
Online child abuse reports surge, says US watchdog
By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News 17 July 2014
There has been a dramatic rise in reports of child abuse images posted to commonly used parts of the internet, according to a US watchdog.
They include photos posted to publicly-accessible parts of social networks.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a record number of reports in the first week of July, four times the weekly average.
It comes in a week UK authorities arrested 660 people in connection with online child abuse.
That investigation was believed to have been targeted at those using the so-called "dark net" - parts of the internet that are hidden and can be hard to access without special software.
But the NCMEC stressed there was still a significant and growing challenge for law enforcement agencies to deal with material on the open internet as well as the harder-to-reach areas....
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28359143
....In an interview aired Thursday night on “Oprah Prime” on Winfrey’s OWN network, Matthew told Winfrey he felt it would have been better for his children and wife if he’d kept everything to himself instead of coming forward. Matthew initially offered grand jury testimony that Sandusky was not a child molester, but recanted during trial. After he told police he had also been abused, Matthew said his family, not just him, became the target of vicious character attacks.
“I can handle it,” Matthew said, even though the abuse drove him to attempt suicide shortly after he moved in with the Sanduskys when he was 16. “I can handle people attacking me. I handled the abuse. I can take it. My wife is an innocent. My children — they’re innocent. For people to attack them — yes, absolutely, the simpler answer would have been for me to keep it, to deal with it on my own.”
Matthew said he came forward about the abuse because he didn’t want to be a “coward.” When he heard the testimony of victim No. 4 during Sandusky’s criminal trial, Matthew said he was astonished at how similar the details were.....
More than 30 boys eventually came forward to say Sandusky molested them. To avoid further litigation, Penn State agreed to a $60 million settlement with 26 victims, including Matthew, and the university disbursed payments of varying sizes. Matthew said he had no knowledge of the settlement when he came forward.
Matthew met Jerry and his wife, Dottie Sandusky, when he was seven years old through Sandusky’s Second Mile charity camp. According to The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach:
Prosecutors say that the Second Mile became a tool for harvesting children for abuse. Sandusky, they said, was a classic predatory pedophile, a man who befriended the most vulnerable boys, the ones needing a father figure, who became appreciative that someone would bring them to football games and make them feel special.
Matthew told Winfrey how he resigned himself to being molested almost as a tradeoff for being around an otherwise stable and loving family. He came from a broken home, he said, where there was physical abuse and even running water wasn’t something that could be taken for granted. He often lived with his grandparents....
Matthew began to act out when he was a young teenager. He tried to cut Sandusky out of his life altogether, but Matthew told Winfrey the coach would come to his biological mother’s home unannounced. He would pull Matthew out of school. There was no escaping him, and Matthew became a truant. He started doing drugs and stealing, and was eventually arrested.
Matthew had a choice: Move in with the Sanduskys, or go to juvenile detention.
The Sanduskys moved him into their home with five other children, all adopted. Matthew so dreaded Sandusky’s nighttime visits he tried to kill himself. He said after that, the sexual abuse largely stopped. The family legally adopted him when he was 18 and pressured him to take the family name so he would be privy to a tuition break thanks to Sandusky’s employment at Penn State....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/18/everything-you-missed-from-matthew-sanduskys-interview-with-oprah-winfrey/
UConn to pay $1.3M in sex assault handling lawsuit
Jul 18, 2014 By PAT EATON-ROBB Associated Press
STORRS, Conn. (AP) - The University of Connecticut will pay $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit by five women who alleged the school did not take seriously their claims of sexual assaults on campus.
The bulk of the settlement, $900,000, will go to Silvana Moccia, a former UConn ice hockey player who alleged she was kicked off the team after reporting she had been raped by a male hockey player in August 2011.
The other four women will receive payments ranging from $25,000 to $125,000.
University officials adamantly denied that they have been indifferent to reports of assaults and did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement. They said the legal fight would be costly and bad for UConn's image.
http://www.knoe.com/story/26052588/apnewsbreak-uconn-settles-sex-assault-lawsuit
Online child abuse reports surge, says US watchdog
By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News 17 July 2014
There has been a dramatic rise in reports of child abuse images posted to commonly used parts of the internet, according to a US watchdog.
They include photos posted to publicly-accessible parts of social networks.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a record number of reports in the first week of July, four times the weekly average.
It comes in a week UK authorities arrested 660 people in connection with online child abuse.
That investigation was believed to have been targeted at those using the so-called "dark net" - parts of the internet that are hidden and can be hard to access without special software.
But the NCMEC stressed there was still a significant and growing challenge for law enforcement agencies to deal with material on the open internet as well as the harder-to-reach areas....
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28359143
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Jerry Sandusky Son Discusses Alleged Sexual Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse Raises Likelihood Of Cardiovascular Problems For Middle-Aged Women
Jerry Sandusky Son Discusses Alleged Sexual Abuse
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Jul 17, 2014
An adopted son of convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky is providing details of the alleged sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his father.
Matt Sandusky, who was initially a foster child of the Sanduskys, tells Oprah Winfrey in a TV show airing Thursday night that his overnight visits with the family as a child were good "except for one part, bedtime."
At bedtime in the Sandusky's home in State College, he said, Jerry Sandusky's "ritual began."
"The overnight visits were -- they were good. I mean, except for that one part, bedtime. Bedtime was the bad part. But any other time that we were in the home, that we were doing anything in the home with the family, it was fine and it was -- again, you would look at that family and you would say, wow. Like I wish that I had brothers and sisters that cared about me. I wish that I had a mother who cooked dinner every night for the whole family. I wish that I had all of these things. But then at bedtime, his ritual began," Matt Sandusky told Winfrey in a brief clip released by the network.
The network said Sandusky discusses the grooming, methodical control and manipulation he faced as a child.
He had also discussed the alleged abuse in a documentary, "Happy Valley," shown earlier this year, and in an audiotape of a 29-minute interview with police detectives that NBC obtained at the time of Jerry Sandusky's 2012 trial....
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/sandusky-son-talks-fathers-bedtime-ritual-24588858
Child Sexual Abuse Raises Likelihood Of Cardiovascular Problems For Middle-Aged Women
By Ben Wolford Jul 17, 2014
Women who were sexually abused as children are more likely to show the earliest signs of heart disease in their 40s and early 50s, researchers said Thursday....
Examining the health histories of 1,400 women ages 42 to 52, the researchers discovered those who suffered sexual abuse had thicker inner linings of their arteries, something doctors call intima-media thickness, or IMT. That thickness can lead to atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque, and eventually blockage. About 14 percent of American children are victims of some kind of abuse, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this study, the rates were higher: "About 16 percent of the women reported a history of childhood sexual abuse, across all racial groups, with the abuse as high as 20 percent among African-Americans," the researchers reported....
But the new paper in Stroke found trends that couldn't easily be explained. For one, women who reported suffering non-sexual child abuse weren't any more likely to have IMT than those who were not abused. And, oddly, cardiovascular risk factors like obesity and high blood pressure were not predictors of IMT. In other words, abuse victims who were otherwise healthy still showed the higher rates of IMT.
Source: Thurston RC, Chang Y, Derby CA, et al. Abuse and Subclinical Cardiovascular Disease Among Midlife Women: The Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation. Stroke. 2014.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/child-sexual-abuse-raises-likelihood-cardiovascular-problems-middle-aged-women-293546
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Jul 17, 2014
An adopted son of convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky is providing details of the alleged sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his father.
Matt Sandusky, who was initially a foster child of the Sanduskys, tells Oprah Winfrey in a TV show airing Thursday night that his overnight visits with the family as a child were good "except for one part, bedtime."
At bedtime in the Sandusky's home in State College, he said, Jerry Sandusky's "ritual began."
"The overnight visits were -- they were good. I mean, except for that one part, bedtime. Bedtime was the bad part. But any other time that we were in the home, that we were doing anything in the home with the family, it was fine and it was -- again, you would look at that family and you would say, wow. Like I wish that I had brothers and sisters that cared about me. I wish that I had a mother who cooked dinner every night for the whole family. I wish that I had all of these things. But then at bedtime, his ritual began," Matt Sandusky told Winfrey in a brief clip released by the network.
The network said Sandusky discusses the grooming, methodical control and manipulation he faced as a child.
He had also discussed the alleged abuse in a documentary, "Happy Valley," shown earlier this year, and in an audiotape of a 29-minute interview with police detectives that NBC obtained at the time of Jerry Sandusky's 2012 trial....
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/sandusky-son-talks-fathers-bedtime-ritual-24588858
Child Sexual Abuse Raises Likelihood Of Cardiovascular Problems For Middle-Aged Women
By Ben Wolford Jul 17, 2014
Women who were sexually abused as children are more likely to show the earliest signs of heart disease in their 40s and early 50s, researchers said Thursday....
Examining the health histories of 1,400 women ages 42 to 52, the researchers discovered those who suffered sexual abuse had thicker inner linings of their arteries, something doctors call intima-media thickness, or IMT. That thickness can lead to atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque, and eventually blockage. About 14 percent of American children are victims of some kind of abuse, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this study, the rates were higher: "About 16 percent of the women reported a history of childhood sexual abuse, across all racial groups, with the abuse as high as 20 percent among African-Americans," the researchers reported....
But the new paper in Stroke found trends that couldn't easily be explained. For one, women who reported suffering non-sexual child abuse weren't any more likely to have IMT than those who were not abused. And, oddly, cardiovascular risk factors like obesity and high blood pressure were not predictors of IMT. In other words, abuse victims who were otherwise healthy still showed the higher rates of IMT.
Source: Thurston RC, Chang Y, Derby CA, et al. Abuse and Subclinical Cardiovascular Disease Among Midlife Women: The Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation. Stroke. 2014.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/child-sexual-abuse-raises-likelihood-cardiovascular-problems-middle-aged-women-293546
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
UK police arrest 660 suspected paedophiles, Cyril Smith: 'evidence of sex abuse' was overruled CPS report shows, Santa Rosa diocese pays $3.5 million to settle sex abuse case
UK police arrest 660 suspected paedophiles
National Crime Agency detains suspected child abusers, including doctors and teachers, and takes more than 400 children into care
Josh Halliday and Hatty Collier
theguardian.com, Wednesday 16 July 2014
More than 600 suspected paedophiles, including doctors and teachers, have been arrested across Britain after a six-month investigation led by the National Crime Agency.
The agency, dubbed Britain's FBI, announced on Wednesday it had arrested 660 suspected child abusers and taken more than 400 children into care in the first nationwide investigation of its kind.
Of the 660 arrested, 39 were registered sex offenders but the vast majority of suspected paedophiles were off the police's radar. Those arrested include doctors, teachers, scout leaders, care workers and former police officers.
The operation, which had remained secret until Wednesday, targeted people accessing indecent images of children online....
One of those arrested and subsequently charged was a doctor who allegedly kept more than 1m images of child abuse on his computers and had arranged to meet boys....
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/16/660-suspected-paedophiles-arrested-uk
Cyril Smith: 'evidence of sex abuse' was overruled CPS report shows
Detective told chief constable in 1970 there was prima facie evidence of guilt – but DPP advised against prosecution
Rajeev Syal
theguardian.com, Wednesday 16 July 2014
A senior detective investigating sex abuse claims against Cyril Smith told the force there was prima facie evidence of the late MP's guilt in 1970 – but this claim was overruled, newly released documents show.
The detective's report in 1970 to the chief constable of Lancashire said the Liberal MP would have been "at the mercy of a competent counsel".
The 14-page report also revealed "veiled threats" from a friend of Smith, thought to be a fellow senior Liberal. The director of public prosecution later advised against prosecuting. Smith died in 2010 aged 82.
The documents were released on Wednesday night by the Crown Prosecution Service following a ruling by the information rights tribunal.
Simon Danczuk, the Rochdale Labour MP, who first named Smith as a child abuser, said that the documents were another indication of the cover-up that had protected Smith from being disclosed as a paedophile.
"This shows that police officers were certain of his guilt," Danczuk said. "If they had been allowed to do their job they would have saved many more boys from being abused. We know that Cyril went on to abuse many more boys at Knowl View residential school, Elm guest house, and other places, during the 70s and 80s."....
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/16/cyril-smith-sex-abuse-cps-1970-report-lancashire-dpp
Santa Rosa diocese pays $3.5 million to settle sex abuse case
BY JEREMY HAY THE PRESS DEMOCRAT July 15, 2014
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa has paid $3.5 million to a teenager who was molested by a Lakeport priest, one of the largest settlements paid out by the North Coast diocese in a series of sexual abuse cases that spanned more than two decades.
An attorney for the victim attributed the settlement’s size partly to the church’s failure to protect children from the Rev. Ted Oswald, even though it was aware he had abused others. Oswald molested the boy, then 12, in 2010, the same year the priest died, with some of the incidents taking place in the Lakeport parish church.
“But for the diocese’s actions, it is entirely possible that this 12-year-old boy would never have been molested,” said Skye Daley, the victim’s attorney.
Bishop Robert F. Vasa, who has led the diocese since 2011, was on vacation Tuesday and unavailable for comment. Diocese spokesman Brian O’Neel rejected Daley’s assertion.
“When the diocese became aware of this most recent allegation, they removed Father Oswald from ministry and reported the situation to civil authorities,” O’Neel said. “The diocese could not do more than the civil authorities could.”....
In a statement, Vasa apologized to the boy and other victims who suffered at the hands of pedophiles in the church.
“I humbly apologize to this young person on behalf of the Church that failed to protect them. I also take this occasion to apologize to all victims for the harm done to them. This perversity, though prevalent in all parts of society, was allowed to persist in the Church for too long,” Vasa said.
The diocese, which serves about 160,000 Catholics from Petaluma to the Oregon border, has paid about $25 million to sex abuse victims since 1990....
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/2394971-181/santa-rosa-diocese-pays-35
National Crime Agency detains suspected child abusers, including doctors and teachers, and takes more than 400 children into care
Josh Halliday and Hatty Collier
theguardian.com, Wednesday 16 July 2014
More than 600 suspected paedophiles, including doctors and teachers, have been arrested across Britain after a six-month investigation led by the National Crime Agency.
The agency, dubbed Britain's FBI, announced on Wednesday it had arrested 660 suspected child abusers and taken more than 400 children into care in the first nationwide investigation of its kind.
Of the 660 arrested, 39 were registered sex offenders but the vast majority of suspected paedophiles were off the police's radar. Those arrested include doctors, teachers, scout leaders, care workers and former police officers.
The operation, which had remained secret until Wednesday, targeted people accessing indecent images of children online....
One of those arrested and subsequently charged was a doctor who allegedly kept more than 1m images of child abuse on his computers and had arranged to meet boys....
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/16/660-suspected-paedophiles-arrested-uk
Cyril Smith: 'evidence of sex abuse' was overruled CPS report shows
Detective told chief constable in 1970 there was prima facie evidence of guilt – but DPP advised against prosecution
Rajeev Syal
theguardian.com, Wednesday 16 July 2014
A senior detective investigating sex abuse claims against Cyril Smith told the force there was prima facie evidence of the late MP's guilt in 1970 – but this claim was overruled, newly released documents show.
The detective's report in 1970 to the chief constable of Lancashire said the Liberal MP would have been "at the mercy of a competent counsel".
The 14-page report also revealed "veiled threats" from a friend of Smith, thought to be a fellow senior Liberal. The director of public prosecution later advised against prosecuting. Smith died in 2010 aged 82.
The documents were released on Wednesday night by the Crown Prosecution Service following a ruling by the information rights tribunal.
Simon Danczuk, the Rochdale Labour MP, who first named Smith as a child abuser, said that the documents were another indication of the cover-up that had protected Smith from being disclosed as a paedophile.
"This shows that police officers were certain of his guilt," Danczuk said. "If they had been allowed to do their job they would have saved many more boys from being abused. We know that Cyril went on to abuse many more boys at Knowl View residential school, Elm guest house, and other places, during the 70s and 80s."....
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/16/cyril-smith-sex-abuse-cps-1970-report-lancashire-dpp
Santa Rosa diocese pays $3.5 million to settle sex abuse case
BY JEREMY HAY THE PRESS DEMOCRAT July 15, 2014
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa has paid $3.5 million to a teenager who was molested by a Lakeport priest, one of the largest settlements paid out by the North Coast diocese in a series of sexual abuse cases that spanned more than two decades.
An attorney for the victim attributed the settlement’s size partly to the church’s failure to protect children from the Rev. Ted Oswald, even though it was aware he had abused others. Oswald molested the boy, then 12, in 2010, the same year the priest died, with some of the incidents taking place in the Lakeport parish church.
“But for the diocese’s actions, it is entirely possible that this 12-year-old boy would never have been molested,” said Skye Daley, the victim’s attorney.
Bishop Robert F. Vasa, who has led the diocese since 2011, was on vacation Tuesday and unavailable for comment. Diocese spokesman Brian O’Neel rejected Daley’s assertion.
“When the diocese became aware of this most recent allegation, they removed Father Oswald from ministry and reported the situation to civil authorities,” O’Neel said. “The diocese could not do more than the civil authorities could.”....
In a statement, Vasa apologized to the boy and other victims who suffered at the hands of pedophiles in the church.
“I humbly apologize to this young person on behalf of the Church that failed to protect them. I also take this occasion to apologize to all victims for the harm done to them. This perversity, though prevalent in all parts of society, was allowed to persist in the Church for too long,” Vasa said.
The diocese, which serves about 160,000 Catholics from Petaluma to the Oregon border, has paid about $25 million to sex abuse victims since 1990....
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/2394971-181/santa-rosa-diocese-pays-35
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Theme park employees caught in sex stings, child porn arrests
Theme park employees caught in sex stings, child porn arrests
By Kyra Phillips and Scott Zamost, CNN Investigations
Mon July 14, 2014
Clermont, Florida (CNN) ....at least 35 Disney employees arrested since 2006 and accused of sex crimes involving children, trying to meet a minor for sex, or for possession of child pornography, according to a six-month CNN investigation that examined police and court records, and interviewed law enforcement officials and some of the men who have been arrested.
Five Universal Studios employees and two employees from SeaWorld have also been arrested.
So far, a total of 32 have been convicted, with the remaining cases pending.
Two cases, which were for possession of child pornography, occurred on Disney property, according to police reports.
None of the cases involved children or teenagers visiting the parks.... http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/14/us/theme-park-employees-child-sex-stings/
By Kyra Phillips and Scott Zamost, CNN Investigations
Mon July 14, 2014
Clermont, Florida (CNN) ....at least 35 Disney employees arrested since 2006 and accused of sex crimes involving children, trying to meet a minor for sex, or for possession of child pornography, according to a six-month CNN investigation that examined police and court records, and interviewed law enforcement officials and some of the men who have been arrested.
Five Universal Studios employees and two employees from SeaWorld have also been arrested.
So far, a total of 32 have been convicted, with the remaining cases pending.
Two cases, which were for possession of child pornography, occurred on Disney property, according to police reports.
None of the cases involved children or teenagers visiting the parks.... http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/14/us/theme-park-employees-child-sex-stings/
Monday, July 14, 2014
Did Pope Francis really say 2% of Catholic clergy are pedophiles?, Rome- Pope estimates # of predator priests, A woman is raped every 90 minutes in Zimbabwe, Butler-Sloss steps down from child abuse inquiry
Did Pope Francis really say 2% of Catholic clergy are pedophiles?
By Lauren Raab July 13, 2014
An interview that credits Pope Francis as saying about 2% of Roman Catholic clerics are pedophiles stirred controversy Sunday, as the Vatican sought to raise questions about the article's accuracy and others called on the pope to take more action on the issue.
The interview by Eugenio Scalfari, published Sunday, quotes the pope as calling the rash of sex abuse scandals “a leprosy in our home” and saying the pedophiles include “priests and even bishops and cardinals,” according to a CBS News translation....
Meanwhile, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said the “real percentage of predator priests” is much higher than 2% and called on the pope to defrock clerics who participate in cover-ups....
At a United Nations hearing this year, the Vatican said it had defrocked 848 priests over the last decade and ordered 2,572 to “live a life of prayer and penance” because of abuse allegations. There are about 414,000 Roman Catholic priests worldwide, according to the BBC; if 2% are pedophiles, that would be more than 8,000....
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-wn-pope-francis-pedophile-priests-20140713-story.html
Rome- Pope estimates # of predator priests
For immediate release: Sunday, July 13, 2014
Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
....Finally, “U.S. bishops have reported receiving allegations of abuse by 6,427 priests in 1950-2013, or 5.9% of the 109,694 U.S. priests active 1950-2002, according to the John Jay report. Including the 5,356 priests ordained since 2002 brings the total to 115,050, of whom 5.6% have been accused of abuse,” according to BishopAccountability.org.
Here are more specific numbers, from BishopAccountability.org:
--After the March 2009 release of audit documents by the NH AG, the names of 74 accused Manchester priests are known, or over 8.9% of the 831 diocesan priests, which extrapolates to 9,768 nationally
--Covington diocese states that 9.6% of its priests have been accused, which extrapolates to 10,531 nationally
--Over 10% of Providence RI priests have been accused, which extrapolates to over 10,969 nationally
--Richard Sipe estimates that 9% of U.S. priests have offended, which extrapolates to 9,872 priests nationally....
http://www.snapnetwork.org/rome_pope_estimates_of_predator_priests
A woman is raped every 90 minutes in Zimbabwe - ZimStat
by Staff Reporter 13 July 2014
AT least one woman is raped every 90 minutes in the country, preliminary statistics of the first quarter of 2014 leaked from the Zimbabwe National Statistics (ZimStat) office have revealed.The data shows that about 500 women were sexually abused monthly in the first three months of the year, translating to about 16 women being raped daily.
A total of 1 524 cases were reported in the first three months of this year, up from 1 285 recorded in the same period last year.
Of the total cases recorded in the first quarter of this year, 780 are children between the ages of 11 and 16 years while 276 were children aged between five and 10 years....
National Aids Council (NAC) Gender and Workplace co-ordinator, Ms Vimbai Mdege, expressed sadness at the indication that the majority of sexual abuse victims were children under the age of 16....
"....If you look at the figures you will see that the majority of the victims of rape are children under the age of 16. Most of the rape cases are for ritual purposes...."
http://www.bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-50485.html
Butler-Sloss steps down from child abuse inquiry 14 July 2014
Retired judge Baroness Butler-Sloss has stepped down as head of a probe into child sex abuse saying she was "not the right person" for the job.
Lady Butler-Sloss has been under pressure to quit from MPs and victims concerned about her family links.
Her late brother, Sir Michael Havers, was attorney general in the 1980s....
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28295282
By Lauren Raab July 13, 2014
An interview that credits Pope Francis as saying about 2% of Roman Catholic clerics are pedophiles stirred controversy Sunday, as the Vatican sought to raise questions about the article's accuracy and others called on the pope to take more action on the issue.
The interview by Eugenio Scalfari, published Sunday, quotes the pope as calling the rash of sex abuse scandals “a leprosy in our home” and saying the pedophiles include “priests and even bishops and cardinals,” according to a CBS News translation....
Meanwhile, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said the “real percentage of predator priests” is much higher than 2% and called on the pope to defrock clerics who participate in cover-ups....
At a United Nations hearing this year, the Vatican said it had defrocked 848 priests over the last decade and ordered 2,572 to “live a life of prayer and penance” because of abuse allegations. There are about 414,000 Roman Catholic priests worldwide, according to the BBC; if 2% are pedophiles, that would be more than 8,000....
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-wn-pope-francis-pedophile-priests-20140713-story.html
Rome- Pope estimates # of predator priests
For immediate release: Sunday, July 13, 2014
Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
....Finally, “U.S. bishops have reported receiving allegations of abuse by 6,427 priests in 1950-2013, or 5.9% of the 109,694 U.S. priests active 1950-2002, according to the John Jay report. Including the 5,356 priests ordained since 2002 brings the total to 115,050, of whom 5.6% have been accused of abuse,” according to BishopAccountability.org.
Here are more specific numbers, from BishopAccountability.org:
--After the March 2009 release of audit documents by the NH AG, the names of 74 accused Manchester priests are known, or over 8.9% of the 831 diocesan priests, which extrapolates to 9,768 nationally
--Covington diocese states that 9.6% of its priests have been accused, which extrapolates to 10,531 nationally
--Over 10% of Providence RI priests have been accused, which extrapolates to over 10,969 nationally
--Richard Sipe estimates that 9% of U.S. priests have offended, which extrapolates to 9,872 priests nationally....
http://www.snapnetwork.org/rome_pope_estimates_of_predator_priests
A woman is raped every 90 minutes in Zimbabwe - ZimStat
by Staff Reporter 13 July 2014
AT least one woman is raped every 90 minutes in the country, preliminary statistics of the first quarter of 2014 leaked from the Zimbabwe National Statistics (ZimStat) office have revealed.The data shows that about 500 women were sexually abused monthly in the first three months of the year, translating to about 16 women being raped daily.
A total of 1 524 cases were reported in the first three months of this year, up from 1 285 recorded in the same period last year.
Of the total cases recorded in the first quarter of this year, 780 are children between the ages of 11 and 16 years while 276 were children aged between five and 10 years....
National Aids Council (NAC) Gender and Workplace co-ordinator, Ms Vimbai Mdege, expressed sadness at the indication that the majority of sexual abuse victims were children under the age of 16....
"....If you look at the figures you will see that the majority of the victims of rape are children under the age of 16. Most of the rape cases are for ritual purposes...."
http://www.bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-50485.html
Butler-Sloss steps down from child abuse inquiry 14 July 2014
Retired judge Baroness Butler-Sloss has stepped down as head of a probe into child sex abuse saying she was "not the right person" for the job.
Lady Butler-Sloss has been under pressure to quit from MPs and victims concerned about her family links.
Her late brother, Sir Michael Havers, was attorney general in the 1980s....
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28295282
Sunday, July 13, 2014
How the ‘Witch Hunt’ Myth Undermined American Justice
How the ‘Witch Hunt’ Myth Undermined American Justice
Jason Berry 07.12.14
Innocent people persecuted by a legal system out of control? In The Witch-Hunt Narrative, Ross E. Cheit argues the media and courts have gone too far in dismissing evidence of abuse....
Accusations of ritual abuse and grisly cult behavior with Satanic overtones have been discussed at conferences on child abuse and treated in research literature since the mid-’80s. Kenneth Lanning, an FBI agent who specialized in child-abuse investigations for many years, found no evidence “of a well-organized Satanic cult” and said so in a research guide. And yet, writes Cheit, even though the FBI guide became Exhibit A for those scoffing at charges of Satanic abuse, “it actually recognized many activities described as ritual abuse and it cautions that there might be plausible explanations for children making such statements in other cases about sexual abuse.”
The absence of a well-organized cult does not mean the absence of ritualized abuse. Cheit provides several pages of numbing case studies on people who were prosecuted, sometimes with testimony from their traumatized children who finally grew old enough to unburden themselves. In Florida, a monster named Eddie Lee Sexton Sr. “ran his family like a cult, subjecting them to the kinds of rituals that...others claim is only imaginary,” Cheit reports. Sexton’s children showed authorities the burial place of an infant he had murdered. “Sexton, who told his children he was the devil, inflicted horrendous torture on his family, including sexual abuse.”
The most controversial case that Cheit explores, and the one he calls “the turning point” in the journalistic development of a witch-hunt narrative, is that of Margaret Kelly Michaels. In 1985, Michaels was arrested on the testimony of children at a New Jersey day-care center where she had worked. An attractive woman in her twenties, Michaels was convicted on 96 of 131 counts, with young children testifying. Michaels took the stand and denied the accusations.
Michaels was imprisoned while awaiting trial. An inmate she befriended would later testify that Michaels told her, “I didn’t mean to hurt those children.” The inmate had already been sentenced and made no deal with prosecutors. Cheit continues:
The jury did not hear additional evidence concerning disturbing sexual behavior in the Michaels family. The state offered evidence about her being groped by her father during an early jail visit. The incident was documented at the time and the prosecution found out about it only because a correctional official in a barbershop was heard talking about it… The judge deemed it too prejudicial to present to the jury....
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/12/how-the-witch-hunt-myth-undermined-american-justice.html
Jason Berry 07.12.14
Innocent people persecuted by a legal system out of control? In The Witch-Hunt Narrative, Ross E. Cheit argues the media and courts have gone too far in dismissing evidence of abuse....
Accusations of ritual abuse and grisly cult behavior with Satanic overtones have been discussed at conferences on child abuse and treated in research literature since the mid-’80s. Kenneth Lanning, an FBI agent who specialized in child-abuse investigations for many years, found no evidence “of a well-organized Satanic cult” and said so in a research guide. And yet, writes Cheit, even though the FBI guide became Exhibit A for those scoffing at charges of Satanic abuse, “it actually recognized many activities described as ritual abuse and it cautions that there might be plausible explanations for children making such statements in other cases about sexual abuse.”
The absence of a well-organized cult does not mean the absence of ritualized abuse. Cheit provides several pages of numbing case studies on people who were prosecuted, sometimes with testimony from their traumatized children who finally grew old enough to unburden themselves. In Florida, a monster named Eddie Lee Sexton Sr. “ran his family like a cult, subjecting them to the kinds of rituals that...others claim is only imaginary,” Cheit reports. Sexton’s children showed authorities the burial place of an infant he had murdered. “Sexton, who told his children he was the devil, inflicted horrendous torture on his family, including sexual abuse.”
The most controversial case that Cheit explores, and the one he calls “the turning point” in the journalistic development of a witch-hunt narrative, is that of Margaret Kelly Michaels. In 1985, Michaels was arrested on the testimony of children at a New Jersey day-care center where she had worked. An attractive woman in her twenties, Michaels was convicted on 96 of 131 counts, with young children testifying. Michaels took the stand and denied the accusations.
Michaels was imprisoned while awaiting trial. An inmate she befriended would later testify that Michaels told her, “I didn’t mean to hurt those children.” The inmate had already been sentenced and made no deal with prosecutors. Cheit continues:
The jury did not hear additional evidence concerning disturbing sexual behavior in the Michaels family. The state offered evidence about her being groped by her father during an early jail visit. The incident was documented at the time and the prosecution found out about it only because a correctional official in a barbershop was heard talking about it… The judge deemed it too prejudicial to present to the jury....
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/12/how-the-witch-hunt-myth-undermined-american-justice.html
Friday, July 11, 2014
There's no evidence of hundreds of cases of false convictions of child sexual abuse in this era, "Evidence of abuse in the Keller case has been minimized or denied", Westminster 'chumocracy' has protected itself from paedophile revelations, claims Cameron's advisor
Mythical Numbers and Satanic Ritual Abuse
Ross Cheit Professor at Brown University 07/11/2014
There's no evidence of hundreds of cases of false convictions of child sexual abuse in this era. In my new book, The Witch-Hunt Narrative, I examine dozens of specific cases from the 1980s and early 90s that are said to be wrongful prosecutions or wrongful convictions. Aided by dozens of research assistants, I spent fifteen years doing the painstaking work of original trial court research to figure out what kind of evidence actually existed in these cases....
In many of the cases proclaimed to be witch hunts, looking closely at the record revealed substantial evidence of abuse and compelling reasons that jurors voted to convict. It's true that I also found cases where people were charged who shouldn't have been. Yet even in some of those cases, there was strong evidence of abuse. A crime was committed and a child was assaulted by someone who was never apprehended, but only the false accusation story lives on.....
on the day that the 3-year-old complained to her mother about Dan Keller pulling down her pants and spanking her at day-care, she later screamed while she was urinating, "It hurts, it hurts." That prompted her mother to take the preschooler to the emergency room.
The emergency room doctor found what he believed were two physical indications of sexual abuse: "what appeared to be lacerations of the hymen" and "a tear of the posterior fourchette," a fold of skin on the vagina. It might surprise readers to learn that a year after the 1991 added emergency room visit, the doctor "didn't have any independent recollection" of the exam and testified entirely from the medical records.
....omits that fact in reporting that, when contacted by a newspaper in 2009, the doctor described a revelation that supposedly happened "years after" the trial. We don't know what year. But according to Dr. Mouw, while attending a professional training seminar, he saw a slide about normal variations in hymens and realized that what he thought had been lacerations in the Keller case were probably innocuous. In 2013, Dr. Mouw filed an affidavit to this effect. Notably, the affidavit does not withdraw his finding of a vaginal tear, which had been the more certain of his original findings....
Douglas Perry, a friend of the Kellers, confessed to being at a beer-and-sex party where adults sexually abused a boy and a girl who were under the Kellers' care. He said that, "Fran had a pen and was sticking it in and out of the little girl's vagina." He identified the 3-year-old girl from the trial in a videotape. Perry later recanted his confession, but he also pleaded guilty to "indecency with a child by contact." ....
The Fuster case originated with a child spontaneously talking about being abused. That clear statement caused two families to withdraw their children from Fuster's home daycare, which they did without informing anyone else. Months later, a spontaneous statement from a different child, started an investigation by law enforcement. An articulate 5-year-old boy was soon located, who gave several detailed statements that were later corroborated in various ways. The case was tagged by some as "satanic ritual abuse" because children made statements about Fuster wearing masks, killing a bird and playing with feces. Those allegations quietly disappeared from the witch-hunt narrative when adult testimony and photographic evidence corroborated these statements....
When the charges emerged in the home daycare case, Frank Fuster was on parole for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old two years earlier. The jury that convicted Fuster in 1985 was unaware of this prior conviction....But the fact is that Fuster admitted in his parole violation hearing on the 1984 charges that, in the course of driving the girl home, he made her sit on his lap and he touched "her chest area" and "her vagina area."....
But what did Judy Johnson do to set off the "witch-hunt?" She saw a spot of blood on her son's anus and called the police, who told her to take him to a doctor, which she did. She was then referred to a pediatric specialist, who reported to the Manhattan Beach Police Department that "the victim's anus was forcibly entered several days ago." That's why the original defendant, Ray Buckey, was arrested....
even the defense lawyer, Danny Davis, allowed that the genital injuries on one girl were "serious and convincing." (His main argument to the jury was that much of the time that this girl attended McMartin was outside the statute of limitations.) They don't mention that vaginal injuries on another girl, one of the three involved in both McMartin trials, were described by a pediatrician as proving sexual abuse "to a medical certainty."....
many jurors believed the original defendant Ray Buckey was guilty and voted to convict him. Within an hour after the first trial ended in a hung jury, seven jurors held a press conference to announce that they thought children had been sexually abused. They spoke about the difficulty in proving such claims "beyond a reasonable doubt."....
Now, while the media publicizes sexual abuse stories about celebrities and cover-ups of abuse in the past, and repeats the mythical numbers from the witch-hunt narrative, they overlook a real number that concerns real victims -- the number of children being sexually abused today. It's a major public health problem that gets almost no attention at all.
While this type of crime is, not surprisingly, difficult to quantify, studies over many years have found that 20 percent of women and 5 to 10 percent of men report having been sexually abused as children. Just last month, a study in the American Journal of Public Health showed much higher rates of male victimization than previously thought. There's every reason to believe that child sexual abuse is still widespread. Yet how often do the media delve into that real problem? How often do they examine the enormous gap between the number of children -- judging from studies -- being abused today and the number of their abusers who end up in court, much less in prison? ....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ross-cheit/mythical-numbers-and-sata_b_5578078.html
Evidence in the Keller Case
July 10, 2014
This post elaborates on some of the evidence in the Keller case, discussed in an article that was just published on Huffington Post. The article, which is about the witch-hunt narrative writ large, argues that the evidence of abuse in the Keller case has been minimized or denied, while the “satanic” aspects of the case, which were never part of the charges, have been exaggerated.
Dr. Mouw’s Testimony
The Keller case began the day that a mother took her daughter to the Emergency Room, after the little girl screamed “It hurts, it hurts” while urinating. The Emergency Room doctor, Dr. Michael Mouw, found two different signs of sexual abuse. Seventeen years later, the doctor told a reporter that his diagnosis was likely incorrect.
Dr. Mouw’s claim has been accepted at face value, without any apparent skepticism or scrutiny by those advancing the witch-hunt narrative. Yet, on close examination, there are two reasons to discount Dr. Mouw’s current claim. First and foremost, it is flatly contradicted by his testimony in 1992, when he said repeatedly that he had “no independent recollection” of the exam....
Second, even accepting what Dr. Mouw now says at face value, his current position, contained in this affidavit filed in 2013, contradicts only one of the two findings in his 1992 report. Dr. Mouw claims that the “lacerations” he reported seeing in two places in the girl’s vagina were probably normal hymenal variations. But his affidavit did not withdraw his finding of a “tear in the posterior fourchette.”....
A civil complaint filed by the parents of one of the children who attended the Keller’s home daycare contains the allegation that a “longtime friend and confident” of Francis Keller was told about “Daniel Keller’s abusive habit toward children” (p. 2). If this allegation is true, it provides additional support, beyond the word of the children, for the allegation against the Kellers. But this evidence was never heard in court because the defendants were ultimately successful in an appeal that argued that such causes of action should not be allowed in Texas.
http://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/2014/07/10/keller/
Westminster 'chumocracy' has protected itself from paedophile revelations, claims Cameron's advisor on child abuse
Claire Perry says politicians have 'out of touch sense of entitlement'
Tory junior minister launched blistering attack on establishment cover up
Comes after Theresa May this week launched two probes into historic abuse
By Tom Mctague, Mail Online Deputy Political Editor 11 July 2014
David Cameron's advisor on child abuse has lashed out at the Westminster 'chumocracy' that has protected itself from allegations of paedophilia.
Tory junior minister Claire Perry said Parliament was full of 'too many people with the same interests and the same out-of-touch sense of entitlement coming together to protect their own'.
Her damning remarks come amid allegations that a paedophile network was operating in Westminster and was being protected by senior politicians....
Miss Perry added: 'The other, and more worrying part of the problem is the way that the voices of victims were ignored for so long – children told to keep quiet, ridiculed, or threatened – with tragically the most vulnerable of all being more likely to be targeted for abuse.
'That, to me, is the real scandal and we must do all we can to make sure that when victims speak out they are heard and action is taken.”....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2688622/Westminster-chumocracy-protected-paedophile-revelations-claims-Cameron-s-advisor-child-abuse.html
Ross Cheit Professor at Brown University 07/11/2014
There's no evidence of hundreds of cases of false convictions of child sexual abuse in this era. In my new book, The Witch-Hunt Narrative, I examine dozens of specific cases from the 1980s and early 90s that are said to be wrongful prosecutions or wrongful convictions. Aided by dozens of research assistants, I spent fifteen years doing the painstaking work of original trial court research to figure out what kind of evidence actually existed in these cases....
In many of the cases proclaimed to be witch hunts, looking closely at the record revealed substantial evidence of abuse and compelling reasons that jurors voted to convict. It's true that I also found cases where people were charged who shouldn't have been. Yet even in some of those cases, there was strong evidence of abuse. A crime was committed and a child was assaulted by someone who was never apprehended, but only the false accusation story lives on.....
on the day that the 3-year-old complained to her mother about Dan Keller pulling down her pants and spanking her at day-care, she later screamed while she was urinating, "It hurts, it hurts." That prompted her mother to take the preschooler to the emergency room.
The emergency room doctor found what he believed were two physical indications of sexual abuse: "what appeared to be lacerations of the hymen" and "a tear of the posterior fourchette," a fold of skin on the vagina. It might surprise readers to learn that a year after the 1991 added emergency room visit, the doctor "didn't have any independent recollection" of the exam and testified entirely from the medical records.
....omits that fact in reporting that, when contacted by a newspaper in 2009, the doctor described a revelation that supposedly happened "years after" the trial. We don't know what year. But according to Dr. Mouw, while attending a professional training seminar, he saw a slide about normal variations in hymens and realized that what he thought had been lacerations in the Keller case were probably innocuous. In 2013, Dr. Mouw filed an affidavit to this effect. Notably, the affidavit does not withdraw his finding of a vaginal tear, which had been the more certain of his original findings....
Douglas Perry, a friend of the Kellers, confessed to being at a beer-and-sex party where adults sexually abused a boy and a girl who were under the Kellers' care. He said that, "Fran had a pen and was sticking it in and out of the little girl's vagina." He identified the 3-year-old girl from the trial in a videotape. Perry later recanted his confession, but he also pleaded guilty to "indecency with a child by contact." ....
The Fuster case originated with a child spontaneously talking about being abused. That clear statement caused two families to withdraw their children from Fuster's home daycare, which they did without informing anyone else. Months later, a spontaneous statement from a different child, started an investigation by law enforcement. An articulate 5-year-old boy was soon located, who gave several detailed statements that were later corroborated in various ways. The case was tagged by some as "satanic ritual abuse" because children made statements about Fuster wearing masks, killing a bird and playing with feces. Those allegations quietly disappeared from the witch-hunt narrative when adult testimony and photographic evidence corroborated these statements....
When the charges emerged in the home daycare case, Frank Fuster was on parole for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old two years earlier. The jury that convicted Fuster in 1985 was unaware of this prior conviction....But the fact is that Fuster admitted in his parole violation hearing on the 1984 charges that, in the course of driving the girl home, he made her sit on his lap and he touched "her chest area" and "her vagina area."....
But what did Judy Johnson do to set off the "witch-hunt?" She saw a spot of blood on her son's anus and called the police, who told her to take him to a doctor, which she did. She was then referred to a pediatric specialist, who reported to the Manhattan Beach Police Department that "the victim's anus was forcibly entered several days ago." That's why the original defendant, Ray Buckey, was arrested....
even the defense lawyer, Danny Davis, allowed that the genital injuries on one girl were "serious and convincing." (His main argument to the jury was that much of the time that this girl attended McMartin was outside the statute of limitations.) They don't mention that vaginal injuries on another girl, one of the three involved in both McMartin trials, were described by a pediatrician as proving sexual abuse "to a medical certainty."....
many jurors believed the original defendant Ray Buckey was guilty and voted to convict him. Within an hour after the first trial ended in a hung jury, seven jurors held a press conference to announce that they thought children had been sexually abused. They spoke about the difficulty in proving such claims "beyond a reasonable doubt."....
Now, while the media publicizes sexual abuse stories about celebrities and cover-ups of abuse in the past, and repeats the mythical numbers from the witch-hunt narrative, they overlook a real number that concerns real victims -- the number of children being sexually abused today. It's a major public health problem that gets almost no attention at all.
While this type of crime is, not surprisingly, difficult to quantify, studies over many years have found that 20 percent of women and 5 to 10 percent of men report having been sexually abused as children. Just last month, a study in the American Journal of Public Health showed much higher rates of male victimization than previously thought. There's every reason to believe that child sexual abuse is still widespread. Yet how often do the media delve into that real problem? How often do they examine the enormous gap between the number of children -- judging from studies -- being abused today and the number of their abusers who end up in court, much less in prison? ....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ross-cheit/mythical-numbers-and-sata_b_5578078.html
Evidence in the Keller Case
July 10, 2014
This post elaborates on some of the evidence in the Keller case, discussed in an article that was just published on Huffington Post. The article, which is about the witch-hunt narrative writ large, argues that the evidence of abuse in the Keller case has been minimized or denied, while the “satanic” aspects of the case, which were never part of the charges, have been exaggerated.
Dr. Mouw’s Testimony
The Keller case began the day that a mother took her daughter to the Emergency Room, after the little girl screamed “It hurts, it hurts” while urinating. The Emergency Room doctor, Dr. Michael Mouw, found two different signs of sexual abuse. Seventeen years later, the doctor told a reporter that his diagnosis was likely incorrect.
Dr. Mouw’s claim has been accepted at face value, without any apparent skepticism or scrutiny by those advancing the witch-hunt narrative. Yet, on close examination, there are two reasons to discount Dr. Mouw’s current claim. First and foremost, it is flatly contradicted by his testimony in 1992, when he said repeatedly that he had “no independent recollection” of the exam....
Second, even accepting what Dr. Mouw now says at face value, his current position, contained in this affidavit filed in 2013, contradicts only one of the two findings in his 1992 report. Dr. Mouw claims that the “lacerations” he reported seeing in two places in the girl’s vagina were probably normal hymenal variations. But his affidavit did not withdraw his finding of a “tear in the posterior fourchette.”....
A civil complaint filed by the parents of one of the children who attended the Keller’s home daycare contains the allegation that a “longtime friend and confident” of Francis Keller was told about “Daniel Keller’s abusive habit toward children” (p. 2). If this allegation is true, it provides additional support, beyond the word of the children, for the allegation against the Kellers. But this evidence was never heard in court because the defendants were ultimately successful in an appeal that argued that such causes of action should not be allowed in Texas.
http://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/2014/07/10/keller/
Westminster 'chumocracy' has protected itself from paedophile revelations, claims Cameron's advisor on child abuse
Claire Perry says politicians have 'out of touch sense of entitlement'
Tory junior minister launched blistering attack on establishment cover up
Comes after Theresa May this week launched two probes into historic abuse
By Tom Mctague, Mail Online Deputy Political Editor 11 July 2014
David Cameron's advisor on child abuse has lashed out at the Westminster 'chumocracy' that has protected itself from allegations of paedophilia.
Tory junior minister Claire Perry said Parliament was full of 'too many people with the same interests and the same out-of-touch sense of entitlement coming together to protect their own'.
Her damning remarks come amid allegations that a paedophile network was operating in Westminster and was being protected by senior politicians....
Miss Perry added: 'The other, and more worrying part of the problem is the way that the voices of victims were ignored for so long – children told to keep quiet, ridiculed, or threatened – with tragically the most vulnerable of all being more likely to be targeted for abuse.
'That, to me, is the real scandal and we must do all we can to make sure that when victims speak out they are heard and action is taken.”....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2688622/Westminster-chumocracy-protected-paedophile-revelations-claims-Cameron-s-advisor-child-abuse.html
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
I won't quit, says head of inquiry into cover-up of child sex abuse despite her BROTHER sitting in the Cabinet in the 1980s, Keith Vaz demands information about 'missing' child abuse files
I won't quit, says head of inquiry into cover-up of child sex abuse despite her BROTHER sitting in the Cabinet in the 1980s
Former High Court judge to lead panel inquiry into abuse allegations
It will examine allegations about politicians, police, judiciary and the BBC
But Labour MP Keith Vaz expressed 'surprise' at her appointment
Lady Butler-Sloss's brother was attorney general in the Cabinet 1979-87
By Matt Chorley, Mailonline Political Editor
9 July 2014
Former High Court judge Baroness Butler-Sloss today rejected criticism of her appointment to lead an inquiry into claims of an Establishment cover-up of child sex abuse, despite her brother being in the Cabinet at the time.
She is to lead a panel of experts investigating allegations that politicians, the police, the judiciary, celebrities, the BBC, the NHS and the Church conspired to cover-up abuse over several decades.
But her brother, Sir Michael Havers, sat in the Conservative Cabinet as attorney general from 1979-87, the period in which much of the alleged abuse is said to have taken place.
Downing Street refused to comment on whether Baroness Butler-Sloss's family connections were considered before announcing her appointment.
Sir Michael was accused of a 'cover-up' in the early 1980s over a refusal to prosecute Foreign Office diplomat Sir Peter Hayman, who was a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Sir Michael, who died in 1992, is said to have had a 20 minute argument outside the Commons chamber with Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in the 1980s in an attempt to stop him using parliamentary privilege to name diplomat Sir Peter as a paedophile....
Harriet Harman today called for the child sex abuse inquiry to examine links between a civil liberties group she used to work for and the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange.
Labour’s deputy leader worked as legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties between 1978 and 1982, when PIE was one of its affiliates.
Ms Harman said Baroness Butler-Sloss's inquiry should 'obviously' look into PIE.
She told BBC Radio 4: 'The thing about PIE, which was so pernicious about it, is that they infiltrated organisations, so they infiltrated social work organisations, they infiltrated even the Home Office as it turns out, and obviously that is deeply regrettable.
'What they did is they said they were just for free speech and talking about sexual identity, but actually what they were doing was covering up for their own evil child abuse.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2685949/Head-inquiry-cover-child-sex-abuse-faces-calls-quit-BROTHER-Cabinet-1980s.html
Keith Vaz demands information about 'missing' child abuse files
Home Office told to provide any details about 114 official files linked to allegations of 1980s paedophile ring by Friday
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
theguardian.com, Tuesday 8 July 2014
The chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, Keith Vaz, has demanded that the Home Office provides by Friday the titles and any other information known about the "missing" 114 official files linked to allegations of a 1980s paedophile ring at Westminster.
Mark Sedwill, the Home Office's most senior mandarin, undertook to try to provide further details on the missing 114 "potentially relevant" files but warned the MPs that most of them had "probably been destroyed".
Sedwill, the Home Office's permanent secretary, ordered the inquiry which revealed the "missing" files last year after complaints about the fate of a 1980s dossier alleging abuse by prominent public figures sent to then home secretaries by the late Geoffrey Dickens MP....
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/08/keith-vaz-information-missing-child-abuse-files-home-office
Former High Court judge to lead panel inquiry into abuse allegations
It will examine allegations about politicians, police, judiciary and the BBC
But Labour MP Keith Vaz expressed 'surprise' at her appointment
Lady Butler-Sloss's brother was attorney general in the Cabinet 1979-87
By Matt Chorley, Mailonline Political Editor
9 July 2014
Former High Court judge Baroness Butler-Sloss today rejected criticism of her appointment to lead an inquiry into claims of an Establishment cover-up of child sex abuse, despite her brother being in the Cabinet at the time.
She is to lead a panel of experts investigating allegations that politicians, the police, the judiciary, celebrities, the BBC, the NHS and the Church conspired to cover-up abuse over several decades.
But her brother, Sir Michael Havers, sat in the Conservative Cabinet as attorney general from 1979-87, the period in which much of the alleged abuse is said to have taken place.
Downing Street refused to comment on whether Baroness Butler-Sloss's family connections were considered before announcing her appointment.
Sir Michael was accused of a 'cover-up' in the early 1980s over a refusal to prosecute Foreign Office diplomat Sir Peter Hayman, who was a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Sir Michael, who died in 1992, is said to have had a 20 minute argument outside the Commons chamber with Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in the 1980s in an attempt to stop him using parliamentary privilege to name diplomat Sir Peter as a paedophile....
Harriet Harman today called for the child sex abuse inquiry to examine links between a civil liberties group she used to work for and the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange.
Labour’s deputy leader worked as legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties between 1978 and 1982, when PIE was one of its affiliates.
Ms Harman said Baroness Butler-Sloss's inquiry should 'obviously' look into PIE.
She told BBC Radio 4: 'The thing about PIE, which was so pernicious about it, is that they infiltrated organisations, so they infiltrated social work organisations, they infiltrated even the Home Office as it turns out, and obviously that is deeply regrettable.
'What they did is they said they were just for free speech and talking about sexual identity, but actually what they were doing was covering up for their own evil child abuse.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2685949/Head-inquiry-cover-child-sex-abuse-faces-calls-quit-BROTHER-Cabinet-1980s.html
Keith Vaz demands information about 'missing' child abuse files
Home Office told to provide any details about 114 official files linked to allegations of 1980s paedophile ring by Friday
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
theguardian.com, Tuesday 8 July 2014
The chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, Keith Vaz, has demanded that the Home Office provides by Friday the titles and any other information known about the "missing" 114 official files linked to allegations of a 1980s paedophile ring at Westminster.
Mark Sedwill, the Home Office's most senior mandarin, undertook to try to provide further details on the missing 114 "potentially relevant" files but warned the MPs that most of them had "probably been destroyed".
Sedwill, the Home Office's permanent secretary, ordered the inquiry which revealed the "missing" files last year after complaints about the fate of a 1980s dossier alleging abuse by prominent public figures sent to then home secretaries by the late Geoffrey Dickens MP....
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/08/keith-vaz-information-missing-child-abuse-files-home-office
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Jerry Sandusky's adopted son to detail sexual abuse in Oprah interview, Are Child Sexual Abuse Cases More Common Than We Think?, Ex-senior judge Butler-Sloss to head child sex abuse inquiry, investigation into Knowl View 'cover-up'
Jerry Sandusky's adopted son to detail sexual abuse in Oprah interview
Matthew Sandusky previously told investigators that he suffered seven
years of sexual abuse at the hands of his adopted father
On Thursday, he will speak out in his first TV interview since Jerry
Sandusky was convicted and sentenced to 30-60 years in 2012
By Lydia Warren 8 July 2014
'At bedtime, his ritual began,' he says in a 30-second preview clip for the show. Ahead of the show's airing, OWN explained that Matthew would be sharing 'a deeply personal account of the grooming, methodical control and manipulation he faced as a child'....
Sandusky, who retired in June 30, 1999 as Penn State's defensive coordinator, was convicted in 2012 of molesting 10 boys over 15 years, some in the football team's showers on campus. The 70-year-old is now serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence....
The interview comes two weeks after Pennsylvania's attorney general released a review of the prosecution but found no evidence of political interference by then Governor Tom Corbett.
The report, however, did reveal three years of 'inexplicable delays' to
prosecute the former Penn State football coach on child abuse charges.
The pedophile's home was not searched and the report notes that it took a full year, from March 2009 until March 2010, for the office to recommend charging Sandusky when 'Victim 1' came forward....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2685127/Jerry-Sanduskys-adopted-son-sexual-abuse-Oprah-interview.html
The Leonard Lopate Show
Are Child Sexual Abuse Cases More Common Than We Think?
Tuesday, July 08, 2014
Court documents reveal surprising leniency in trials of child molestors, claims Cheit
In the early 1990s, a new narrative emerged that child sex abuse cases were part of a “moral panic” that produced a witch hunt, and the children who testified were not reliable and easily swayed by prosecutors. But Ross Cheit reveals that the issue had not been blown out of proportion at all. His book The Witch Hunt Narrative, shows that child sex abuse convictions were regular occurrences and that the crime occurred far more frequently than many believed.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/behind-narrative-child-sex-abuse-convictions/
Ex-senior judge Butler-Sloss to head child sex abuse inquiry 8 July 2014
Retired senior judge Elizabeth Butler-Sloss has been named as the chairwoman of a wide-ranging review into historical child sex abuse. The inquiry will examine how state institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from paedophiles.....
It comes after Mark Sedwill, the Home Office's top civil servant, answered MPs' questions about historical child abuse allegations. He was asked by the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee how his department lost or destroyed 114 files that could have shed light on alleged abuse. Mark Sedwill: "I am concerned about all material that we can't find" Mr Sedwill told the committee the files, which relate to the 1980s and 1990s, were discovered missing after an expert investigator was drafted in to look into the Home Office's handling of paedophile allegations in February last year.
He said the investigator discovered they were missing after he trawled a database of 750,000 files using search terms including "child abuse", "paedophilia" and "PIE", an anagram for the Paedophile Information Exchange....
Lady Butler-Sloss's broader, independent inquiry, will look at how seriously public bodies and other important institutions have taken their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse.
The probe aims to address public concern over failings exposed by recent child sex abuse cases involving celebrities such as Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris.... http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-28203914
Police announce wider investigation into Knowl View 'cover-up' 7 July 2014
Police have said there will be a wider investigation into an alleged cover-up of sexual abuse claims at a school linked to the late MP Cyril Smith. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has been looking at claims of abuse at Knowl View residential school for boys in Rochdale from the 1970s....
The Crown Prosecution Service has also released letters detailing why Cyril Smith was not prosecuted in 1998 and 1999, however much of the detail was released in 2012. On both occasions the files were passed to prosecutors but no charges were brought. Seven men have alleged they were abused by the former Rochdale MP at a residential school in Greater Manchester, police have said. Greater Manchester Police has said the men claimed they were abused by Smith at Knowl View in Rochdale in the 1970s and 1980s. Smith's family said he had always denied the abuse claims. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-28203463
Matthew Sandusky previously told investigators that he suffered seven
years of sexual abuse at the hands of his adopted father
On Thursday, he will speak out in his first TV interview since Jerry
Sandusky was convicted and sentenced to 30-60 years in 2012
By Lydia Warren 8 July 2014
'At bedtime, his ritual began,' he says in a 30-second preview clip for the show. Ahead of the show's airing, OWN explained that Matthew would be sharing 'a deeply personal account of the grooming, methodical control and manipulation he faced as a child'....
Sandusky, who retired in June 30, 1999 as Penn State's defensive coordinator, was convicted in 2012 of molesting 10 boys over 15 years, some in the football team's showers on campus. The 70-year-old is now serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence....
The interview comes two weeks after Pennsylvania's attorney general released a review of the prosecution but found no evidence of political interference by then Governor Tom Corbett.
The report, however, did reveal three years of 'inexplicable delays' to
prosecute the former Penn State football coach on child abuse charges.
The pedophile's home was not searched and the report notes that it took a full year, from March 2009 until March 2010, for the office to recommend charging Sandusky when 'Victim 1' came forward....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2685127/Jerry-Sanduskys-adopted-son-sexual-abuse-Oprah-interview.html
The Leonard Lopate Show
Are Child Sexual Abuse Cases More Common Than We Think?
Tuesday, July 08, 2014
Court documents reveal surprising leniency in trials of child molestors, claims Cheit
In the early 1990s, a new narrative emerged that child sex abuse cases were part of a “moral panic” that produced a witch hunt, and the children who testified were not reliable and easily swayed by prosecutors. But Ross Cheit reveals that the issue had not been blown out of proportion at all. His book The Witch Hunt Narrative, shows that child sex abuse convictions were regular occurrences and that the crime occurred far more frequently than many believed.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/behind-narrative-child-sex-abuse-convictions/
Ex-senior judge Butler-Sloss to head child sex abuse inquiry 8 July 2014
Retired senior judge Elizabeth Butler-Sloss has been named as the chairwoman of a wide-ranging review into historical child sex abuse. The inquiry will examine how state institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from paedophiles.....
It comes after Mark Sedwill, the Home Office's top civil servant, answered MPs' questions about historical child abuse allegations. He was asked by the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee how his department lost or destroyed 114 files that could have shed light on alleged abuse. Mark Sedwill: "I am concerned about all material that we can't find" Mr Sedwill told the committee the files, which relate to the 1980s and 1990s, were discovered missing after an expert investigator was drafted in to look into the Home Office's handling of paedophile allegations in February last year.
He said the investigator discovered they were missing after he trawled a database of 750,000 files using search terms including "child abuse", "paedophilia" and "PIE", an anagram for the Paedophile Information Exchange....
Lady Butler-Sloss's broader, independent inquiry, will look at how seriously public bodies and other important institutions have taken their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse.
The probe aims to address public concern over failings exposed by recent child sex abuse cases involving celebrities such as Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris.... http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-28203914
Police announce wider investigation into Knowl View 'cover-up' 7 July 2014
Police have said there will be a wider investigation into an alleged cover-up of sexual abuse claims at a school linked to the late MP Cyril Smith. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has been looking at claims of abuse at Knowl View residential school for boys in Rochdale from the 1970s....
The Crown Prosecution Service has also released letters detailing why Cyril Smith was not prosecuted in 1998 and 1999, however much of the detail was released in 2012. On both occasions the files were passed to prosecutors but no charges were brought. Seven men have alleged they were abused by the former Rochdale MP at a residential school in Greater Manchester, police have said. Greater Manchester Police has said the men claimed they were abused by Smith at Knowl View in Rochdale in the 1970s and 1980s. Smith's family said he had always denied the abuse claims. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-28203463
Monday, July 7, 2014
UK to Investigate Claims of Child Abuse Cover-Up, The alleged paedophile ring at the heart of the British Establishment
UK to Investigate Claims of Child Abuse Cover-Up
LONDON - Jul 7, 2014
By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press
The British government vowed Monday to discover whether public institutions have exposed vulnerable children to sexual abuse — and whether authorities suppressed abuse allegations to protect politicians and other powerful people.
Home Secretary Theresa May said a panel of legal and child-protection experts would investigate how public agencies, including governments and hospitals, handled child-abuse allegations. She said she set up the inquiry after "appalling cases of organized and persistent" sexual abuse, including decades of assaults by the late TV host Jimmy Savile.
"Some of these cases have exposed a failure by public bodies to take their responsibilities seriously," May told the House of Commons.
May said a related investigation, led by National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children chief executive Peter Wanless, would examine whether abuse claims handed to authorities in the 1980s were lost or destroyed to protect wrongdoers.
Last year, an internal government inquiry found that 114 files relating to allegations of child abuse that were handed to officials had been lost or destroyed....
Savile was exposed after his death in 2011 as a predatory pedophile who assaulted victims in hospitals, children's homes and TV studios.
TV entertainer Rolf Harris was sentenced last week to almost six years in prison after being convicted of 12 counts of abusing girls.
Several recent cases in which gangs of men have been convicted of sexually exploiting girls in the care of local authorities also exposed failures by police and social services.
And after the 2010 death of Liberal Democrat lawmaker Cyril Smith, prosecutors acknowledged that in 1970 eight men accused Smith of abusing them as teens. Prosecutors said Smith was never charged but should have been.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uk-investigate-claims-child-abuse-cover-24448962
The alleged paedophile ring at the heart of the British Establishment
Investigation in to alleged child abuse ring in Westminster dogged by claims of cover ups and missing files
By Tom Whitehead, Security Editor 06 Jul 2014
The country was still reeling from the horrors of the Jimmy Savile child abuse scandal that saw the BBC accused of cover up and culture of secrecy to protect itself.
But the expose opened the door on a potentially even more explosive scandal – the claims of a VIP Westminster paedophile ring operating from the heart of the British Establishment from the 1960s onwards.
It has led to allegations of a massive cover up across Whitehall spanning decades, pressure on the police and prosecutors not to pursue cases and the apparent disappearance of key dossiers and files detailing claims of child abuse and alleged attackers.
More than 10 current and former politicians are said to be on a list of alleged child abusers now being investigated by police and the pressure is growing for a public inquiry.
But the belated investigations only serve to highlight decades of apparent inaction in the corridors of power to get to the truth despite relentless campaigning by a number of MPs.
The story begins with Cyril Smith, the late Liberal Democrat MP, who was exposed as an alleged paedophile in 2012, two years after his death, aged 82.
Rumours of child abuse had dogged the 29-stone Rochdale politician throughout his career but no action was ever taken.
As early as the 1960s, he allegedly routinely assaulted young boys, especially in children’s homes and special schools in his home town, where he was MP from 1972 to 1992.
He was also said to have been a visitor to the notorious Elm Guest house in South-west London, now the focus of a Scotland Yard investigation into an alleged VIP paedophile ring
It was claimed earlier this year that police received 144 complaints against him over the years but no prosecution was ever brought fuelling allegations he was protected by influential friends....
However, Smith was only one of a number of alleged high profile child abusers within Westminster said to have been named in a 40-page dossier submitted to the Home Office by the late campaigning Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in 1983.
Mr Dickens told his family at the time that it named leading public figures, including senior politicians, and was going to “blow it all apart”.
It was also said to contain information on the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) which was set up in 1974 to promote and lobby the legalisation of sexual activity between minors and adults....
The then Home Secretary Lord (Leon) Brittan was sent the file but no record of any subsequent criminal inquiry has been found and the dossier itself has disappeared....
It is understood more than 10 current and former politicians are now on a list of alleged child abusers held by police investigating claims of a Westminster paedophile ring.
MPs or peers from all three main political parties are on the list, which includes former ministers and household names....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10950111/The-alleged-paedophile-ring-at-the-heart-of-the-British-Establishment.html
LONDON - Jul 7, 2014
By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press
The British government vowed Monday to discover whether public institutions have exposed vulnerable children to sexual abuse — and whether authorities suppressed abuse allegations to protect politicians and other powerful people.
Home Secretary Theresa May said a panel of legal and child-protection experts would investigate how public agencies, including governments and hospitals, handled child-abuse allegations. She said she set up the inquiry after "appalling cases of organized and persistent" sexual abuse, including decades of assaults by the late TV host Jimmy Savile.
"Some of these cases have exposed a failure by public bodies to take their responsibilities seriously," May told the House of Commons.
May said a related investigation, led by National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children chief executive Peter Wanless, would examine whether abuse claims handed to authorities in the 1980s were lost or destroyed to protect wrongdoers.
Last year, an internal government inquiry found that 114 files relating to allegations of child abuse that were handed to officials had been lost or destroyed....
Savile was exposed after his death in 2011 as a predatory pedophile who assaulted victims in hospitals, children's homes and TV studios.
TV entertainer Rolf Harris was sentenced last week to almost six years in prison after being convicted of 12 counts of abusing girls.
Several recent cases in which gangs of men have been convicted of sexually exploiting girls in the care of local authorities also exposed failures by police and social services.
And after the 2010 death of Liberal Democrat lawmaker Cyril Smith, prosecutors acknowledged that in 1970 eight men accused Smith of abusing them as teens. Prosecutors said Smith was never charged but should have been.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uk-investigate-claims-child-abuse-cover-24448962
The alleged paedophile ring at the heart of the British Establishment
Investigation in to alleged child abuse ring in Westminster dogged by claims of cover ups and missing files
By Tom Whitehead, Security Editor 06 Jul 2014
The country was still reeling from the horrors of the Jimmy Savile child abuse scandal that saw the BBC accused of cover up and culture of secrecy to protect itself.
But the expose opened the door on a potentially even more explosive scandal – the claims of a VIP Westminster paedophile ring operating from the heart of the British Establishment from the 1960s onwards.
It has led to allegations of a massive cover up across Whitehall spanning decades, pressure on the police and prosecutors not to pursue cases and the apparent disappearance of key dossiers and files detailing claims of child abuse and alleged attackers.
More than 10 current and former politicians are said to be on a list of alleged child abusers now being investigated by police and the pressure is growing for a public inquiry.
But the belated investigations only serve to highlight decades of apparent inaction in the corridors of power to get to the truth despite relentless campaigning by a number of MPs.
The story begins with Cyril Smith, the late Liberal Democrat MP, who was exposed as an alleged paedophile in 2012, two years after his death, aged 82.
Rumours of child abuse had dogged the 29-stone Rochdale politician throughout his career but no action was ever taken.
As early as the 1960s, he allegedly routinely assaulted young boys, especially in children’s homes and special schools in his home town, where he was MP from 1972 to 1992.
He was also said to have been a visitor to the notorious Elm Guest house in South-west London, now the focus of a Scotland Yard investigation into an alleged VIP paedophile ring
It was claimed earlier this year that police received 144 complaints against him over the years but no prosecution was ever brought fuelling allegations he was protected by influential friends....
However, Smith was only one of a number of alleged high profile child abusers within Westminster said to have been named in a 40-page dossier submitted to the Home Office by the late campaigning Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in 1983.
Mr Dickens told his family at the time that it named leading public figures, including senior politicians, and was going to “blow it all apart”.
It was also said to contain information on the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) which was set up in 1974 to promote and lobby the legalisation of sexual activity between minors and adults....
The then Home Secretary Lord (Leon) Brittan was sent the file but no record of any subsequent criminal inquiry has been found and the dossier itself has disappeared....
It is understood more than 10 current and former politicians are now on a list of alleged child abusers held by police investigating claims of a Westminster paedophile ring.
MPs or peers from all three main political parties are on the list, which includes former ministers and household names....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10950111/The-alleged-paedophile-ring-at-the-heart-of-the-British-Establishment.html
Friday, July 4, 2014
Rolf: A life well lived... until the end
Rolf: A life well lived... until the end
CHARLES MIRANDA The Daily Telegraph July 05, 2014
“I’ve lived a magical life,” an emotional Rolf Harris mused as he stared down at the royal crown-topped gold disc starring up at him from his palm and hanging around his neck.
It was late 2012 and having just been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his decades of entertaining, he was in a reflective mood....
In that respect he was yesterday virtually handed a death sentence as he prepared to be jailed after being convicted of 12 counts of indecent assault.
No more big concerts, no more art shows, no more TV hosting, no more feted by the royal family and no more molesting children.
What a difference 18 months can make.
At the time he was bestowed his OA, he had just sung for the Queen at that year’s Diamond Jubilee, had another hit TV show on British television with Animal Hospital, a BAFTA British film industry lifetime achievement award and 50 years of memories of topping the music, art and television industries.
Within days of getting his Order of Australia, he would also be getting a telephone call from the Australia Day Foundation asking him whether he would accept being the 2013 Australian of the Year in the UK at the following year’s Australia Day gala in central London....
his long-held sexual desire for little girls in bikinis and finally his ritual penchant for giving one girl bear hugs before spitting on his fingers and digitally assaulting her.
And most of these admissions made by the man himself as he apparently made the conscious decision to give a blow-by-blow account of his years of sordid liaisons and infidelity albeit of women rather than girls in a bid to detract from what he was really there accused of — being what the court heard was a manipulative, perverted deviant child abuser who groomed at least one girl like a pet dog to respond without questions to his sexual advances....
His hit tune Sun Arise was only pipped to the Number 1 chart spot by Elvis Presley in 1962 but then there was Two Little Boys, a worldwide hit in 1969 which in the UK alone was the last song to top the charts for the 1960s and the first to top the charts in the 1970s.
Then there was his painting of the Queen’s portrait, his OBE, his MBE, his CBE and his OA received just days before police started to look at his background....
When he was first arrested “Rolf Harris is Innocent” Facebook page attracted hundreds of “likes” and comments calling for people to get behind the star, branding the allegations and charges a witch hunt, some calling on him to take the “scum” trying to persecute him down.
The page attracted 727 likes but that was mostly in 2013 and by June 2014 the messages had well and truly dried up....
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/rolf-a-life-well-lived-until-the-end/story-fni0cx12-1226976734754
CHARLES MIRANDA The Daily Telegraph July 05, 2014
“I’ve lived a magical life,” an emotional Rolf Harris mused as he stared down at the royal crown-topped gold disc starring up at him from his palm and hanging around his neck.
It was late 2012 and having just been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his decades of entertaining, he was in a reflective mood....
In that respect he was yesterday virtually handed a death sentence as he prepared to be jailed after being convicted of 12 counts of indecent assault.
No more big concerts, no more art shows, no more TV hosting, no more feted by the royal family and no more molesting children.
What a difference 18 months can make.
At the time he was bestowed his OA, he had just sung for the Queen at that year’s Diamond Jubilee, had another hit TV show on British television with Animal Hospital, a BAFTA British film industry lifetime achievement award and 50 years of memories of topping the music, art and television industries.
Within days of getting his Order of Australia, he would also be getting a telephone call from the Australia Day Foundation asking him whether he would accept being the 2013 Australian of the Year in the UK at the following year’s Australia Day gala in central London....
his long-held sexual desire for little girls in bikinis and finally his ritual penchant for giving one girl bear hugs before spitting on his fingers and digitally assaulting her.
And most of these admissions made by the man himself as he apparently made the conscious decision to give a blow-by-blow account of his years of sordid liaisons and infidelity albeit of women rather than girls in a bid to detract from what he was really there accused of — being what the court heard was a manipulative, perverted deviant child abuser who groomed at least one girl like a pet dog to respond without questions to his sexual advances....
His hit tune Sun Arise was only pipped to the Number 1 chart spot by Elvis Presley in 1962 but then there was Two Little Boys, a worldwide hit in 1969 which in the UK alone was the last song to top the charts for the 1960s and the first to top the charts in the 1970s.
Then there was his painting of the Queen’s portrait, his OBE, his MBE, his CBE and his OA received just days before police started to look at his background....
When he was first arrested “Rolf Harris is Innocent” Facebook page attracted hundreds of “likes” and comments calling for people to get behind the star, branding the allegations and charges a witch hunt, some calling on him to take the “scum” trying to persecute him down.
The page attracted 727 likes but that was mostly in 2013 and by June 2014 the messages had well and truly dried up....
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/rolf-a-life-well-lived-until-the-end/story-fni0cx12-1226976734754
Thursday, July 3, 2014
One third of adults with dyslexia report they were physically abused during their childhood, The Impact of Sexual Abuse Committed by a Child on Mental Health in Adulthood
One third of adults with dyslexia report they were physically abused during their childhood 7/3/14
TORONTO, ON – Adults who have dyslexia are much more likely to report they were physically abused before they turned 18 than their peers without dyslexia, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.
Thirty-five per cent of adults with dyslexia report they were physically abused before they turned 18. In contrast, seven per cent of those without dyslexia reported that they had experienced childhood physical abuse.
“Even after accounting for age, race, sex and other early adversities such as parental addictions, childhood physical abuse was still associated with a six-fold increase in the odds of dyslexia” says co-author Esme Fuller-Thomson, professor and Sandra Rotman Endowed Chair at University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.... http://www.healthcanal.com/child-health/52706-one-third-of-adults-with-dyslexia-report-they-were-physically-abused-during-their-childhood.html
The Impact of Sexual Abuse Committed by a Child on Mental Health in Adulthood
Brian Allen, Alexandra Tellez, Amy Wevodau, Carol L. Woods, Amy Percosky
J Interpers Violence August 2014 vol. 29 no. 12 2257-2272
Abstract
Numerous research studies document the negative mental health outcomes associated with the experience of childhood sexual abuse. In addition, factors such as one’s relationship with the perpetrator and the severity of the abuse predict the likelihood of future mental health problems. Less attention, however, has focused on the age of the perpetrator, and recent years have seen an increased interest in children who display sexual behavior problems. College students completed measures of mental health functioning and retrospective reports of maltreatment histories. Participants were categorized as abused by an adult (n = 48), teenager (n = 39), or another child (n = 37), and non-abused (n = 219). Victims of abuse, regardless of perpetrator age, displayed higher levels of mental health problems than non-abused participants. There were no differences between the abused groups on any of the mental health outcomes; however, individuals who were abused by other children were less likely to label their experiences as abuse. http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/29/12/2257.abstract
.
TORONTO, ON – Adults who have dyslexia are much more likely to report they were physically abused before they turned 18 than their peers without dyslexia, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.
Thirty-five per cent of adults with dyslexia report they were physically abused before they turned 18. In contrast, seven per cent of those without dyslexia reported that they had experienced childhood physical abuse.
“Even after accounting for age, race, sex and other early adversities such as parental addictions, childhood physical abuse was still associated with a six-fold increase in the odds of dyslexia” says co-author Esme Fuller-Thomson, professor and Sandra Rotman Endowed Chair at University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.... http://www.healthcanal.com/child-health/52706-one-third-of-adults-with-dyslexia-report-they-were-physically-abused-during-their-childhood.html
The Impact of Sexual Abuse Committed by a Child on Mental Health in Adulthood
Brian Allen, Alexandra Tellez, Amy Wevodau, Carol L. Woods, Amy Percosky
J Interpers Violence August 2014 vol. 29 no. 12 2257-2272
Abstract
Numerous research studies document the negative mental health outcomes associated with the experience of childhood sexual abuse. In addition, factors such as one’s relationship with the perpetrator and the severity of the abuse predict the likelihood of future mental health problems. Less attention, however, has focused on the age of the perpetrator, and recent years have seen an increased interest in children who display sexual behavior problems. College students completed measures of mental health functioning and retrospective reports of maltreatment histories. Participants were categorized as abused by an adult (n = 48), teenager (n = 39), or another child (n = 37), and non-abused (n = 219). Victims of abuse, regardless of perpetrator age, displayed higher levels of mental health problems than non-abused participants. There were no differences between the abused groups on any of the mental health outcomes; however, individuals who were abused by other children were less likely to label their experiences as abuse. http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/29/12/2257.abstract
.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Fear of child abuse cover up secret dossier at the heart of establishment
Fear of child abuse cover up secret dossier at the heart of establishment
THE grim catalogue of sexual depravity by celebrities continues. This week's conviction of Rolf Harris follows the jailing of presenter Stuart Hall and publicist Max Cliffford for serial abuse of under-age girls.
By: Leo McKinstry Thu, July 3, 2014
In addition there has been a stream of appalling revelations about the perverted activities of those two paedophile knights: sinister entertainer Sir Jimmy Savile and gargantuan Liberal politician Sir Cyril Smith, both of whom went to their graves without being brought to justice.
In all these cases what is so shocking is not just the scale of abuse but also the fact that these dangerous predators were allowed to get away with their crimes for so long.
Inevitably the failure by the state to take any action against these high-profile abusers has prompted concerns about a major cover-up within the establishment, reflecting the desire of officials and politicians to protect their own....
In one fascinating illustration of this apparent complacency he said that in 1984 Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens had presented the home secretary of the time, Leon Brittan, with a comprehensive dossier about a paedophile network operating within Westminster.
It's not clear what happened to the dossier or if any serious investigations were pursued. Dickens complained that his stance against child abuse meant that he was subjected to a brutal campaign of harassment including two break-ins and the appearance of his name on the hit list of a notorious contract killer.
In the early 1980s Dickens was regarded as something of a crank. Today, given what we know about abuse, he could be seen as a moral visionary. Yesterday, in response to Danczuk's intervention, Lord Brittan issued a statement in which he said he had asked his office "to look carefully" at the dossier he had been handed.
But Brittan did not explain what ultimately happened to it. As a result his declaration will do little to lessen suspicions about complacency. This is not just about a few individual cases it is about a culture that appeared to allow entire institutions to be exploited by paedophiles, with the political class providing a shield to hide abuse....
http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/leo-mckinstry/486431/Fear-of-child-abuse-cover-up-at-the-heart-of-establishment
THE grim catalogue of sexual depravity by celebrities continues. This week's conviction of Rolf Harris follows the jailing of presenter Stuart Hall and publicist Max Cliffford for serial abuse of under-age girls.
By: Leo McKinstry Thu, July 3, 2014
In addition there has been a stream of appalling revelations about the perverted activities of those two paedophile knights: sinister entertainer Sir Jimmy Savile and gargantuan Liberal politician Sir Cyril Smith, both of whom went to their graves without being brought to justice.
In all these cases what is so shocking is not just the scale of abuse but also the fact that these dangerous predators were allowed to get away with their crimes for so long.
Inevitably the failure by the state to take any action against these high-profile abusers has prompted concerns about a major cover-up within the establishment, reflecting the desire of officials and politicians to protect their own....
In one fascinating illustration of this apparent complacency he said that in 1984 Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens had presented the home secretary of the time, Leon Brittan, with a comprehensive dossier about a paedophile network operating within Westminster.
It's not clear what happened to the dossier or if any serious investigations were pursued. Dickens complained that his stance against child abuse meant that he was subjected to a brutal campaign of harassment including two break-ins and the appearance of his name on the hit list of a notorious contract killer.
In the early 1980s Dickens was regarded as something of a crank. Today, given what we know about abuse, he could be seen as a moral visionary. Yesterday, in response to Danczuk's intervention, Lord Brittan issued a statement in which he said he had asked his office "to look carefully" at the dossier he had been handed.
But Brittan did not explain what ultimately happened to it. As a result his declaration will do little to lessen suspicions about complacency. This is not just about a few individual cases it is about a culture that appeared to allow entire institutions to be exploited by paedophiles, with the political class providing a shield to hide abuse....
http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/leo-mckinstry/486431/Fear-of-child-abuse-cover-up-at-the-heart-of-establishment
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Harrowing tales at abuse royal commission
Harrowing tales at abuse royal commission
By Australian Associated Press
29 June 2014
Forty years later in 2006 the man giving evidence read an article by Tommy Campion, another former resident of the North Coast Children's Home....
In the 1980s he had been diagnosed with depression and attempted suicide several times. He now had leukaemia. In broken voice he told of beatings that left him scarred; of being left at a table for ten hours because he could not eat the food. If he threw up he would be made to eat the vomit.
A priest who seemed kind made him lie naked while he performed a pseudo-religious ritual that involved molesting him sexually....
His life has been no life just like many among the thousands of people who are coming forward to tell their stories - often for the first time....
Children of abuse survivors are learning for the first time why their mum or dad could never hug them. A landscape of broken lives, failed relationships, drug use, anger, suicides, bravery and extraordinary honesty while people struggle still for happiness is being painted by these witnesses.
Preparing for and giving evidence is a renewed trauma and the commission always has counsellors on hand to help them through.
Institutions, the Christian and Marist brothers, the Salvation Army, Catholic and Anglican dioceses, the YMCA, Scouts Australia, state run child-protection agencies and police forces across the country are trying to explain how it happened on their watch.
When a Salvation Army witness started to say how different standards of child discipline in the 1960s and `70s might explain why boys were beaten until they bled in homes in NSW and Queensland, commission chair Justice Peter McClellan interrupted to remind her she was talking about criminal assaults.
Brand protection, systemic failures, wilful ignorances, whether it be in the YMCA, the Scouts or the Catholic Church are being uncovered daily at these hearings.
The Catholic and Anglican churches moved abusers when complaints were made.
They kept no records that can now be produced.
In the case of the Marist Brothers, a man who was jailed for 12 years in 2006 was put on a plane to a clinic for sex-offending priests in Canada three days after the order knew police were investigating him for offences dating back years....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-2674516/Harrowing-tales-abuse-royal-commission.html
By Australian Associated Press
29 June 2014
Forty years later in 2006 the man giving evidence read an article by Tommy Campion, another former resident of the North Coast Children's Home....
In the 1980s he had been diagnosed with depression and attempted suicide several times. He now had leukaemia. In broken voice he told of beatings that left him scarred; of being left at a table for ten hours because he could not eat the food. If he threw up he would be made to eat the vomit.
A priest who seemed kind made him lie naked while he performed a pseudo-religious ritual that involved molesting him sexually....
His life has been no life just like many among the thousands of people who are coming forward to tell their stories - often for the first time....
Children of abuse survivors are learning for the first time why their mum or dad could never hug them. A landscape of broken lives, failed relationships, drug use, anger, suicides, bravery and extraordinary honesty while people struggle still for happiness is being painted by these witnesses.
Preparing for and giving evidence is a renewed trauma and the commission always has counsellors on hand to help them through.
Institutions, the Christian and Marist brothers, the Salvation Army, Catholic and Anglican dioceses, the YMCA, Scouts Australia, state run child-protection agencies and police forces across the country are trying to explain how it happened on their watch.
When a Salvation Army witness started to say how different standards of child discipline in the 1960s and `70s might explain why boys were beaten until they bled in homes in NSW and Queensland, commission chair Justice Peter McClellan interrupted to remind her she was talking about criminal assaults.
Brand protection, systemic failures, wilful ignorances, whether it be in the YMCA, the Scouts or the Catholic Church are being uncovered daily at these hearings.
The Catholic and Anglican churches moved abusers when complaints were made.
They kept no records that can now be produced.
In the case of the Marist Brothers, a man who was jailed for 12 years in 2006 was put on a plane to a clinic for sex-offending priests in Canada three days after the order knew police were investigating him for offences dating back years....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-2674516/Harrowing-tales-abuse-royal-commission.html
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