- Lawmakers working to introduce bill giving ritualistic abusers more time in prison
- New bill proposed for Utah to heighten punishment for child torture
- Notorious daycare paedophile Ashley Paul Griffith sentenced to life in prison for abusing children in Australia and Italy
Lawmakers working to introduce bill giving ritualistic abusers more time in prison by Paul Nelson, KUTVWed, November 20th 2024
Lawmakers are getting closer to introducing a bill that could give convicted abusers — especially ritualistic abusers — more time in prison.
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Lawmakers are getting closer to introducing a bill that could give convicted abusers — especially ritualistic abusers — more time in prison. Child abuse prevention advocates call ritualistic child abuse an “evil practice,” and one that happens in Utah far more often than people may think. On Capitol Hill Wednesday, lawmakers talked about a bill that could give convicted abusers more time in prison....
When people hear the word “ritual,” many people think of religious ceremonies, but investigators say those aren’t the only kinds and that ritualistic abuse may involve many different things. One woman, Cara Baldree, said she endured this kind of abuse when she was young. She can remember being groomed by her abuser when she was just six years old — her abuser would frequently take her out of school to attack her. She said, “He had threatened to kill me and my family so severely. He told me if he ever showed up at my school then I had to go with him or he would kill people.”
Feeling like her loved ones’ lives were in her hands, she said she did as she was told and was abused many, many times, physically and mentally. Baldree said her abuser would constantly tell her she was “God’s mistake,” and that her attacker would add a religious element to the abuse. “He would use scriptures. He would connect things like, ‘This is like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden,” Baldree said.
At the time, no one knew what was happening to her. She said she could disassociate from the abuse, so when she returned to class she would appear as if nothing happened. Decades later, memories of her abuse came flooding back. As far as she knows, her abuser was never arrested or charged....
Randall said, “A ritualistic abuser is going to be somebody who will use whatever tools they have, whether that’s school, whether that’s church, whether it’s work, whatever tool they have to set up a plan to keep the victim quiet.” If the bill passes, ritualistic abuse charges would be used to enhance the sentences against someone convicted of child abuse, meaning they could spend more time in prison. It would also require law enforcement to go through the latest child abuse prevention training to spot the signs of possible ritualistic abuse....
Randall disagreed, saying his office has investigated multiple claims of ritualistic abuse in recent years. “One of the biggest aspects of this bill is the acknowledgment that these things have happened in the past, so that these victims come forward and we can get them services. We can get them help,” Randall said.
The bill got unanimous support from the Judiciary Committee, so it can go straight to the House floor when the legislative session starts. https://kjzz.com/news/local/lawmakers-working-to-introduce-bill-giving-ritualistic-abusers-more-time-in-prison
New bill proposed for Utah to heighten punishment for child torture by Paul Nelson, KUTVWed, November 13th 2024
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Prosecutors and lawmakers in Utah have said they were stunned to learn there was essentially no law against child torture in the state, adding that two high-profile abuse cases in Utah convinced them that needs to change.
If a new bill passes, it would give serious prison time to anyone convicted of torturing a child. However, some supporters have doubts that it would actually prevent cases like this from happening in the first place.
Supporters of a bill being drafted said aggravated child abuse may sound like a very serious charge, but it's just a second-degree felony. When it comes to the constant torture that victims like Ruby Franke’s children went through, they don’t believe abusers get enough time behind bars....
Clarke said, “100 percent. I feel like what happened in that case was torture of those children.” He's drafting a bill that would make child torture a stand-alone first-degree felony, with a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. When does a case of abuse cross the line into torture?
Dr. Antoinette Laskey, Primary Children’s Hospital’s Child Abuse Medical Director, said, “Child torture cases are cases that often involve multiple different kinds of child abuse over an extended period of time. They can include physical abuse, confinement, starvation and severe psychological abuse.”
Laskey said abusers all over the country are using many of the same tactics, like binding kids with ropes or handcuffs, starving children, physical abuse and excessive athletic exercise. Plus, she said many of them are documenting what they’re doing.
“These are caregivers that are video taping and literally have their children on security cameras 24 hours a day and are capturing footage of what is happening to them,” she said. Laskey said her team has treated 12 child torture patients since 2020, which is far more than she ever saw during the first 15 years of her career — and they don’t know why it's happening.
“What’s really upsetting is that, nationally, we’re seeing this as a trend that we don’t really understand. While we’re seeing it here in Utah, this is not a unique-to-Utah phenomenon. I’ve had a number of cases that come from surrounding states that are remarkably similar,” Laskey said.
Kevin Franke, Ruby Franke’s former husband, supports the bill, believing child welfare laws need a major overhaul in Utah. He said, “The child welfare laws that we have in this state, right now, tend to strongly protect parents, parents’ privacy and parents’ rights as opposed to children, children’s rights, children’s protections, children’s safety and well-being.”....
District 29 Sen. Don Ipson is sponsoring the bill, which he believes has strong support. It's hard to predict whether the bill will be enough to convince abusers to stop targeting kids. “I think it’s hard to decide what’s going to be a deterrent to someone who has that sick of a mind. What is the deterrent, for them? But, we’ve got to try, and we’ve got to make penalties if it’s not a deterrent,” Ipson said. Along with ten years in prison, anyone convicted of child torture would also be placed on the Sex, Kidnap and Child Abuse Offender Registry if the bill passes. Ipson said they’re going to keep fine-tuning the bill before they present it to the legislature.
https://kutv.com/news/2news-investigates/new-bill-proposed-for-utah-to-heighten-punishment-for-child-torture
Notorious daycare paedophile Ashley Paul Griffith sentenced to life in prison for abusing children in Australia and Italy By Eden Gillespie 11/29/2024
One of Australia's most notorious paedophiles has been sentenced to life in prison after confessing to raping and abusing scores of children in daycare centres in Australia and overseas.
Former childcare worker Ashley Paul Griffith pleaded guilty in September to more than 300 charges against 69 children in early learning centres in Brisbane and Italy over almost two decades.
Griffith will have a non-parole period of 27 years, with Judge Paul Smith describing his offending as "depraved". He won't be eligible to apply until 2049....
He said Griffith's "risk of re-offending would be high" if he was released into the community. "This was very serious, offending in terms of length and scale. The victims were very vulnerable, and there was a significant breach of trust," Judge Smith said. Judge Smith said the case warranted the maximum penalty due to the length of the offences, the number of victims, their age and vulnerability, the planning involved, and the fact that he uploaded the abuse online....
Griffith was initially charged with more than 1,000 offences by the AFP in 2022 after they found thousands of photographs and videos related to his abuse on the dark web.
Hundreds of charges were later dropped. The 307 offences against 69 children occurred between 2003 and 2022.
They include 190 counts of indecent treatment, 28 counts of rape, 67 counts of making child exploitation material, four counts of producing child abuse material outside of Australia, and 15 counts of repeated sexual conduct with a child.
Most of the victims were aged between two and five years old, but one could have been as young as one. Ashley Paul Griffith is being sentenced in the District Court in Brisbane after pleading guilty to 307 charges against 69 children at early learning centres in Brisbane and Italy. Griffith's sentencing began on Thursday, with victims sharing harrowing statements about how his abuse had impacted them.
The court heard he had offended against his victims while they were awake and asleep. When they were awake, he often gave them an iPad to distract them. Some of the abuse lasted up to 30 minutes and occurred when other children were nearby.
The court heard he filmed much of the abuse and would regularly go back and review the footage he made for his own sexual gratification. He would also upload the abuse to a child exploitation site on the dark web and left comments advising other people how they could abuse children....
