- Rotherham child sexual abuse: Gang of seven guilty
"Seven men have been found guilty of grooming and exploiting young girls, including one who was sexually abused by "at least 100 Asian men" before the age of 16."
- Defectors say former church pastor is a 'cult leader,' but her son fights back "Church defectors reveal video of ritualistic violence" Grace Road Church
Rotherham child sexual abuse: Gang of seven guilty
29 October 2018
Seven men have been found guilty of grooming and exploiting young girls, including one who was sexually abused by "at least 100 Asian men" before the age of 16.
Sheffield Crown Court heard how the men targeted and exploited the teenagers before subjecting them to acts of a "degrading and violent nature".
They abused five young girls over a seven year period in Rotherham.
The gang were convicted of offences including rape and indecent assault.
One girl described being bitten and raped by two of the men in Sherwood Forest while "high as a kite" on drugs....
The convictions are the latest to come out of Operation Stovewood, the National Crime Agency's (NCA) investigation into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which has identified more than 1,500 victims....
During a trial lasting more than eight weeks the jury heard the men, who are all of British Pakistani heritage, preyed on the girls' vulnerability before they were sexually assaulted and passed on to other men.
Prosecutor Michelle Colborne QC said the girls had been "lured by the excitement of friendship with older Asian youths" but were then "targeted, sexualised and in some instances subjected to acts of a degrading and violent nature".
She said: "None of them had the maturity to understand that they were being groomed and exploited, often believing that sex of some kind was a necessary price for friendship."....
Operation Stovewood is the largest law enforcement investigation into non-familial child sexual exploitation in the UK.
It began in 2014 after a report found at least 1,400 children in Rotherham were the victims of abuse between 1997 and 2013.
It is run by the NCA, which is working with 296 alleged victims, has identified 151 suspects and is running 22 ongoing investigations.
More than 150 officers work on the operation and there are plans to recruit another 100....
It has led to 14 convictions so far, and 24 more people have been charged with offences.
The court head the men used alcohol, drugs, threats and violence to control the girls....
Defectors say former church pastor is a 'cult leader,' but her son fights back
By Joshua Berlinger and Yoonjung Seo, CNN Mon October 29, 2018
Church defectors reveal video of ritualistic violence
Seoul, South Korea (CNN)Standing in front of her parish in a bright yellow jacket, Shin Ok-joo holds back tears. Her voice takes on a tone of both anger and sadness.
"How could you behave like this?" she asks her congregation in a video purportedly filmed in South Korea in April last year at the Grace Road Church, where Shin serves as pastor. Soft weeping from people seated in pews intensifies into a chorus of sobs. "Am I your toy? Did I tell you I was your toy? You crazy one!"
Shin leaves her pulpit but remains on the raised platform above her congregation as she approaches a group of people with their heads bowed. With her left hand, she grabs a worshiper in a brown coat by her hair and, with her free hand, slaps the person across the face. The slaps continue, and the crying from the audience grows louder. Shin's emotion is apparent on her face.
After four slaps, the congregant falls to the floor. Shin picks up the woman by the hair and shakes her head violently. By this point, the audience's screams are loud, raw and visceral. Shin yells at her, but what she says is inaudible due to the sobbing.
According to Grace Road, this is an example of what the church calls "threshing," a ritual involving church members being slapped and hit as a form of repentance in accordance with Shin's interpretation of the Bible. It symbolizes separating sin from the human body in the same way that grains are removed from crops by threshing.
The woman at the receiving end of Shin's blows had just returned from Fiji, where about 400 members of the church have moved to set up shop. Shin preaches that Fiji is the land chosen by God to be the center of the world and the ideal place to survive an impending great famine, and the church has made significant investments in the country.
Video of this incident was supplied to CNN by Daniel Kim, Shin's son, in an attempt to counter allegations from former congregants of violence against its members.
The footage from Kim was sent a day after three former members of the church revealed 20 minutes worth of footage of particularly violent threshing incidents at a news conference in Seoul Wednesday.
"Shin is a cult leader and the Grace Road Church is a cult," Lee Soon-deok, one of the former members, told the media Wednesday.
"She tells people that she is the only one to rely on, that people can only be saved by her. Shin is an evil woman."
Former church members contend that the threshing ritual is assault -- and South Korean prosecutors have moved to punish Shin for it. She was arrested in July and remains behind bars awaiting trial, charged with forced confinement and physical assault. At the time of Shin's arrest, South Korean authorities said many of congregants in Fiji appeared to have been stripped of their passports upon arrival by senior members of the church....
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