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

- 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

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 

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

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

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

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/

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