Issue 110 – May 2013

S.M.A.R.T
(Stop Mind control And Ritual abuse Today)
P. O Box 1295, Easthampton, MA 01027-1295 USA E-mail: SMARTNEWS@aol.com
Home page: http://ritualabuse.us

Issue 110 – May 2013

The purpose of this newsletter is to help stop secretive organizations and groups from abusing others and to help those who allege they have been abused by such organizations and groups. This newsletter is not a substitute for other ways of recovering from ritual abuse. Readers should use caution while reading this newsletter. If necessary, make sure other support systems are available during and after reading this newsletter.

Important:The resources mentioned in this newsletter are for educational value only. Reading the books cited may or may not help your recovery process, so use caution when reading any book or contacting any resource mentioned in this newsletter. Some may have a religious or other agenda that may be separate from your own recovery process. Others may have valuable information on the Masons and other organizations, but have triggers or be somewhat sympathetic to those organizations.  Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the views expressed in this newsletter constitute expressions of opinion, and readers are cautioned to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions by consulting a variety of sources, including this newsletter. Resources listed, quoted and individual articles, etc. and their writers do not necessarily support all or any of the views mentioned in this newsletter. Also, the views, facts and opinions mentioned in this newsletter are solely the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily the opinions of this newsletter or its editor.

Copyright 2013 – All rights reserved.   No reproduction of any material without written permission from the editor and individual authors.

SMART wants to thank all those that have contributed resource information to the newsletter.
The 16th Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference August 9 – 11, 2013 http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/

Ritual Abuse And Extreme Abuse Clinician’s Conference 2013 http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/ritual-abuse-and-extreme-abuse-clinicians-conference-2013/

This issue contains information on the Super Bowl, Clergy Abuse, Los Angeles Archdiocese, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Pope Benedict, Pope Francis, Jimmy Savile and Satanic rituals, Operation Yewtree, Cyril Smith, BBC, Kincora boys home, Magdalene Laundry system,  Jerry Sandusky, Canadian police and aboriginal women, Legion of Christ, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Frances Andrade, Joshu Sasaki, Michael Salter, India, Dutch clergy abuse, West of Memphis, West Memphis Three, ritual killings, Colin Batley, ritual Satanic killing,  satanic ritual, ritual abuse crime statutes, satanic cult, ritual sacrifice, Judy Byington, Twenty-Two Faces, sex-slave cult,  Defensores de Cristo, Defenders of Christ, Konstantin Rudnev Russian cult leader, Satanic ritual abuse, Laurie Matthew, Haut de la Garenne children’s home island of Jersey, Dissociative Identity Disorder, DID, The Holocaust, Nazi Ghettos and Camps, Dissociative Disorders, Scout abuse, Rape, Steubenville Rape Trial, Children’s Memory,  Bullying, Sybil in her own words, Shirley Mason, multiple personalities, Mass Shootings, Federal Child Porn_graphy Offenses, Gang rape, Statute of Limitations, False allegations of rape and domestic violence, Sexual Assault, Facebook

Resources and Information    
Please note: Listing of these resources does not necessarily constitute our endorsement of them. They are for educational value only and some may be heavy for survivors to read. Some of the conferences listed may not necessarily be safe for all survivors. S.M.A.R.T. recommends always bringing a support person to all conferences. If you are a survivor of mind control and/or ritual abuse, S.M.A.R.T. recommends that you try to bring a support person that is familiar with mind control techniques.

Legal Information

Super Bowl Is Single Largest Human Trafficking Incident In U.S.: Attorney General The Huffington Post   By Eleanor Goldberg     02/03/2013 When it came time for the Super Bowl, Clemmie Greenlee was expected to sleep with anywhere from 25 to 50 men a day. It’s a staggering figure, but it doesn’t shock advocates who say that the sporting event attracts more traffickers than any other in the U.S.
“The Super Bowl is the greatest show on Earth, but it also has an ugly underbelly,” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott told USA Today in 2011 when his state was gearing up to host the event. “It’s commonly known as the single largest human trafficking incident in the United States.”

The influx of fans fosters the optimal breeding ground for pimps looking to boost their profits. Experts say that the sheer number of men looking to pay for sex substantially increases demand and the massive crowds allow for pimps and victims to essentially go unnoticed, newsnet5.com reports.
“It’s not so much that you become a victim at the Super Bowl, but that many victims are brought in to be used for all the men at the Super Bowl,” Stephanie Kilper, a representative for Operation Freedom Taskforce in Akron, Ohio — an organization which aims to end to human trafficking –- told newsnet5.com
According to Forbes, 10,000 prostitutes were brought to Miami for the Super Bowl in 2010 and 133 underage arrests for prostitution were made in Dallas during the 2011 Super Bowl….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/03/super-bowl-sex-trafficking_n_2607871.html

Los Angeles Archdiocese Is Accused of Failing to Release All Abuse Records By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and JENNIFER MEDINA February 4, 2013
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles released 12,000 pages of internal files last Thursday on priests accused of sexually abusing children, saying that it was finally abiding by a settlement it signed with victims six years ago to make the painful history public.
But it now appears that the files the church released with much fanfare are incomplete and many are unaccounted for, according to the abuse victims’ lawyers. In addition, on many documents the names of church supervisors informed of abuse allegations were redacted by the archdiocese, in apparent violation of a judge’s order.

At issue is whether the survivors of abuse and the public will ever learn which church officials were responsible for mishandling or covering up allegations of sexual abuse.
Abuse victims had insisted that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles release the records as part of a settlement in 2007, which provided $660 million to more than 500 victims. Other Catholic dioceses that have settled with victims have released similar records.
“We know we have not gotten a complete disclosure,” said Jeff Anderson, who is among the lawyers representing the victims. “They have removed things that should not have been removed, some of which we have seen before, so we know that they exist. It’s more deception, deceit and secrecy.”
But J. Michael Hennigan,  a lawyer for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, said in an interview that while there were probably a few errors, there was no intention to withhold information.
“I would be surprised if we did this job perfectly,” he said. “The team that worked on this worked under pressure sometimes late into the night.”

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles fought for six years all the way to the State Supreme Court to block the release of the documents. Early in January, Judge Emilie H. Elias overturned a previous decision, and ordered the archdiocese to lift the redactions of the names of certain kinds of officials: archbishops and bishops, vicars for clergy members and directors of treatment facilities, as well as pastors, “church agents” or employees who had supervisory responsibility over an accused priest and were made aware of complaints or suspicions about him.
But on many pages it appears that the names of supervisors, like pastors in parishes or the supervisors of religious orders, are missing.

For example, the file on Carlos Rodriguez, a priest serving in a parish in Central Los Angeles, includes a letter to him from his religious order, the Vincentian Fathers and Brothers, informing him that he is being sent to a treatment center in Maryland. Mr. Rodriguez was accused of molesting several teenage boys over the years. But while the letter makes clear that the writer is the priest’s religious superior, the name is redacted. Other documents in the file are similarly missing names of religious order supervisors….
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/us/los-angeles-archdiocese-is-accused-of-failing-to-release-all-priest-abuse-records.html

Pope Benedict ‘complicit in child sex abuse scandals’, say victims’ groups
Pope Benedict XVI ‘knew more about clergy sex crimes than anyone else in church yet did little to protect children’, say critics      Ian Traynor in Brussels, Karen McVeigh in New York and Henry McDonald in Dublin    guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 February 2013
For the legions of people whose childhoods and adult lives were wrecked by sexual and physical abuse at the hands of the Roman Catholic clergy, Pope Benedict XVI is an unloved pontiff who will not be missed.

Victims of the epidemic of sex- and child-abuse scandals that erupted under Benedict’s papacy reacted bitterly to his resignation, either charging the outgoing pontiff with being directly complicit in a criminal conspiracy to cover up the thousands of paedophilia cases that have come to light over the past three years, or with failing to stand up to reactionary elements in the church resolved to keep the scandals under wraps.
From Benedict’s native Germany to the USA, abuse victims and campaigners criticised an eight-year papacy that struggled to cope with the flood of disclosures of crimes and abuse rampant for decades within the church….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/11/pope-complicit-child-abuse-say-victims

Pope should be tried over the church’s sex abuse scandals: Corrigan Thursday Mar 07, 2013
An international lawyer says that the Roman Catholic Church and Pope can be sued in the International Court of Justice over hundreds of filed sexual abuses cases.
The comments come as the leader of Catholic church Pope Benedict XVI has officially resigned, ending an eight-year pontificate shaped by struggles to move the church past sex abuse scandals. Meanwhile international lawyers are looking into former Pope Benedict XVI’s legal status to see whether the former pontiff is liable to a legal action over failing to stop child sex abuse by church priests….

Corrigan: Well, if it goes to the International Court of Justice I think certainly the Roman Catholic Church can be sued.
Priests, bishops, archbishops, all along the hierarchy have been sued successfully in the past and there are a number, maybe even hundreds of sexual abuse cases which have been filed against the church, many of which have been upheld and sometimes they are dealt with internally through Canon law and internal secrecy which is supposed to protect the victim but also certainly has the appearance of protecting the church and sort of hiding this problem which needs to be brought up in the open and there have been numerous priests and other religious figures who have been convicted of sexual abuse of children and women and others. So certainly the church can be sued….
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/03/07/292357/pope-could-be-sued-over-sexual-scandal/

Cardinals Start to Ponder Subtleties of a Big Task By DANIEL J. WAKIN March 4, 2013 VATICAN CITY…. On Monday, a senior American cardinal made a rare mention of the clerical sexual abuse scandal in that discourse. Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, said the new pope “obviously has to accept the universal code of the church now, which is zero tolerance for anyone who has abused a child.” Speaking in answer to a question at a news conference, Cardinal George said, “There’s a deep-seated conviction, certainly on the part of anyone who has been a pastor, that this has to be continually addressed.”….
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/world/europe/cardinal-george-of-chicago-urges-zero-tolerance-of-sex-abuse.html

George: Any ties to sexual abuse could disqualify papal candidate By Manya A. Brachear, Chicago Tribune reporter March 7, 2013 ROME — Days before Pope Benedict XVI resigned and Roman Catholic cardinals descended on Rome to select his successor, Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien was, for all intents and purposes, fired.
As one of the cardinal electors for the next pope, O’Brien, who later apologized for sexual misconduct with other clergy, could have had a say in the next pope. Technically, he could have become the next pontiff.
But in an exclusive interview with the Tribune before the American cardinals’ moratorium, Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George said there are attempts to vet candidates to avoid surprises. He also said ties to anyone guilty of sexual misconduct — whether intended or unintended — could put a man’s candidacy in question if it could distract from his spiritual mission.
David Clohessy, executive director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, said that kind of vetting should have been taking place for decades. On Wednesday, Clohessy’s group issued a list of a dozen cardinals whose selection as pope would cause further offense to victims of sex abuse by priests….
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/religion/ct-met-sex-abuse-0307-20130307,0,7784915.story

Now Gathering in Rome, a Conclave of Fallible Cardinals By LAURIE GOODSTEIN February 26, 2013
The sudden resignation of the most senior Roman Catholic cardinal in Britain, who stepped aside on Monday in the face of accusations that he made unwanted sexual advances toward priests years ago, showed that the taint of scandal could force a cardinal from participating in the selection of a new pope. His exit came as at least a dozen other cardinals tarnished with accusations that they had failed to remove priests accused of sexually abusing minors were among those gathering in Rome to prepare for the conclave to select a successor to Pope Benedict XVI. There was no sign that the church’s promise to confront the sexual abuse scandal had led to direct pressure on those cardinals to exempt themselves from the conclave….
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/world/europe/now-gathering-in-rome-a-conclave-of-fallible-cardinals.html

Pope’s child porn ‘normal’ claim sparks outrage among victims 21 December 2010 Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict’s claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn’t considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s. In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society. “In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said….
The Pope said abuse revelations in 2010 reached “an unimaginable dimension” which brought “humiliation” on the Church. Asking how abuse exploded within the Church, the Pontiff called on senior clerics “to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred” and to help victims heal through a better presentation of the Christian message.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/popes-child-porn-normal-claim-sparks-outrage-among-victims-28577483.html

Pope conclave tainted by abuse scandal: Our view The Editorial Board March 5, 2013
Cardinals tied to coverup should not take part. In Rome, where 115 cardinals are gathering to elect a new pope, the conclave will include these luminaries:
Cardinal Roger Mahony, former archbishop of Los Angeles, who in the 1980s plotted with an adviser to conceal child molesting priests from law enforcement.
Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland’s church, who failed in the 1970s to follow up on incriminating evidence against a priest, who went on to become a notorious serial molester.
Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the former head of the Belgian church, who once advised an adult victim of 13 years of childhood abuse against making “a lot of noise” about it because his molester, a bishop, was about to retire.
Cardinal Justin Rigali, former head of the Philadelphia archdiocese, where it took two grand juries issuing scathing reports of abuse before the cardinal saw fit in 2011 to suspend 21 priests accused of molesting children.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/03/03/pope-conclave-child-abuse-scandal/1961031/

$10 million Los Angeles settlement first since document release by  Brian Roewe   Mar. 28, 2013
As Cardinal Roger Mahony entered the Sistine Chapel in Rome March 12 to begin the process of electing the next pope, his name made headlines in his home diocese for other reasons.
The cardinal, the Los Angeles archdiocese and an ex-priest agreed to settlements in four clergy abuse-related cases, totaling $9.9 million. The settlements are the first since the late January court-ordered release of 12,000 pages of abuse-related documents, and Mahony’s ban from public and administrative duties in the archdiocese.
On the same day another case, at the northern end of the state, also made headlines when a visiting priest was arrested on suspicion of child abuse.

The former priest at the center of the Los Angeles settlements was Michael Baker, who was removed from the priesthood in 2000 and convicted in 2007 of molesting two children. He was paroled in 2011 after initially receiving a 10-year prison sentence.
The release of the files factored into the settlements, an attorney for the alleged victims told the Los Angeles Times. “Once we got the files, it confirmed everything we had argued for years and years. Cardinal Mahony’s fingerprints were all over the case,” Vince Finaldi told the Times.
The documents pertaining to Baker reveal that in December 1986 Mahony sent him for psychological evaluation in New Mexico after Baker confessed to the then-archbishop his sexual relationships with two boys, beginning in the early 1980s. The psychological evaluation expressed concern with Baker’s attitude toward the relationships, saying they were “quite disturbing to listen to.”
“At no point did he indicate any awareness at all that his sexual involvement with these two boys may have consequences for them nor did he seem the least bit concerned about any consequences for him except that he may now have to go through a treatment program which he feels would be extraneous,” read the evaluations, which did recommend immediate treatment.

Therapy continued for Baker as he re-entered ministry in the archdiocese. He initially worked with the elderly and retired priests before serving numerous parishes as an administrator or associate pastor. Ultimately, the archdiocese placed him on inactive leave in April 2000 after allegations came forward that he had continued to molest the same boys.
….Dominican Fr. Tom Doyle told NCR. He also speculated Mahony himself could eventually face charges. “I would not be at all surprised if Mahony were, if another grand jury were convened and Mahony were indicted. Not at all surprised,” he said.
Farther north in the state, new abuse allegations involving a foreign visiting priest emerged March 12. Fr. Julio Guarin-Sosa, a visiting priest to the Stockton, Calif., diocese, was arrested on suspicion of sexual battery and molestation of a minor. The alleged incident occurred in Yuba City, Calif., part of the Sacramento diocese, and approximately 80 miles north of his assignment at St. Anne Parish in Lodi, Calif. Guarin-Sosa was arraigned March 12 in Sutter County Superior Court and is being held in the county jail. The Colombian priest had been assisting at St. Anne for almost a month, while his brother, Fr. Mario Guarin, a parochial vicar at the parish, was on vacation. The Stockton diocese released a brief statement shortly after Guarin-Sosa’s arrest. “As a result of the charges, Father Guarin’s permission to exercise ministry in the Diocese of Stockton has been revoked. His diocese in Colombia has been informed,” the diocese stated…..
http://ncronline.org/node/48296

Keith O’Brien Resigns: Top UK Cardinal Will Skip Papal Conclave Over Allegations Of Misconduct
By GREGORY KATZ and NICOLE WINFIELD 02/25/13  LONDON — Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Britain’s highest-ranking Catholic leader, says he is resigning as archbishop in the wake of misconduct allegations and will be skipping the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.
The cardinal said in a statement Monday that he will not attend because he doesn’t want media attention focused on him during the important session in Rome.
Experts said the decision not to attend the papal conclave is unprecedented; never before has a cardinal stayed away from a conclave because of personal scandal, according to Vatican historian Ambrogio Piazzoni, the vice prefect of the Vatican library.

The Vatican confirmed that O’Brien had resigned as archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh. It was accepted under the code of canon law due to O’Brien’s age; he turns 75 – the normal retirement age for bishops – on March 17.
He said in a statement that he is in “indifferent health” and that he had offered his resignation last November. A church statement says the pope accepted O’Brien’s resignation on Feb. 18….
O’Brien has said through his spokesman that he is contesting allegations made Sunday in a British newspaper that three priests and a former priest have filed complaints to the Vatican alleging that the cardinal acted inappropriately with them. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/uk-cardinal-resigns_n_2758151.html

UK’s top cardinal accused of ‘inappropriate acts’ by priests
Three priests and former priest report Cardinal Keith O’Brien to Vatican over claims stretching back 33 years      Catherine Deveney         The Observer, Saturday 23 February 2013
Three priests and a former priest in Scotland have reported the most senior Catholic clergyman in Britain, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, to the Vatican over allegations of inappropriate behaviour stretching back 30 years.
The four, from the diocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, have complained to nuncio Antonio Mennini, the Vatican’s ambassador to Britain, and demanded O’Brien’s immediate resignation. A spokesman for the cardinal said that the claims were contested.
O’Brien, who is due to retire next month, has been an outspoken opponent of gay rights, condemning homosexuality as immoral, opposing gay adoption, and most recently arguing that same-sex marriages would be “harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of those involved”….
One of the complainants, it is understood, alleges that the cardinal developed an inappropriate relationship with him, resulting in a need for long-term psychological counselling….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/23/cardinal-keith-o-brien-accused-inappropriate

Keith O’Brien, British Cardinal, Admits To Sexual Misbehavior By RAPHAEL SATTER 03/03/13
LONDON — A Scottish cardinal on Sunday acknowledged having engaged in unspecified sexual misbehavior, apologized for his actions, and promised to stay out of the church’s public life in a statement that comes at an awkward time for the Vatican.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien had been Britain’s highest-ranking Catholic leader until he resigned Monday from his position as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, a departure prompted by a newspaper report about unnamed priests’ allegations that he acted inappropriately toward them.
O’Brien initially rejected the claims, saying he was resigning because he did not want to distract from the upcoming conclave of cardinals that is due to pick a successor to Benedict XVI, who resigned the papacy Thursday. O’Brien also became the first cardinal to recuse himself from the conclave because of personal scandal; other voting-age cardinals have in the past stayed home because of infirmity or because they were prevented by their governments from participating.
On Sunday, the Catholic church in Scotland issued a statement quoting O’Brien as saying that there had been times “that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.”….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/03/keith-obrien-cardinal-sex_n_2802073.html

Pope ‘must hand over sex abuse files’ From: AAP     March 14, 2013
POPE Francis must commit to handing over secret Vatican files about child sex abuse in Australia, an advocacy group for people abused by priests says.
Nicky Davis, of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), called on the new Pope on Thursday to show that the church is serious about tackling child sexual abuse.
She said the Catholic Church had never voluntarily handed over incriminating documents or cooperated with law enforcement or official inquiries into the issue.
“One of the first actions of the new Pope should be to open all the secret Vatican files relating to child sexual abuse in Australia and hand them to Australia’s royal commission.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/pope-must-hand-over-sex-abuse-files/story-e6frf7kf-1226596925070

Holy Hell – one family’s story of sexual abuse by their priest By Carol Duncan (ABC Local Radio) 26 March, 2013  When senior NSW Police Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox told ABC TV’s Lateline programme that the Catholic Church had covered up crimes by paedophile priests, silenced investigations and destroyed evidence to avoid prosecution – the public outrage triggered a Royal Commission into institutional child abuse. One of the stories that led to this is that of Patricia Feenan’s son, Daniel, a 14-year-old altar boy when first raped by a priest in the Newcastle/Maitland diocese….
Patricia Feenan says that one of the problems with the media coverage was that there no reporting of the ‘culture of grooming’ and that discussing it, educating people about it means they’re more aware but also hopefully more likely to tell someone and to seek help.
“The reaction I’ve had from many people, and many victims who are positive and thankful, means I know I’ve helped people. One man wrote that he’d never disclosed his abuse but he read the book and gave it to his mother, telling her ‘This is what happened to me.’
Sadly, Patricia fears that sexual abuse by the clergy continues, and will continue.

“We hear that it’s historical, and I’ll concede that the church is trying very hard now with protocols put in place to deal with victims who come forward now, but when they say it’s historical, that’s true the offence was historical, but the impact is with us every day, and it’s certainly with my son every day of his life. If people understand that more, maybe they can walk some of the journey. Emotional support is what victims want, not ostracisization.”… http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/03/26/3723929.htm

Clergy abuse victims call on Pope Francis to open files on Argentina’s pedophile priests
By Associated Press, Tuesday, March 19, 2013
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Activists against abuse by Roman Catholic clergy urged Pope Francis on Tuesday to apologize for what they called the Argentine church’s protection of two priests who were eventually convicted of sexually assaulting children.
The U.S.-based Bishop Accountability group cited the case of Father Julio Cesar Grassi, who ran the “Happy Children” foundation and was convicted of pedophilia in 2008, and Father Napoleon Sasso, convicted in 2007 of abusing girls at a soup kitchen in suburban Buenos Aires.
The Buenos Aires archbishop’s office didn’t immediately respond Tuesday.
The pope’s authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, told The Associated Press before Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope last week that he had drawn an increasingly tough line on clergy abuse. Bergoglio insisted that accused priests face trial, and imposed a thorough screening process in an attempt to weed out future problems, Rubin said…..
Grassi was well known in Buenos Aires for persuading celebrities to donate to his “Happy Children” foundation, which ran orphanages and social outreach programs. Before he was convicted, Grassi praised Bergoglio for “never abandoning him.” Now he’s free on appeal, thanks in part to a church filing on his behalf.
Sasso, meanwhile, enjoys prison furloughs after serving half of a 17-year sentence for abusing five girls.

Sasso was assigned to the soup kitchen, at a chapel where his bedroom shared the only bathroom, after living in a home for wayward priests where he had been sent after accusations of pedophilia were raised against him in remote San Juan province.
“The bathroom had two doors. The girls would come in through the outside door, and the priest would bring them into his bedroom through the other, sexually abusing the girls,” Moreau said. “These were really poor people, who were there for free meals while their parents worked. They found an enormous amount of child pornography in his computer, semen, condoms.” It was a medical priest and a nun who discovered that Sasso abused 25 girls aged 3 to 16, but when they informed church officials, they were told to “remain patient,” and nothing was done, Moreau said.
Eventually, they sought higher authorities and the case was taken up by the criminal courts, but the mid-level officials who covered it up still have their positions, while the priest and nun were forced to work elsewhere, the lawyer said….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/clergy-abuse-victims-call-on-pope-francis-to-open-files-on-argentinas-pedophile-priests/2013/03/19/ed810cb2-90c6-11e2-9173-7f87cda73b49_story.html

Pope Francis was often quiet on Argentine sex abuse cases as archbishop By Nick Miroff, March 18, 2013 HURLINGHAM, Argentina — Father Julio Cesar Grassi was a celebrity in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires. The young, dynamic, -media-savvy priest networked with wealthy Argentines to fund an array of schools, orphanages and job training programs for poor and abandoned youths, winning praise from Argentine politicians and his superior, Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Grassi called his foundation Felices los Niños, “Happy Children.”
Today, Grassi is a convicted sex offender who remains free on a conditional release after being sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2009 for molesting a prepubescent boy in his care.
Yet in the years after Grassi’s conviction, Bergoglio — now Pope Francis — has declined to meet with the victim of the priest’s crimes or the victims of other predations by clergy under his leadership. He did not offer personal apologies or financial restitution, even in cases in which the crimes were denounced by other members of the church and the offending priests were sent to jail….

There is no evidence that Bergoglio played a role in covering up abuse cases. Several prominent rights groups in Argentina say the archbishop went out of his way in recent years to stand with secular organizations against crimes such as sex trafficking and child prostitution. They say that Bergoglio’s resolve strengthened as new cases of molestation emerged in the archdiocese and that he eventually instructed bishops to immediately report all abuse allegations to police.
In September, after an Argentine priest from a rural area was convicted of abusing dozens of boys between 1984 and 1992, the archbishop’s office released a statement saying the case had “reaffirmed our profound shame and the immense pain that result from the grave mistakes committed by someone who should be setting the moral example.”
But during most of the 14 years that Bergoglio served as archbishop of Buenos Aires, rights advocates say, he did not take decisive action to protect children or act swiftly when molestation charges surfaced; nor did he extend apologies to the victims of abusive priests after their misconduct came to light….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/pope-francis-was-often-quiet-on-argentine-sex-abuse-cases-as-archbishop/2013/03/18/26e7eca4-8ff6-11e2-9cfd-36d6c9b5d7ad_story.html

Church Sex-Abuse Victim ‘Surprised’ by Pope   Udo Strutynski says Pope Francis’ message to the church is “no more business as usual.” 03/14/2013
http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/church-sex-abuse-victim-surprised-by-pope-18727643

LA archdiocese to pay out $10 mln to settle abuse cases 13/03/13  With all eyes on the Vatican’s new beginning – the past continues to dominate for the US archdiocese of Los Angeles and its former leader Cardinal Roger Mahony.
LA has agreed to pay out 10 million dollars (7.7 million euros) to settle four cases of sexual abuse by Father Michael Baker. Recently-released church files show Cardinal Roger Mahony knew that Baker, and others, had abused minors – but he allowed them to stay in the ministry. A Lawyer for the archdiocese, Michael Hennigan, denied a church cover-up, although he said Mahony admitted he made “serious mistakes” with Baker. Baker was convicted in 2007 and sent to prison on 12 criminal counts of felony oral copulation with a minor….
http://www.euronews.com/2013/03/13/la-archdiocese-to-pay-out-10-mln-to-settle-abuse-cases/

RI Records Show Inner Workings of Legion of Christ
By MICHELLE R. SMITH and NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press Feb 15, 2013
Documents detailing the dubious fundraising practices of a disgraced Roman Catholic religious order called the Legion of Christ were released to the public Friday, showing how the organization took control of an elderly woman’s finances and persuaded her to bequeath it $60 million.
The records include the first-ever depositions of high-ranking Legion officials. They shed light on the inner workings of a secretive congregation placed under Vatican receivership after the Holy See determined that its founder was a spiritual fraud who sexually abused his seminarians and fathered three children with two women….
Pope Benedict XVI took over the Legion in 2010 after a Vatican investigation determined that its founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, had lived a double life. The pope ordered a wholesale reform of the order and named a papal delegate to oversee it.
The Legion scandal is significant because it shows how the Holy See willfully ignored credible allegations of abuse against Maciel for decades, all while holding him up as a model of sainthood for the faithful because he brought in money and vocations to the priesthood. The scandal, which has tarnished the legacy of Pope John Paul II, is the most egregious example of how the Vatican ignored decades of reports about sexually abusive priests because church leaders put the interests of the institution above those of the victims….
Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein ruled in September that Dauray could not sue, but he noted there was evidence that Mee had been unduly persuaded to change her trusts and will and give the Legion her money. Dauray’s lawyer, Bernard Jackvony, said Friday that the documents being released show an orchestrated effort by higher-ups at the Legion to get Mee’s money and cover up Maciel’s misdeeds.
The Legion says its actions surrounding Mee and her estate were appropriate and honorable. It says it did not exert undue influence over her decision-making, and that the gifts she gave to the order were made of her own free will. http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=18506172

The Priest That Preyed By DANIEL A. OLIVAS February 6, 2013  LOS ANGELES ….The title story of the book, called “Assumption,” describes a fictionalized priest, Father González, who served a parish in a neighborhood not unlike the one I grew up in. The priest in the story is known for being “cool” and spending time with some of the more troubled boys at the nearby grammar school. The boys talk about how he has invited them to visit his room, drink wine, listen to Sly Stone and look at dirty magazines. These visits, of course, lead to the boys’ molesting. In the story, the priest gets caught and, in disgrace, hangs himself.
In real life, shame did not bring an end to the abuse. The priest I based the story on, the priest the sister recognized, was the Rev. Eleuterio Ramos. My parish knew him as Father Al, the hip young priest who spoke out for immigrant and Chicano rights, railed against the Vietnam War, could drink with the best of them and dedicated his spare time to mentoring the most troubled boys at St. Thomas….

The allegations against Father Al, who became a priest in 1966 and was transferred from parish to parish 15 times, first came out in the ’90s, when the Orange Diocese was sued by two men. They accused Father Al of plying them with alcohol when they were children, showing them adult films and sexually abusing them. But by that point, he had already been suspended from priestly duties. In 2003, he admitted to the police that he had molested at least 25 boys. But because of the statute of limitations, he was never charged, and he died in 2004, a year after my conversation with the nun.
According to church records that became public last month after years of litigation brought by victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests and brothers of religious orders, this story is sadly familiar. The documents include information on 124 priests over four decades, and demonstrate a pattern by the church of cover-up, denial and — I can’t help but think it — evil….  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/opinion/the-catholic-church-abuse-cancer-spreads.html

U.N. Faults U.S. For Failure To Prosecute Abusive Clerics  Religion News Service By Caleb Bell 02/20/2013  WASHINGTON (RNS) The U.S. is failing to pursue and prosecute clergy guilty of child sexual abuse, according to a recent United Nations committee report.
The U.N.’s Committee on the Rights of the Child, in a little-noticed Jan. 25 report, urged the U.S. to “take all necessary measures to investigate all cases of sexual abuse of children whether single or on a massive and long-term scale, committed by clerics.”
David Clohessy, the director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, described national efforts to deal with child-molesting clergy as “woefully inadequate.”

“There has been and continues to be too cozy a relationship between religious and governmental figures,” Clohessy said. “Other than a handful of local prosecutors, there’s been almost no action at the state or federal level.”
The U.S. Department of Justice did not return requests for comment, and the National Association of Attorneys General declined to comment. Abuse cases are typically handled by local and state prosecutors, not the federal government….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/un-faults-us-for-failure-to-prosecute-abusive-clerics_n_2729239.html

Cardinal Timothy Dolan Deposed About Abuse Cases Against Catholic Church When Archbishop Of Milwaukee, Wisconsin By RACHEL ZOLL 02/20/13
NEW YORK — Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, was deposed Wednesday about abuse cases against Roman Catholic clergy in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which he led from 2002 until 2009. Frank LoCoco, an attorney for the Milwaukee Archdiocese, and Jeff Anderson, a plaintiffs’ attorney, confirmed the cardinal was deposed. The Milwaukee Archdiocese faces allegations from nearly 500 people. Archbishop Jerome Listecki, the current Milwaukee church leader, sought bankruptcy protection in 2011, saying the process was needed to compensate victims fairly while ensuring the archdiocese could still function. Milwaukee is the eighth diocese in the U.S. to seek bankruptcy protection since the abuse scandal erupted in 2002 in Boston.
Dolan is one of two U.S. cardinals to be deposed this week. Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, is scheduled to be questioned Saturday in a lawsuit over a visiting Mexican priest who police believe molested 26 children in 1987. The Rev. Nicolas Aguilar Rivera fled to Mexico in 1988 after parents complained. He has been ousted from the priesthood but remains a fugitive.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/21/nyc-cardinal-dolan-deposed_n_2733340.html

Sexual abuse ‘in the DNA of Roman Church’ Australian Broadcasting Corporation  Broadcast: 26/02/2013 Reporter: Emma Alberici
Former monk and priest, and now advocate for victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, Patrick J Wall, says sexual abuse of children has been part of the culture of the Catholic Church as far back as 60 AD and despite constant attempts by the Popes to curtain the problem, it has never been snuffed out….
PATRICK J WALL: Well after 12 years in the monastery and six years as the priest, all six years I was assigned to follow perpetrators, I came to the conclusion in my early 30s that if I wanted to be a defence lawyer and to defend child abusers the rest of my life, that was going to be my next 40 years.
And at that point after, you know, discovering that this is just not an isolated phenomena to the diocese or the religious order I belong to, it’s really a worldwide phenomena, I had to pull the plug and leave in ’98….
PATRICK J WALL: Well the pretty constant threat analysis you have to do is after, you know, decades of cases that generally about 6 per cent of the Roman Catholic clergy is going to offend against a child in their lifetime….
EMMA ALBERICI: Why wasn’t your role as a so-called fixer to take the issues to police?
PATRICK J WALL: That was never, ever part of the culture. And that’s why I bring it up with everybody that whether you look at the documents in Los Angeles, you look in the documents in Dublin or you look in the documents in Sydney, they’re all exactly the same. The culture is to keep it internal, deal with it inside and never ask for help outside ever….
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3699078.htm

How next pope must tackle child sex abuse  By Jeff Anderson, Special to CNN Wed February 27, 2013 (CNN) — As Pope Benedict XVI steps down, the moral authority and future of the Roman Catholic Church depends on the next pope forcefully dealing with child sex abuse in its ranks.
Benedict had the power to effect fundamental, institutional change from the top that would have protected children of future generations. Benedict failed to change the Vatican’s traditional methods of handling child sex abuse by priests and so abuse of children continued, with thousands of more cases.
Before his installation as pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the keeper of the traditional papal secrecy around sexual abuse as the leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He issued Vatican orders directing cardinals, archbishops and bishops to keep credibly accused priests in ministry, to move them to a different parish or to keep them in the priesthood because they were too young, too infirm or their removal would cause too much scandal for the church. As pope, he condemned the abuse more strongly than his predecessors, but he did nothing to really change the situation….
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/27/opinion/anderson-next-pope-avoid-abuse/index.html

South Africa cardinal says pedophilia not a crime Reuters 3/16/13
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis this week has told the BBC pedophilia is an illness and not a crime.
Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, the Catholic Archbishop of Durban, told BBC Radio 5 on Saturday that pedophilia was a “disorder” that needed to be treated.
“From my experience, pedophilia is actually an illness. It’s not a criminal condition, it’s an illness,” he said.
Napier said he knew of at least two priests who became pedophiles after they were abused as children.
“Now don’t tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don’t think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He was himself damaged.”
The Catholic Church has had its image deeply tarnished by a widespread child sex abuse scandal.
Napier was one of the 115 cardinals in the Vatican conclave that elected Pope Francis on Wednesday, the BBC reported.
http://news.yahoo.com/south-africa-cardinal-says-pedophilia-not-crime-155418854.html

South African cardinal says paedophilia is ‘not a criminal condition’   Durban’s Archbishop Wilfrid Fox Napier says those abused as children who become paedophiles ‘have psychological disorder’ guardian.co.uk, Saturday 16 March 2013
A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis has described paedophilia as a psychological illness and not “a criminal condition”.
The Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Wilfrid Fox Napier, said that people who were abused as children and became paedophiles were not criminally responsible for their actions in the same way as somebody “who chooses to do something like that”.
Cardinal Napier, who was among the 115 cardinals in the conclave at the Vatican that elected Pope Francis earlier this week, called paedophilia a “psychological disorder”.
He said: “What do you do with disorders? You have got to try and put them right. If I as a normal being choose to break the law knowing that I am breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished …
“From my experience, paedophilia is actually an illness, it is not a criminal condition, it is an illness.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/16/south-african-cardinal-paedophilia-crime

Pope will have security, immunity by remaining in the Vatican By Philip Pullella  VATICAN CITY Fri Feb 15, 2013  (Reuters) – Pope Benedict’s decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say.
“His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless. He wouldn’t have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else,” said one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“It is absolutely necessary” that he stays in the Vatican, said the source, adding that Benedict should have a “dignified existence” in his remaining years.
Vatican sources said officials had three main considerations in deciding that Benedict should live in a convent in the Vatican after he resigns on February 28….
“(If he lived anywhere else) then we might have those crazies who are filing lawsuits, or some magistrate might arrest him like other (former) heads of state have been for alleged acts while he was head of state,” one source said.
Another official said: “While this was not the main consideration, it certainly is a corollary, a natural result.”….
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-pope-resignation-immunity-idUSBRE91E0ZI20130215

The Prelate as Scapegoat By FRANCIS X. CLINES February 21, 2013  Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles wants to participate in the election of the next Pope, and it seems likely that he will get his wish — even though he covered up child abuse when he was archbishop of Los Angeles and was officially relieved of public church duties at the end of January. Judging from the cardinal’s personal blog, if he travels to Rome he will arrive prayerfully accepting his role in the scandal — the role of “scapegoat.”….
For some, the cardinal represents nothing so theologically subtle. He’s just a plain embarrassment. One cardinal said his presence at the coming conclave would be “disturbing.” But Cardinal Mahony has every right and duty to be there, according to other church officials, including the current archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez, who had to rebuke his predecessor when records came to light detailing how the cardinal protected rogue priests….

Jimmy Savile sex crime police ‘to arrest more celebrities’ in Operation Yewtree probe Thursday 14 Mar 2013  Police investigating the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal are preparing to arrest more celebrities within weeks, it has been revealed. Some ‘very high-profile figures’ are said to be among the new names reported to Operation Yewtree detectives by alleged victims. The police promise comes as former Radio 1 DJ Dave Lee Travis was arrested for the second time over alleged sexual offences – though he again proclaimed his innocence.
Operation Yewtree was set up last year amid revelations of how the late TV presenter and DJ Savile had escaped prosecution despite decades of allegations against him. Among those already arrested since the probe was launched are Travis, comedian Jim Davidson, PR consultant Max Clifford and disgraced pop star Gary Glitter.
All have declared their innocence. Nazir Afzal, from the Crown Prosecution Service, has now told a child abuse seminar in London that more arrests are imminent….

Jimmy Savile sex crime police ‘to arrest more celebrities’ in Operation Yewtree probe

Police ‘protection’ of celebrities ‘allowed serial abusers Cyril Smith and Jimmy Savile to escape prosecution for decades‘ Information on high profile suspects was reportedly marked as ‘secret’ or ‘restricted’ and only available to a small number of officers Charlie Cooper  Wednesday 20 March 2013   Celebrities and politicians were protected from child sex investigations because hundreds of police intelligence files were kept so secret that investigating officers could not access them, it has been reported. Information on famous suspects was marked “secret” or “restricted”, allowing only a small number of officers to access it, to offset the risk of police officers or staff leaking the information to the media, according to The Times.
However, the burying of information is understood to have helped serial offenders such as Jimmy Savile and Sir Cyril Smith MP escape prosecution for decades. Campaigners for the victims of child sex abuse said that police had “put protecting celebrities above child protection”.

The problem has emerged in a review of police information handling by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal. Since the exposure of the former TV presenter as Britain’s most prolific child sex offender, police have been inundated with reports from members of the public of “historical abuse”, often by prominent politicians, celebrities and VIPs.
Valuable intelligence on Savile was recorded in 1964, 1998 and 2003 by Scotland Yard, the inspectorate found, but other forces were unable to access it. The inspectorate said the restriction of access to intelligence files was “an area we are concerned about”…..
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-protection-of-celebrities-allowed-serial-abusers-cyril-smith-and-jimmy-savile-to-escape-prosecution-for-decades-8541473.html

Ex-Radio 1 DJ Dave Lee Travis arrested over fresh sex abuse allegations Wednesday 13 Mar 2013
Former Radio 1 DJ Dave Lee Travis has been re-arrested on a string of new sex allegations, Scotland Yard has confirmed. The 67-year-old was questioned when he answered bail on Monday about 11 new ‘incidents’ that have come to light. According to sources, the claims date back to the 1970s and 1980s. Mr Travis was originally arrested in November of last year. At the time, he strenuously denied any wrongdoing. Speaking outside his home in Bedfordshire today, the former Top of the Pops host told reporters:  ‘I have been into a police station and I have had a chat with them and that is it. ‘They have told me they will make a decision in April. ‘I have not been charged with anything and that is it at the moment. I have to wait until they make up their minds.’….

Ex-Radio 1 DJ Dave Lee Travis arrested over fresh sex abuse allegations

Artist Graham Ovenden accused of being paedophile    11 March 2013  Graham Ovenden denies the charges.  An internationally-acclaimed artist has been described in court as a paedophile who blindfolded girls and committed indecent acts. Graham Ovenden, 70 – who has had work hung at the Tate Gallery – is accused of sexually abusing children in London and Cornwall. Truro Crown Court heard Mr Ovenden’s “target of abuse was young girls.” He denies nine charges of indecency with a child and indecent assault on victims aged between six and 14. When he was arrested over the alleged abuse of one of the girls, Mr Ovenden admitted he had taken photographs of her – a few of them being “nudies”, the court was told. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-21745915

Jimmy Savile and the Cardinal: Britain’s top Catholic cleric was friend of disgraced TV host
26 Feb 2013  The snap, taken six years ago, emerged after Cardinal Keith O’Brien quit amid allegations of “inappropriate acts” towards fellow priests. Grinning and giving a thumbs-up, Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric poses with his friend, disgraced paedophile Jimmy Savile.
The snap, taken six years ago, emerged last night after Cardinal Keith O’Brien quit amid allegations of “inappropriate acts” towards fellow priests. The photo was taken in Edinburgh in 2007 as fund-raiser Savile and the cardinal unveiled a £375,000 vehicle for the disabled. The pair first met in the 70s, when O’Brien was a priest in Kilsyth, North Lanarkshire – and worked with a friend of Savile’s mum. Another priest at Kilsyth at the time has been suspended following claims of abuse against two young victims. It was Cardinal O’Brien who ordered the investigation last September.
When Savile’s vile secrets became known, the cardinal called for him to be stripped of his papal knighthood, awarded in 1990. Cardinal O’Brien quit just 24 hours before he was due to fly to Rome to help choose the next pope…. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jimmy-savile-cardinal-keith-obrien-1731376

JIMMY SAVILE ‘NAKED IN SATANIC SEX CLUB’
ABOVE: Savile is thought to have participated in Satanic rituals
25th February 2013  By Jerry Lawton
POLICE are probing claims that disgraced DJ Jimmy Savile was filmed cavorting naked in a Satanic sex club.
Operation Yewtree detectives investigating the shamed star’s sordid antics are hunting for the footage which is said to have been preserved on DVD.
The sleazy film is said to show other celebrities and civic bigwigs taking part in naked Satanic rituals at a secret club called The Chamber.
The meeting place in Whitby, North Yorks, had a ceremonial whipping post in the centre of the room. Occult symbols including pentagrams and goat’s heads adorned the walls.
Detectives probing Savile’s paedophile past are to travel to the seaside town to investigate the club….
The bizarre new line of inquiry could lead to more arrests by Yewtree officers investigating links to the ex-Top Of The Pops host, who died in 2011, aged 84.
They will want to establish if all the activities at the club involved consenting adults or whether anyone was abused.
The Whitby investigator, who has not been named, claimed there was “a substantial amount of information” to show Savile was invited to Satanic rituals in the town.
“Someone once made a recording of what unfolded and that film is still said to be in existence in DVD form,” he said.
“From what I understand this was not so much serious Satanic ritual but celebrities and local dignitaries dancing around naked with a Satanic theme going on.”….
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/300538/Cops-hunt-for-DVD-of-Savile-naked-in-a-Satanic-sex-club-/

Police question officers in Jimmy Savile’s ‘breakfast club’  West Yorkshire police to quiz officers who attended Friday gatherings at disgraced BBC presenter’s penthouse in Leeds      The Guardian, Thursday 28 February 2013  Serving police officers who took part in disgraced BBC presenter Jimmy Savile’s “breakfast club” meetings at his home are to be quizzed by West Yorkshire police, the force has confirmed. Police said on Thursday they had “identified some individuals who were in the so-called Friday Morning Breakfast Club”, a weekly gathering of the late Top of the Pops host’s friends at his Leeds penthouse. In October, West Yorkshire police said they had no information about officers attending the gathering but that they were free to do what they wished when off duty….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/28/police-jimmy-savile-breakfast-club

Jimmy Savile scandal: judge’s review contacted by more than 425 people – Dame Janet Smith’s investigation into sexual abuse at the BBC over five decades highlights scale of allegations it covers   Josh Halliday         guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 February 2013 The judge-led investigation into sexual abuse at the BBC in the Jimmy Savile era has been contacted by more than 425 people and carried out 60 in-person interviews with witnesses. The Dame Janet Smith review on Monday said it had conducted approximately 250 conversations with witnesses since its inquiry began in December. About 60 interviews face-to-face interviews have taken place with witnesses in London and further meetings are planned over the coming weeks, the inquiry said. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/18/jimmy-savile-scandal-judge-review

ITV’s Jimmy Savile sex scandal documentary made for just £170,000   The Other Side of Jimmy Savile won three RTS awards and took a 10-month investigation, but kept within Exposure’s budget         Maggie Brown             guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 February 2013  TV’s Exposure documentary that broke the seal on the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal, which picked up two RTS TV journalism awards last week, was made for just £170,000 by ITV Studios.  The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, broadcast on 3 October 2012 and featuring the harrowing accounts by five women of assaults by the late Jim’ll Fix It presenter, was the result of a 10-month investigation between January and August last year.
When ITV’s factual and current affairs creative director Alex Gardiner heard of the BBC’s decision he moved into action, having worked closely before with Mark Williams-Thomas – the ex-police officer and child protection expert who worked on the Newsnight story in late 2011. (It is a small footnote in history, but one independent production company also turned down the chance to investigate Savile last year)….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/26/itv-jimmy-savile-sex-scandal-documentary

Incoming BBC Boss Discusses Jimmy Savile Scandal, Crisis 3/1/2013 by Stuart Kemp
LONDON – Incoming BBC director-general Tony Hall has said a reckless approach to creative risk-taking led the BBC into crisis amid the fallout of the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal last year in an interview with The Guardian newspaper….
And Hall identified a rift between BBC executives and journalists as one of the underlying reasons for the failure to get the Newsnight investigation into Savile to air in December 2011.
The fallout from the Savile sexual abuse scandal rocked the broadcaster to the core and contributed in a large part to the resignation of the previous director general George Entwistle.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/incoming-bbc-boss-discusses-jimmy-425541

Jimmy Savile sex crime police ‘to arrest more celebrities’ in Operation Yewtree probe  Thursday 14 Mar 2013      Police investigating the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal are preparing to arrest more celebrities within weeks, it has been revealed. Some ‘very high-profile figures’ are said to be among the new names reported to Operation Yewtree detectives by alleged victims. The police promise comes as former Radio 1 DJ Dave Lee Travis was arrested for the second time over alleged sexual offences – though he again proclaimed his innocence.
Operation Yewtree was set up last year amid revelations of how the late TV presenter and DJ Savile had escaped prosecution despite decades of allegations against him. Among those already arrested since the probe was launched are Travis, comedian Jim Davidson, PR consultant Max Clifford and disgraced pop star Gary Glitter.
All have declared their innocence. Nazir Afzal, from the Crown Prosecution Service, has now told a child abuse seminar in London that more arrests are imminent….

Jimmy Savile sex crime police ‘to arrest more celebrities’ in Operation Yewtree probe

BBC uses licence fee cash to ‘gag its staff’: Broadcaster accused of ‘corporate bullying’ in bid to buy the silence of alleged sexual harassment victims
Up to 20 former staff made to sign contracts to stop them whistleblowing
They thought they could not give evidence to inquiry because of clauses
BBC insists no one is barred from giving evidence, despite agreements
Countryfile’s Miriam O’Reilly said use of gagging clauses  is ‘insidious’
By Sam Greenhill and Paul Revoir 2 March 2013
The BBC was accused of ‘corporate bullying’ last night after spending licence-payers’ cash to buy the silence of up to 20 alleged harassment victims.
The gagging orders threaten to make a mockery of an inquiry set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal to uncover the depths of sexual harassment at the corporation.
Up to 20 former staff – all of whom claim to have been victims of bullying or sexual harassment – believed they had effectively been banned from giving evidence to the internal review.
Each had been paid off and made to sign contracts to stop them turning whistleblower.
The absurd situation could mean licence-payers funding an expensive inquiry on the one hand, only for potential witnesses to think they cannot give evidence. The inquiry, overseen by human rights lawyer Dinah Rose QC, is expected to report next month. In another twist, a lawyer last night claimed a further ‘two dozen’ BBC women – some of them famous names – have come forward in the past week complaining of sexual discrimination, bullying or harassment.
Ann Olivarius, said there was ‘a culture full of male bias at the BBC’. Following a talk she gave to 150 women in the arts, two dozen ‘talked about sexual discrimination and about bullying and inappropriate sexual advances’….The BBC insists no one has been barred from giving evidence, despite any previous agreements which may have been signed….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287278/BBC-uses-licence-fee-cash-gag-staff-Broadcaster-accused-corporate-bullying-bid-buy-silence-alleged-sexual-harassment-victims.html

Police force under fire over Savile sex probe mistakes  Tuesday 12 March 2013
WEST Yorkshire Police held virtually no information about Jimmy Savile’s sex abuse before he died despite more than 40 of his victims coming from the county, a damning report reveals today.
Inspectors from a police watchdog criticised mistakes by forces nationwide in sharing information about the disgraced presenter as they expressed “serious concerns” that so many victims felt unable to come forward.
Only five allegations and two pieces of intelligence were recorded by police in the entire country though one dated back as early as 1964, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary revealed. And although Savile lived in West Yorkshire for much of his life and had dozens of local victims, the only significant recorded information about his criminal activities were held by other forces.
Officers in West Yorkshire held no “intelligence reports” about Savile which would have prompted further investigation and only one minor “information report”. This was despite newspaper reports being freely available online revealing that Savile was interviewed by West Yorkshire Police in 1958 and that he had been due to appear in court over sexual abuse allegations. The report said mistakes by officers in Surrey, London and Sussex meant no one force was able to piece together the full extent of the Leeds-born DJ’s sexual abuse. And it claimed inconsistencies in the way they shared information meant there was a “distinct possibility” officers could fail to prevent another similar scandal from happening again….
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/at-a-glance/general-news/police-force-under-fire-over-savile-sex-probe-mistakes-1-5488305

Savile accusations ‘censored’ Friday 22 February 2013
Detailed accusations about Jimmy Savile’s sex crimes were censored after viewers tried to post them on a BBC tribute web page.
The comments, which included one person who wrote “One of my best friends in 1972 was molested by this creep Savile. He was never the same again. Killed himself in 1985. How’s About That Then?”, were stopped from being published by a team of moderators employed by the corporation.
The details were included in thousands of pages of evidence gathered during an inquiry by former journalist Nick Pollard into Newsnight’s decision to drop its Savile investigation which were published today by the BBC.
A transcript of an interview between Mr Pollard and former director general George Entwistle refers to examples of the comments, including one person who wrote: “He was a paedophile. You may not like the truth but he was. It will all tumble out now.”
Another wrote: “Sorry to rain on the parade of all the well-wishers, but he was infamous in Scarborough. I would not have been letting my son sit on his knee.”….
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/at-a-glance/general-news/savile-accusations-censored-1-5435108

UK Police Had Jimmy Savile Abuse Records In 1960s: Report  03/11/13
LONDON — An independent report into how British police handled allegations against disgraced late BBC entertainer Jimmy Savile said Tuesday that police held records that connected him to sexual abuse as early as 1964, but failed to carry out an investigation.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, an independent police oversight group, found that police recorded five allegations and two pieces of intelligence against Savile during his lifetime.
Once one of Britain’s most popular entertainers, Savile’s reputation took a dive after his death in 2011 at age 84, when hundreds of witnesses and victims came forward accusing him of sexual abuse. Police have since described the television and radio presenter as a serial sexual predator who used his fame to target young victims across Britain.
Tuesday’s report suggested that Savile could have been stopped decades ago.
The earliest found intelligence record held by the pedophile unit at Scotland Yard dates from about 1964, but was only uncovered last year, the report said. The record, which just contained brief notes, referred to Savile as a “well known disc jockey” and to sexual abuse involving students at a children’s home. No investigation was carried out as a result of that intelligence, the report said.
“Its existence suggests that, by 1964, Savile was known to (police) officers investigating sexual offences against children,” the report said. “On the basis of what we know now, there appears to have been, at the very least, an opportunity to investigate his behavior then.”
The second intelligence record was an anonymous letter sent to police in 1998. It urged Scotland Yard to stop Savile’s activities, but police marked it as “sensitive” because of his celebrity status. It was never investigated and not shared with other police forces….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/12/jimmy-savile-sex-abuse-uk-police-records_n_2860530.html

Jimmy Savile police ‘reluctant to investigate because of celebrity status’
Watchdog highlights failures in information sharing between forces and reveals DJ could have been stopped in 1964        Josh Halliday and Haroon Siddique        guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 March 2013    Jimmy Savile’s celebrity status contributed to the police’s failure to prevent him sexually abusing hundreds of young people over five decades when they could have stopped him in the 1960s, the compiler of a highly critical report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) has said.
The watchdog’s inquiry into the police’s handling of Savile revealed that the disgraced DJ, who died in October 2011, could have been stopped as early as 1964 but police mishandled evidence and dismissed victims. Drusilla Sharpling, from HMIC, said police appeared to be reluctant to investigate Savile because of his high public profile….

The inspectorate described a “cultural mistrust” of evidence from children, warning that procedures adopted by various agencies over many years had left vulnerable young people unprotected by the criminal justice system….
In 1963, a Cheshire man was told by a police officer to “forget about it” and “move on” when he reported an allegation of rape by Savile, according to HMIC.
Another man who tried to report an assault his girlfriend had suffered at a recording of Top of the Pops was told by police he “could be arrested for making such allegations” and dismissed….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/mar/12/jimmy-savile-police-celebrity-status

Jimmy Savile investigator offers to help round up 1980s paedophile ring
MARTIN HICKMAN Tuesday 12 March 2013
Mark Williams-Thomas, the child protection expert who exposed Jimmy Savile, has offered to help catch an alleged establishment paedophile ring that used its connections to escape justice decades ago.
The former police officer – who researched and presented ITV’s documentary on the dark side of the BBC star – said that victims reluctant to report the abuse they experienced at Elm Guest House in London could contact him directly. Mr Williams-Thomas said he would consider making a documentary about the case if a new police inquiry, Operation Fernbridge, turned out to be unsuccessful.
He stressed that he had “100 per cent faith” in the inquiry into claims that children in care were abused at the property in Rocks Lane, Barnes, in the early 1980s by powerful figures from across public life.
But he urged anyone who felt able to report their experiences to come forward, saying it was crucial for Scotland Yard to collect more evidence before making any further arrests.
He also divulged that he had already passed evidence to the police about the case, adding that the stories he was hearing about it were “horrendous”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/jimmy-savile-investigator-offers-to-help-round-up-1980s-paedophile-ring-8531705.html

Prominent Australian entertainer arrested in relation to Jimmy Savile child sex investigation Charles Miranda News Limited Network March 29, 2013 A PROMINENT Australian entertainer has been arrested by Scotland Yard detectives in London on suspicion of sexual offences. The high-profile 82-year-old Australian man from Berkshire in south east England was interviewed for several hours by police before being released on bail…. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is the 11th suspect but the biggest star so far arrested by officers from Operation Yewtree set up last year to probe hundreds of claims of sexual assault and paedophilia against British entertainer Jimmy Savile. Police yesterday confirmed the arrest was not directly linked to Savile, who died aged 84 in 2011, but one of two other Yewtree offshoots related to alleged sexual misconduct by other high profile stars.http://www.news.com.au/world-news/prominent-australian-entertainer-arrested-in-relation-to-jimmy-savile-child-sex-investigation/story-fndir2ev-1226608965017

Paedo MP cover-up claim: Top cop removed from sex abuse probe after naming politicians as suspects By Tom Pettifor 26 Mar 2013 The officer suddenly found himself booted off the case and put on a disciplinary after revealing politicians were among the suspects
Tasked with flushing out paedophiles preying on vulnerable youngsters at children’s homes, Detective Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll relished the challenge.
But the officer suddenly found himself booted off the case and put on a disciplinary after revealing politicians were named among the suspects.

At least one of the figures is understood to have been an MP.
And former Labour councillor Anna Tapsell claims she was visited by a police chief to “warn her off” after she raised concerns that detectives would not properly investigate allegations of paedophile activity in care homes. Mr Driscoll launched his probe into child sex abuse claims in the South London borough of Lambeth in 1998.
But he claims Scotland Yard began meddling as soon as the politicians were named….
The Met set up a five year investigation into sexual abuse linked to Lambeth social care called Operation Middleton.
It was a joint probe with the council and was based in the town hall, leading to criticism that the Met were working too closely with the organisation that had employed abusers.
Officers traced 200 victims between 1998 to 2003 and the probe secured three convictions.
A total of 19 suspects were never identified, fuelling fears a paedophile ring had operated involving men from outside the care system.
Michael John Carroll, the former boss of the Angell Road home, was arrested in 1998 by Merseyside police for abuse spanning decades.
By that time Ms Tapsell had spent more than 10 years highlighting his case after she discovered Lambeth bosses let him run children’s homes until 1991 despite -executives learning in 1986 he was a convicted paedophile.
In 1994, she wrote to Elizabeth Appleby QC, who had been -commissioned to head a probe into sex abuse and misconduct in the borough.
Ms Tapsell told the judge that Carroll, who had not at that point been arrested, was “protected” by Lambeth social services bosses along with paedophile Les Paul who worked in South Vale.
Paul was jailed for two and a half years in 1994 for abusing three boys including one from the children’s home.
Ms Tapsell wrote: “Les Paul took little boys home and on holiday, just as Carroll did with the full knowledge of area staff. The examples are numerous.
“Almost all the internal abuse issues have involved collusion across divisions.
“I have no doubt Angell Road may have been used for organised child abuse which involved adults other than staff.
“This view is reinforced by the strong investment that officers and politicians have in blocking any effective investigation.”….
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/paedophile-mp-cover-up-claim-detective-1785273

Police re-open child sex abuse investigation at Kincora boys home in Belfast By Nick Dorman, Fiona O’Cleirigh 23 Mar 2013  The probe will cover attacks on boys over two decades at the home in Northern Ireland – suspected to have been regularly visited by establishment figures
Police have reopened an investigation into child abuse at a notorious care home linked to claims of a cover-up by the secret service to protect top level perverts, the Sunday People reports.
The probe will cover attacks on boys over two decades at the Kincora home in Northern Ireland – suspected to have been regularly visited by establishment figures.
Sources told the investigative website Exaro that the Police Service of Northern Ireland is asking to interview former residents. Kincora was home to 168 boys aged 15 to 18 between 1963 and 1968. Three senior care staff were jailed in 1981 for abusing 11 boys. But it is feared there were many more victims and abusers. Since the case there have been suggestions that paedophilia at Kincora was linked to Anglo-Irish relations and British intelligence services. There are unsubstantiated claims that visitors to the home in East Belfast included military, politicians and civil servants.
The PSNI returned to the Kincora files as a result of information received by a public inquiry launched last May into “historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland”.
Retired judge Sir Anthony Hart is chairing the inquiry. It is looking at abuse in residential institutions in the province between 1922 and 1995 and is due to report in 2016….
Joseph Mains, the warden at Kincora, and his deputy Raymond Semple both admitted all charges. McGrath denied the allegations but changed his plea at Belfast Crown Court. It was claimed in court that abuse took place in bedrooms, while boys were watching television, in the toilets and on the first floor landing. McGrath,and Semple got four years each and Mains got six. McGrath continued to be the subject of speculation because of his links to religion and a loyalist Orange lodge….
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/police-re-open-child-sex-abuse-1781425

Online child abuse network smashed Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 15/03/2013
Reporter: Ben Worsley Federal police have smashed what they allege is one of the largest online child abuse networks they’ve seen, arresting twenty one people, confiscating hundreds of thousands of child abuse images and reportedly rescuing a young victim of the network….
BEN WORSLEY, REPORTER: This scene was repeated in 40 homes across Australia in every state and territory, the AFP swooped en masse…. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3717028.htm

Iran moves to legalize marriage for girls under 10 years old  By Darren Weir     Jul 25, 2012
When Saudi Arabia announced three months ago that girls as young as 10-years old would now be allowed to marry, Iran decided to drop the age limit even further.
Iranian Christian news service Mohabat News reports a member of the Iranian Parliament (Majiles) Mohammad Ali Isfenani, “we must regard 9 as being the appropriate age for a girl to have reached puberty and qualified to get married. To do otherwise would be to contradict and challenge Islamic Sharia law.”
He argues,”Before the revolution girls under 16 were not allowed to marry. Parents determined to get around the law would often tamper with their daughter’s birth certificate. Under the previous constitution, people were legally regarded as adults when they were 18. After the revolution the age at which children were regarded as going through puberty was lowered to 9 for girls and 15 for boys….
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/329317

Letters
Lessons not learned on abuse therapy
The Guardian, Monday 11 February 2013
In 1995 a 13-year-old boy committed suicide having been told he could not have counselling in the long run-up to his abuser’s trial. His mother said: “He was desperate to talk to someone. But social workers said there was no possibility of discussing the abuse before the trial. They did not want to contaminate the evidence.” His abuser was later jailed for four years for offences against other boys….
Malign attacks in the 1990s on psychotherapists by those accused of abuse in an effort to discredit their adult children’s stories have left a false impression. The purpose of therapy is to provide a container for patients’ often unbearable feelings and help them to move on. It leads to a more not less coherent witnessing of the past. Perhaps that is why it arouses such hostility in those who are desperate to bury what happened – accused abusers and their defence teams….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/11/lesssons-not-learned-abuse-therapy

Republic accused of sex abuse ‘cover-up’ 11/09/2001 The Irish Government and judicial system conducted a ‘‘hideous cover-up’’ after a young girl was subjected to years of sexual abuse, it was claimed today.
Ian Paisley Jr (DUP, North Antrim) told the Stormont Assembly that 24-year-old Sarah Bland and her mother have spent the last two decades battling in vain to secure justice.
They had come to him in a desperate bid to right a terrible wrong, he said.
He declared: ‘‘For as long as this gross injustice, known as the Bland case, remains unresolved, anything the Irish authorities may say about rights, about equality, about honour, about truth, should be treated with contempt.’’
Mr Paisley’s motion expressing concern at the failure of the Irish judiciary to resolve the case of Sarah Bland, the daughter of a British citizen, was passed unanimously. He said the student and her mother, Trish, had given him a huge dossier on the abuse which began in 1980 when she was aged four and living in a stately home in the Irish midlands….
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/republic-accused-of-sex-abuse-cover-up-23261.html

Ireland finally admits state collusion in Magdalene Laundry system   Taoiseach Enda Kenny fails to formally apologise for involvement over female enslavement causing more outrage    Henry McDonald in Dublin     The Guardian, Tuesday 5 February 2013
After more than seven decades of exploitation and a 10-year struggle for justice, Ireland on Tuesday admitted its role in the enslavement of thousands of women and girls in the notorious Magdalene Laundry system, but stopped short of issuing a formal apology from the government.
A long-awaited report headed by Senator Martin McAleese said there was “significant state involvement” in how the laundries were run – a reversal of the official state line for years, which insisted the institutions were privately controlled and run by nuns.

But the Irish Premier Enda Kenny’s failure to give the women and their supporters a full, formal, public apology in the Dail on Tuesday afternoon has infuriated the victims and their supporters, who said such an approach risked undermining Ireland’s attempt to right a historic wrong. Instead Kenny stated his “regret” about the stigma hanging over the women.
“The stigma that the branding together of all the residents, all 10,000, in the Magdalene Laundries, needs to be removed, and should have been removed long before this,” Kenny said. “And I really am sorry that that never happened, and I regret that it never happened.”
Claire McGetterick of the Justice For Magdalenes group said last night: “Frankly their country has failed them again”.
Labelled the “Maggies”, the women and girls were stripped of their names and dumped in Irish Catholic church-run laundries where nuns treated them as slaves, simply because they were unmarried mothers, orphans or regarded as somehow morally wayward.
Over 74 years, 30,000 women were put to work in de facto detention, mostly in laundries run by nuns. At least 988 of the women who were buried in laundry grounds are thought to have spent most of their lives inside the institutions….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/05/ireland-magdalene-laundry-system-apology

Ireland sent girls, women to Catholic workhouses until 1996, report finds By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News   Ireland’s government was directly involved in sending girls and women to work for nothing in laundries run by Catholic orders, a landmark report published Tuesday concluded.
The report by Irish Senator Martin McAleese found that orphans and abused, neglected or unruly children were among more than 10,000 sent to the Magdalen Laundries from 1922 to 1996.
Some had committed minor crimes, others were simply homeless or poor. Women with mental or physical disabilities and some people with psychiatric illness also found themselves in the laundries.
Their average age, the report found, was 23, but the youngest child was just nine and the oldest known entrant was 89. Activists called on the government to issue a formal apology and pay compensation, with one group saying those affected had been “treated like slaves.” Their plight came to greater public attention when it was the subject of a 2002 film called The Magdalene Sisters, which used a different spelling. And in June 2011, the United Nations’ Committee on Torture highlighted allegations of “physical, emotional abuses and other ill-treatment” and said it was “gravely concerned” at Ireland’s failure to “protect girls and women who were involuntarily confined.”….
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/05/16854772-ireland-sent-girls-women-to-catholic-workhouses-until-1996-report-finds

RAF investigates 1980s child abuse claims    Alleged offences committed at base in Germany James Legge  Saturday 09 February 2013
Military police are questioning a former serviceman over allegations of child sex abuse at a former RAF base in Germany. The alleged offences were committed between 1981 and 1989, and involve a former RAF serviceman who was stationed in Berlin at the time. The Ministry of Defence said yesterday that RAF Police Special Investigations and Intelligence Branch had interviewed a man from the London area….
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/raf-investigates-1980s-child-abuse-claims-8488169.html

Kesgrave/Stowmarket: Inquiries into historic child abuse allegations at three former schools Colin Adwent Crime Correspondent Monday, February 4, 2013
THREE former Suffolk schools are now at the centre of criminal investigations into historic child abuse allegations. The accusations, which relate to alleged physical and sexual assaults, are said to have occurred between the late 1970s and run through to the 1990s.
A solicitor representing ex-pupils of one of the schools – Oakwood School in Stowmarket – has said the number of claimants has reached three figures.
Andrew Grove, who is based in Cambridge, said: “We now have 100 complainants on the civil claim relating to Oakwood School.” Last week detectives said they were re-opening the 1992 inquiry into alleged abuse at Kesgrave Hall independent school. The investigation, codenamed Operation Garford, comes after former students’ calls for it to be re-opened were backed by Central Suffolk and North Ipswich MP Dr Dan Poulter.
Responding to the new inquiry, Dr Poulter said: “I am pleased that Suffolk Police are conducting a full and thorough investigation into the alleged child abuse at Kesgrave Hall school, following my intervention. “A number of people have written to me raising concerns about abuse when they or their family members were pupils at the school, and I would again urge anyone who has been the victim of abuse to come forward and immediately contact Suffolk police.”
Four people were suspended in 1992 during the Kesgrave Hall inquiry. No charges were ever brought. The school closed in 1993.
However, a woodwork teacher Alan Stancliffe, was convicted and jailed in 1999 and again in 2007 for indecent assaults on three ex-pupils….
http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/kesgrave_stowmarket_inquiries_into_historic_child_abuse_allegations_at_three_former_schools_1_1857903

Senior LAUSD officials knew of child abuse claims, lawyers say March 21, 2013
Senior LAUSD officials were allegedly aware of parent complaints in 2009 about a Wilmington teacher who was charged in January with abusing children over an extended period of time, say attorneys who represent alleged victims. The latest allegations concern the case of Robert Pimentel, 57, who has been charged with molesting 12 students at De La Torre Elementary School. Pimentel has pleaded not guilty.
Los Angeles Unified School District officials had previously acknowledged Pimentel’s principal was aware of allegations in 2002 and 2008. The principal’s alleged failure to act was cited as reason for her removal by L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy. Both Pimental and Principal Irene L. Hinojosa resigned as the district was preparing to fire them. The superintendent said in January that he did not know whether allegations against Pimental went higher than the principal.
On Thursday, attorneys alleged the allegations reached senior officials, namely Holly Priebe-Diaz, a veteran district mediator, and Linda Del Cueto, who oversees instructional programs in the San Fernando Valley. In 2009, she was one of eight top regional administrators across the nation’s second-largest school system.
According to accounts by the attorneys, Priebe-Diaz and Del Cueto were involved in a mediation to settle conflicts between parents and Hinojosa. As they worked through various issues, one parent asserted Pimentel had touched her daughter inappropriately and the principal had failed to follow up appropriately. Another parent who was present has corroborated that account, said attorney Luis Carrillo….
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/03/senior-district-officials-knew-of-child-abuse-allegations-attorneys-claim.html

Sandusky speaks from prison: Witness’s ‘story changed a lot’ By Mark Morgenstein, CNN  Mon March 25, 2013  Jerry Sandusky has been interviewed for the first time since going to prison in October. Documentary filmmaker John Ziegler shares the convicted pedophile’s comments on Joe Paterno, and on the prosecution’s key witness, with Piers Morgan, at 9 p.m. ET Monday on CNN.
(CNN) — Jerry Sandusky will probably be incarcerated for the rest of his life for child sex abuse convictions, but the former Penn State assistant football coach is making sure he has his say outside the prison walls. Documentary filmmaker John Ziegler interviewed Sandusky, 68, for a project he calls “The Framing of Joe Paterno.” On Monday, NBC’s “Today” show aired a portion of a phone conversation between the two men.
In the broadcast excerpts, Sandusky questioned the credibility of prosecution witness Mike McQueary, another former Penn State assistant coach, who testified that he walked in on Sandusky raping a child in the showers at a school facility. “I think there’s a lot of things that transpired. I think these investigators, the way they went about business, you know, his story changed a lot. I think he said some things, and then it escalated on him,” Sandusky said. “I don’t understand how anybody would have walked into that locker room from where he was and heard sounds associated that was sex going on. (laughter) You know, like he said that could’ve been, I mean, there was … that would have been the last thing I would have thought about. I would’ve thought maybe fooling around or something like that. (laughter)”
Sandusky also discussed what Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State head coach who was forced out as a result of the scandal, knew — or didn’t know. “If he absolutely thought I was (a pedophile), I’d say no. If he had a suspicion, I don’t know the answer to that,” Sandusky said…. Sandusky was sentenced in October to 30 to 60 years in prison for abusing 10 boys during a 15-year period…. http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/25/us/pennsylvania-sandusky-interview/index.html

has pictures of abuse
Canadian police face multiple ‘sexual abuse’ accusations from aboriginal women – HRW   14 February, 2013  Canada’s national police force stands accused of raping and sexually abusing aboriginal women and girls in British Columbia, Human Rights Watch has revealed in a recent report.
-The probe found cases of a number of alleged abuses including a woman who was raped by four Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers after she was harassed in a remote spot. The force is also accused of pepper spraying and tasering female teenagers, beating a 17-year-old girl and using a police dog to attack a 12-year-old girl. HRW also found women had been strip-searched by male officers and the use of excessive force during arrests.
“In 5 of the 10 towns Human Rights Watch visited in the north, we heard allegations of rape or sexual assault by police officers,” the report states.
Furthermore the report claims, “incidents of police abuse of indigenous women and girls are compounded by the widely perceived failure of the police to protect women and girls from violence.”
The investigation by the watchdog has started after Justice for Girls (JFG), a Vancouver-based organization submitted a briefing paper to Human Rights Watch in November 2011 asking to investigate disappearance or murders of Aboriginal women over the years.
Last summer, HRW team spent five weeks conducting 87 interviews with 42 indigenous women and eight indigenous girls from ages 15 to 60 in ten settlements in British Columbia.
Wednesday’s report calls for a national inquiry into the indigenous cases alleging police misconduct…. http://rt.com/news/police-women-aboriginal-rights-182/

describes severe abuse
Saudi Arabia’s Child-Rape Case: Female Activists Fight to Prevent Abuse Feb 8, 2013 Christopher Dickey      A monstrous case of abuse in Saudi Arabia shakes the kingdom and strengthens the cause of Saudi women activists.  The torture and murder of 5-year-old Lama Al Ghamdi could hardly have been more horrific—and news of it, repeated in countless Twitter feeds, has enflamed opinion around the world. But the fact that this story of one little girl’s death and one father’s monstrosity went public is also a sign of just how hard women in Saudi Arabia are working to fight the cruel misogyny embedded in the kingdom’s version of Islamic law. And among those women is a daughter of the king….
Fayhan Al Ghamdi, a self-styled Islamic preacher who appears occasionally on local TV shows pontificating about morality, was arrested last year and charged with murder. He told authorities that he had suspected his 5-year old daughter was not a virgin. He had even taken her to a doctor to check. But apparently that had not satisfied him….
Saudi law claims to follow a clear path (sharia) laid out in the Quran, but in practice it’s based on a maze of sayings and traditions (hadith) with as many baffling contradictions as the codes used by lawyers anywhere. According to one reading, a father cannot be held fully accountable for the death of his children; their loss is a punishment for him. So the question arose in the proceedings whether Al Ghamdi could simply pay the mother “blood money” for the loss of her daughter and walk free….
The mother has said she will not accept payment. She has asked that the stepmother be investigated as well, and she has told her advocates that she wants to see her ex-husband executed, which in Saudi Arabia means beheading.
Before the middle of the last decade, domestic violence and child abuse in Saudi Arabia were treated mainly as family affairs. Nobody wanted to talk about them, and if police did bother to investigate suspected crimes, which was rare, they found proof very hard to come by.

But it’s important to remember Saudi Arabia is not the only country where domestic abuse is a hidden crime. Indeed, the United States has the worst record in the industrialized world. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, almost five children a day die from neglect or abuse, but according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, those numbers almost certainly are understated…. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/08/saudi-arabia-s-child-rape-case-female-activists-fight-to-prevent-abuse.html

Child Abuse in America
Children are suffering from a hidden epidemic of child abuse and neglect. Every year 3.3 million reports of child abuse are made in the United States involving nearly 6 million children (a report can include multiple children). The United States has the worst record in the industrialized nation – losing five children every day due to abuse-related deaths….Approximately 80% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4. http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics

Frances Andrade death: Charity calls for review in child abuse trials Frances Andrade was found dead after giving evidence  9 February 2013
A charity for adults who were abused in childhood has said the way prosecutions are brought must change after a victim took her own life during a trial. Frances Andrade was found dead less than a week after she faced Michael Brewer at Manchester Crown Court. Following Brewer’s conviction for indecently assaulting her, her family said “the court system let her down”. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood’s Pete Saunders said the “legal system has to change”. He said a conclusion such as the one in Mrs Andrade’s case was “not as uncommon as it should be”.
“She is another victim not only of the people who abused her, but the British legal system too,” he said. “The people who put her through the trauma of the court case should be ashamed of themselves. “Child abuse is a unique crime and it should be dealt with very sensitively. Instead, it is dealt with as if it were any other sort of crime.”….  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21395749

NCRJ Reveals Itself February 9th, 2013  There was a powerful article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine on January 27 about the devastating effects of child pornography on victims whose images have been spread around the world on the Internet.  It is the kind of article that would seem to generate only sympathy and concern for victims. But the “National Center for Reason and Justice” proved otherwise. This…organization used the occasion to question whether real harms occurred and to smear Dr. Joyanna Silberg, one of the therapists named in the article. In a letter to the New York Times, published on the NCRJ website, the president of the organization, defense lawyer Michael Snedeker, claimed that “Joyanna Silberg, the therapist of one young woman in the story, is notorious for advocating the debunked myth of satanic ritual child abuse.” Snedeker also asserted that “obsessive attention paid to victims can paradoxically make their feelings of trauma worse, or even cause them in the first place.” He closed by expressing concern about giving “pseudoscientific, dangerous therapists another gravy train.”
These statements are wrong in every particular. Dr. Silberg is not even the therapist for the woman she mentions in the story! That woman lives in another city. Dr. Silberg merely conducted assesments for the purpose of litigation. Dr. Silberg did not receive a percentage of any legal judgments, nor has she received any payment other than the set fees for conducting an evaluation. The insinuation that she may have engaged in therapy that made the woman worse is beyond false, it is defamatory….It is clear from the article that what Snedeker calls “feelings of trauma” were hardly caused by the therapists in this case. They were caused by the appalling actions of those who took these images and disseminated them. Moreover, Dr. Silberg has never advocated or endorsed anything pertaining to satanic ritual abuse. Instead, she is apparently a target for these smears because she has spoken up for victims of sexual abuse through the Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence.  http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2013/02/09/ncrj-reveals-itself/

Zen Groups Distressed by Accusations Against Teacher By MARK OPPENHEIMER and IAN LOVETT February 11, 2013 Since arriving in Los Angeles from Japan in 1962, the Buddhist teacher Joshu Sasaki, who is 105 years old, has taught thousands of Americans at his two Zen centers in the area and one in New Mexico. He has influenced thousands more enlightenment seekers through a chain of some 30 affiliated Zen centers from the Puget Sound to Princeton to Berlin. And he is known as a Buddhist teacher of Leonard Cohen, the poet and songwriter.
Mr. Sasaki has also, according to an investigation by an independent council of Buddhist leaders, released in January, groped and sexually harassed female students for decades, taking advantage of their loyalty to a famously charismatic roshi, or master….

Such charges have become more frequent in Zen Buddhism. Several other teachers have been accused of misconduct recently, notably Eido Shimano, who in 2010 was asked to resign from the Zen Studies Society in Manhattan over allegations that he had sex with students. Critics and victims have pointed to a Zen culture of secrecy, patriarchy and sexism, and to the quasi-religious worship of the Zen master, who can easily abuse his status.
Disaffected students wrote letters to the board of one of Mr. Sasaki’s Zen centers as early as 1991. Yet it was only last November, when Eshu Martin, a Zen priest who studied under Mr. Sasaki from 1997 to 2008, posted a letter to SweepingZen.com, a popular Web site, that the wider Zen world noticed.
Mr. Martin, now a Zen abbot in Victoria, British Columbia, accused Mr. Sasaki of a “career of misconduct,” from “frequent and repeated non-consensual groping of female students” to “sexually coercive after-hours ‘tea’ meetings, to affairs,” as well as interfering in his students’ marriages. Soon thereafter, the independent “witnessing council” of noted Zen teachers began interviewing 25 current or former students of Mr. Sasaki.
Some former students are now speaking out, including seven interviewed for this article, and their stories provide insight into the culture of Rinzai-ji and the other places where Mr. Sasaki taught. Women say they were encouraged to believe that being touched by Mr. Sasaki was part of their Zen training.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/world/asia/zen-buddhists-roiled-by-accusations-against-teacher.html

Report on Joshu Sasaki Allegations   An independent Council of Buddhist leaders investigated allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct against Joshu Sasaki, who has taught thousands of American at his two Zen centers in California and New Mexico. Published: February 11, 2013
On Authority by Alan Hozan Senauke with Jan Chozen Bays and Grace Myoan Schireson
When ongoing questions of misuse of sexuality or power unfold in a spiritual community, it is rarely a matter of one person’s actions. Reading through the painful and heartfelt accounts documenting Joshu Sasaki’s sexual relationships with students at Rinzaiji down through the years, we see how, knowingly and unknowingly, the community was drawn into an open secret, and people’s ability to practice the dharma suffered. Despite individual and collective attempts to address boundaries, repentance, and rectification, these behaviors appear to have continued over more than four decades. We have reports that those who chose to speak out were silenced, exiled, ridiculed, or otherwise punished.

Understanding that our practice is to bear what is unbearable and not to turn away from reality, how could this be so? We suggest it has something to do with a view of spiritual authority and “enlightenment” that we in the West have created in the name of Zen. To be fair, this is not just a problem of Zen. It arises in various Buddhist communities, and more widely in other religious congregations. We are unfortunately susceptible to enthrallment, which is hardly “seeing things as they really are.” http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/12/us/Joshu-Sasaki-investigation-report.html

Organised abuse and the politics of disbelief    Michael Salter
Faculty of Law Faculty of Medicine University of New South Wales m.salter@unsw.edu.au
Organised abuse refers to any incident of child sexual abuse in which multiple adults act in a coordinated or premeditated way to sexually abuse multiple children.1 Although it is a relatively infrequent form of sexual abuse, organised abuse has been amongst the most incendiary issues in debates on child sexual abuse over the last thirty years (see Brown, Scheflin et al. 1998; Kitzinger 2004). This paper will explore how organised abuse came to play a central role in conflicts over the signification of child sexual abuse. As narratives of sexual violence have gained increasingly legitimacy in the public eye, it seems that organised abuse has come to represent a new frontier of disbelief….

Conclusion
During a period in which women and children’s testimony of incest and sexual abuse were gaining an increasingly sympathetic hearing, lobby groups of people accused of child abuse construed and positioned “ritual abuse” as the new frontier of disbelief. The term “ritual abuse” arose from child protection and psychotherapy practice with adults and children disclosing organised abuse, only to be discursively encircled by backlash groups with the rhetoric of “recovered memories”, “false allegations” and “moral panic”. Seeking to recast the debate on child abuse according to an older politics of disbelief, these groups and activists attempted to characterise sexual abuse testimony, as a whole, through the lens of “ritual abuse”: It must be obvious to rational people that accusations based on memories that include satanic ritual are delusions of some sort. For those of us who are only accused of ‘run of the mill incest,’ this should turn out to be some help. If ‘memories’ of satanic abuse can be induced in therapy then so can memories’ of incest or anything else. (Pamela Freyd, co-founder of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, quoted in Calof 1993)
It does not take much effort to understand why people accused of child sexual abuse may engage in a vigorous defence of their innocence, nor why they might be joined by professional defence experts that make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year defending them. What does bear explaining is the purchase that their rhetoric found in the media, academia and the broader community. It seems that many Australian journalists and academics held deep seated concerns about the credibility of women     and children as reliable witnesses to their own lives. After a period of relatively sympathetic media coverage on sexual violence, organised abuse was used as a frame through which concerns about women and children’s testimony could be made legitimate again. The impact of this rhetorical strategy on the lives of adults and children with a history of organised abuse has yet to be measured, however, the controversy that has been the hallmark of the politics of disbelief has effectively displaced reasoned consideration of the challenges posed by organised and ritual abuse. It seems that reports of organised abuse can be overlooked, ignored, or displaced onto minority groups, but it is too troubling a subject to approach directly without a framework of disbelief. Over the last thirty years, that framework has been in ready supply, stemming both from the long-standing medico-legal tradition of denial, and from the activism of lobby groups of people accused of sexual abuse.
Proceedings of the 2nd Australian & New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference 19 – 20 June 2008 Sydney, Australia  Presented by the Crime & Justice Research Network and the Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology Network Edited by Chris Cunneen & Michael Salter Published by The Crime and Justice Research Network University of New South Wales December, 2008 http://www.cjrn.unsw.edu.au ISBN: 9780646507378 (pdf)

Swiss cyclist gang-raped in India – Gang attacked couple and then gang-raped woman as they camped overnight in a Madhya Pradesh forest     Staff and agencies      guardian.co.uk, Saturday 16 March 2013   A Swiss cyclist was gang-raped after she and her husband were attacked while camping in India, police said. Authorities detained and questioned 13 men in connection with the attack, which occurred on Friday as the couple camped out in a forest in Madhya Pradesh state after cycling from the temple town of Orchha, local police officer RK Gurjar said. The men beat the couple and gang-raped the 39-year old woman, he said. They also stole the couple’s mobile phone, a laptop computer and 10,000 rupees (£123)….  India has experienced outrage and widespread protests against attacks on women since December’s fatal gang-rape of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi, the capital. The crime horrified Indians and set off nationwide protests about India’s treatment of women, spurring the government to hurry through a new package of laws…. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/16/swiss-cyclist-gang-raped-india

Indian legislators pass strict anti-rape law By Rama Lakshmi Tuesday, March 19, 2013
NEW DELHI — The Indian Parliament’s lower house passed a landmark law Tuesday that sets tougher penalties for rapists and for police officers who refuse to file a woman’s complaint of rape, as well as criminalizing offenses such as stalking, voyeurism and acid attacks.
The amendments to existing law incorporate some of the sweeping changes that were demanded after the fatal gang rape of a young paramedical student in New Delhi in December, an incident that sparked a nationwide outcry against the lack of safety for women. Despite the unprecedented protests that galvanized tens of thousands of Indians, the number of incidents of sexual assault has not diminished.

As lawmakers discussed the new law in Parliament on Tuesday, a British tourist fractured her leg when she jumped from the balcony of her hotel room in Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal, to escape being molested by the hotel owner, police said….
A provision requiring government approval for the trial of police officers, officials, politicians and judges on rape charges also has been lifted. For the first time, the law criminalizes stalking and voyeurism, acts of sexual harassment that have long been grouped under the benign euphemism “love-teasing.” Hereafter, rapes that occur during religious and caste riots also will be treated as cases of aggravated sexual assault. The law does not, however, address contentious issues such as marital rape or the legal impunity afforded to Indian military officers. Nor does it include a provision to prohibit politicians charged with rape from running for office….
Some activists working to end the trafficking of minors said the law is a watered-down version of what was initially proposed. “Under the new law, trafficking of a minor is a crime only if rape or sexual exploitation occurs,” said Bhuwan Ribhu, a children’s rights activist….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/british-tourist-jumps-from-indian-hotel-balcony-to-escape-sexual-assault-police-say/2013/03/19/1c25919c-9094-11e2-9173-7f87cda73b49_story.html

15-Year-Old Girl Raped, Police Dismiss the Case Because Victim and Attackers Have “Low IQs”
How police treat rape in America.    News & Politics   AlterNet  By Laura Gottesdiener February 13, 2013   In some of the most disturbing and sickening news of the day, New York state police have decided that a 15-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by three boys was in fact not sexually assaulted because both she and the boys are mentally handicapped.
In May of last year, three boys attacked a 15-year-old mentally challenged student at Martin De Porres Academy, a school for students with special needs in Long Island. According to the police report, one of the boys repeatedly banged her head against the table while the other two forced her to give them oral sex and then tried to have forcible anal sex with her. In interviews with the police, the girl explained how she repeatedly said “no” and “stop” but that the boys continued to assault her. When she came home from school that day, her mother noticed that she had blood on her underwear.
But the Nassau County Police Department recently decided to drop the case after learning that the boys also had learning disabilities and mental handicaps, which apparently made the situation far too complicated for the police department.
The department’s spokesperson told the New York Daily News , “It was more of a consensual situation with their mental capabilities.”
Of course, head-banging, blood and repeated pleas to “stop” are never consensual situations–regardless of the IQ level of the attackers. But, in this case, the police department is even further off target. As the family’s lawyer explained, the girl has an IQ of about 50 points, which puts her below the cognitive functioning level to consent to sex at all….
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/15-year-old-girl-raped-police-dismiss-case-because-victim-and-attackers-have-low

Teenage sex slave raped 90 times in one weekend despite authorities saying she wasn’t at risk
Girl gave evidence to committee despite still being ‘deeply traumatised’
CSJ report claims efforts to tackle slavery in a state of crisis
More than 1,000 adults and children trafficked into or within UK in 2011/12
By James Rush 10 March 2013
A teenage girl was raped 90 times in one weekend it has been revealed, in a shocking report into modern-day slavery in the UK.
The report, due to be published tomorrow by the Centre for Social Justice, contains evidence from the girl, who was 16 at the time she was taken into slavery and raped by 90 men.
The girl, who gave evidence to the committee despite still being ‘deeply traumatised’ by the attacks, did not come from a background which put her at risk, but became enslaved after befriending girls vulnerable to abuse, it has been reported….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2291037/Centre-Social-Justice-Teenage-sex-slave-raped-90-times-weekend-despite-authorities-saying-wasnt-risk.html

Report finds Dutch religious abused ‘tens of thousands’ of girls   Catholic Church offers apology to victims after report published is unlikely to be established more accurately
Peter Cluskey   Mon, Mar 11, 2013
The report, published yesterday, brought an immediate apology from the Catholic Church, which said that not only had the victims been blameless, but they had been entitled to live and study safely in the homes and schools where much of the abuse took place.
In a statement last night, the church said the victims were entitled to apologies from the bishops and superiors of the religious orders who had failed to protect them. It also said there should be a period of “recognition and healing” in tandem with financial compensation.
The 1,100-page first report of the Deetman commission – chaired by former Dutch education minister Wim Deetman – shocked the Netherlands last year when it revealed that 800 Catholic priests and monks abused as many as 20,000 children in their care between 1945 and 1985.
It said the abuse took place in boarding schools, children’s homes and orphanages, but was not openly acknowledged by the church authorities because of their “culture of silence” and determination “not to hang out their dirty washing”.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/report-finds-dutch-religious-abused-tens-of-thousands-of-girls-1.1322599

Ritual Abuse and Mind Control

March 8, 2013  Letter: Father speaks out against documentary
The Salem News  To the editor:
CinemaSalem will host the documentary “West of Memphis” today as part of the Salem Film Fest. The executive producer of this very deceptive film is Damien Echols, one of the so-called “West Memphis Three” and the man convicted of murdering my son and his two best friends in 1993. A jury sentenced Echols to death for his crime in 1994. However, a new prosecutor inherited the case in 2011. He was overwhelmed by the WM3 all-star defense team and celebrity supporters and allowed Echols and co-convicts Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley to enter guilty pleas yet walk free with time served. This amounted to only 18 years for the savage triple homicide of three innocent 8-year-old boys.
The Salem Film Fest and CinemaSalem should be ashamed of themselves for supporting a convicted child murderer. In the eyes of the law, he is a child killer. It is shameful for anyone to support this monster. I urge the residents of Salem to boycott this film….
Todd Moore   http://www.salemnews.com/opinion/x1503764565/Father-speaks-out-against-documentary

The Real West Memphis Three
Chris Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch….
On May 5th, 1993 three eight year old boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas.  Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were arrested, tried and convicted of killing Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, and Chris Byers. There are many important facts left out of the documentaries, books, and most media coverage about the West Memphis Three (WM3) case.
Here are just a few:
FACT – JESSIE MISSKELLEY CONFESSED NUMEROUS TIMES:
The Paradise Lost and West of Memphis documentaries completely leave out the fact Jessie Misskelley confessed to the murders numerous times both before and after he was convicted…..
http://www.westmemphisthreefacts.com

March 8, 2013
Letter: Documentary screening criticized
The Salem News To the editor: CinemaSalem screens the film “West of Memphis” tonight as a part of its annual documentary film series. Mr. Todd Moore, the father of Michael Moore, one of three 8-year-olds that Salem resident Damien Echols has pleaded guilty to murdering, posted a comment on the festival’s blog site protesting their presentation of the film.
http://www.salemnews.com/opinion/x1503764577/Letter-Documentary-screening-criticized

describes crimes
Anger rises in Gabon after rash of ritual killings
By Jean Rovys Dabany Reuters 3/26/13
LIBREVILLE (Reuters) – A rising number of mutilated bodies washing up on Gabon’s beaches this year has sown fear in the normally sleepy capital Libreville of a resurgence in ritual killings.
The body parts of humans and animals are prized by some in central Africa for their supposed supernatural powers, including among some politicians bent on gaining influence.
“We have seen 20 killings since the start of the year,” said Jean-Elvis Ebang Ondo, the president of Gabon’s Association for the Prevention of Ritual Crimes, in Libreville….
“The phenomenon of ritual crimes is real. But no one here is willing to turn anyone else in for fear they too will be in danger,” said a member of parliament, who asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals.

In the most high-profile ritual murder court case in Gabon to date, a convicted killer accused a Gabonese senator of ordering the 2009 murder of a 12-year-old girl for her organs.
The senator’s immunity was lifted after the accusation was made late last year, but he has not been indicted. The senator has denied any involvement….
http://news.yahoo.com/anger-rises-gabon-rash-ritual-killings-161117150.html

Criminal sentence – Colin David Batley – court  Swansea Crown Court
Colin David Batley…. Total Sentence     :     11 Years… Distinguishing Features/Facts     : He was the leader of a cult which operated as a paedophile ring sexually abusing children, both male and female, as young as 10-years-old over a period of at least 10-years. Children were told if they behaved and did what they were told that they would be rewarded in the afterlife by going to ‘The Palace’ where they would be looked after by the gods, otherwise they would fall into the abyss. They were also threatened with assassination by the cult. Two female victims became pregnant as a result of the rapes and were told children conceived within the cult belonged to the cult. One of the victims went to the police fearing her child would also become a victim of the cult.
He faced 36 charges and was sentenced on 35 offences. He was found not guilty of one count of rape which he faced with a co-defendant and he pleaded guilty to an indecent assault….
http://www.thelawpages.com/court-cases/Colin-David-Batley-6480-1.law

describes graphic crimes
Blood-drinking devil worshippers face life for ritual Satanic killing
Murder trial reveals sinister link to British vampire groups     John Hooper in Berlin     The Guardian, Thursday 31 January 2002 A young married couple who admitted to a ritual Satanic killing were yesterday told they could spend the rest of their lives in a secure psychiatric unit after a trial which has raised the spectre of bizarre underground occult groups in Britain.
Manuela Ruda, aged 23, who told a German court she had become a vampire in London, and her husband, Daniel, aged 26, were given prison sentences of 13 and 15 years respectively after admitting to the hacking to death of a friend in their flat in Witten, in the Ruhr valley.
….The couple stabbed Hackert 66 times, carving an occult pentagram on his chest and collecting his blood in a bowl and then drinking it.
When police broke into the flat they found a scalpel still embedded in his stomach with his body lying beneath a banner saying “When Satan Lives”.

They also found imitation human skulls and a coffin in which Manuela slept during the day….
Neither of the two self-styled devil worshippers showed the slightest emotion as the sentences were read out to a courtroom dotted with supporters and admirers of the bizarre couple, many dressed in black and holding roses.
….When she was on the stand, Manuela’s lawyer asked her if she had actually signed over her soul to the devil. “That was two-and-a-half years ago, on the night before Halloween,” she replied, adding in quasi-Biblical language: “That was when I placed myself in, and swore myself, to, the service of our Lord, his will to perform.”
Her Lord, though, was Satan, and he had come to play a big role too in the life of Daniel, the car parts salesman she met through an advert he placed in a heavy metal magazine in August 2000. “Pitch-black vampire seeks princess of darkness who hates everything and everyone,” he wrote.
She and her husband were arrested after being spotted at a petrol station after a nationwide manhunt. Police found a list in their flat of their intended future victims. There were 16 names on it.
Manuela, in verbal testimony, and Daniel, in a statement read to the court, both denied murder on the grounds that they were acting on a command from a higher authority. “I got the order to sacrifice a human for Satan,” Daniel insisted.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/feb/01/uk.johnhooper

describes graphic crimes
Argentinean courts confirm boy was killed in satanic ritual Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jan 28, 2008 (CNA) In Argentina the trial of Cesar Beguiristain has begun, the 20 year-old leader of an Afro-Brazilian, satanic cult accused of carrying out the ritual killing of a 12 year-old street boy.
Last week Beguiristain confessed to killing “Ramoncito,” a street boy who the cult leader said “had agreed to sell his soul to the devil.”
….According to prosecutor Gustavo Schmitt, Beguiristain “broke down and confessed to decapitating the boy, but he claimed that it was not his idea and that he was hired to do the killing during a satanic game.”

Schmitt said seven people have been detained in the case, but that authorities are still seeking other individuals “who organized and financed the murder.”
….According to the investigation, the boy was raped, decapitated and dismembered in an Afro-Brazilian ritual.
The witness to the crime said the method of killing caused the boy immense pain and was a source of excitement for his killers….
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/argentinean_courts_confirm_boy_was_killed_in_satanic_ritual/

describes crimes
National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse
National District Attorneys Association
NDAA TORTURE COMPILATION (May, 2010)
IDAHO IDAHO CODE ANN §18 1506A. RITUALIZED ABUSE OF A CHILD
DEFINITION
(1) A person is guilty of a felony when he commits any of the following acts with, upon, or in the presence of a child as part of a ceremony, rite or any similar observance:
(a) Actually or in simulation, tortures, mutilates or sacrifices any warm blooded animal or huma n being;
(b) Forces ingestion, injection or other application of any narcotic, drug, hallucinogen or
anaesthetic for the purpose of dulling sensitivity, cognition, recollection of, or resistance to any criminal activity;
(c) Forces ingestion, or external application, of human or animal urine, feces, flesh, blood, bones, body secretions, nonprescribed drugs or chemical compounds; (d) Involves the child in a mock, unauthorized or unlawful marriage ceremony with another person or representation of any force or deity, followed by sexual contact with the child;
(e) Places a living child into a coffin or open grave containing a human corpse or remains;
(f) Threatens death or serious harm to a child, his parents, family, pets or friends which instills a well founded fear in the child that the threat will be carried out; or
(g) Unlawfully dissects, mutilates, or incinerates a human corpse.

ILLINOIS 720 IL CS 5/12 33. RITUALIZED ABUSE OF A CHILD Sec. 12
33. Ritualized abuse of a child. (a) A person is guilty of ritualized abuse of a child when
he or she commits any of the following acts with, upon, or in the presence of a child as part of a ceremony, rite or any similar observance: (1) actually or in simulation, tortures, mutilates, or sacrifices any warm blooded animal or human being;
(2) forces ingestion, injection or other application of any narcotic, drug, hallucinogen or
anaesthetic for the purpose of dulling sensitivity, cognition, recollection of, or resistance to any criminal activity;
(3) forces ingestion, or external application, of human or animal urine, feces, flesh, blood, bones, body secretions, nonprescribed drugs or chemical compounds;
(4) involves the child in a mock, unauthorized or unlawful marriage ceremony with another
person or representation of any force or deity, followed by sexual contact with the child;
(5) places a living child into a coffin or open grave containing a human corpse or remains;
(6) threatens death or serious harm to a child, his or her parents, family, pets, or friends that instills a well founded fear in the child that the threat will be carried out; or
(7) unlawfully dissects, mutilates, or incinerates a human corpse.

LA REV STAT ANN §14:107.1. RITUALISTIC ACTS
A. (1) The legislature hereby finds that this enactment is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, morals, safety, and welfare and for the support of state government and its existing public institutions.
(2) The legislature further recognizes that:
(a) The preamble to the Constitution of Louisiana affirmatively states “We, the people of
Louisiana, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political, economic, and religious liberties we enjoy, and desiring to protect individual rights to life, liberty, and property; afford opportunity for the fullest development of the individual; assure equality of rights; promote the health, safety, education, and welfare of the people; maintain a representative and orderly government; ensure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; and secure the blessings of freedom and
justice to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.”
(b) The state, under its police power, may enact laws in order to promote public peace, health,
morals, and safety.
B. (1) For purposes of this Subsection, “ritualistic acts” means those acts undertaken as part of a ceremony, rite, initiation, observance, performance, or practice that result in or are intended to result in:
(a) The mutilation, dismemberment, torture, abuse, or sacrifice of animals.
(b) The ingestion of human or animal blood or human or animal waste.
(2) The acts defined in this Subsection are hereby determined to be destructive of the peace,
health, morals, and safety of the citizens of this state and are hereby prohibited.
(3) Any person committing, attempting to commit, or conspiring with another to commit a
ritualistic act may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than five years or fined not more
than five thousand dollars, or both.
C. (1) No person shall commit ritualistic mutilation, dismemberment, or torture of a human as
part of a ceremony, rite, initiation, observance, performance, or practice.
(2) No person shall commit ritualistic sexual abuse of children or of physically or mentally
disabled adults as part of a ceremony, rite, initiation, observance, performance, or practice.
(3) No person shall commit ritualistic psychological abuse of children or of physically or
mentally disabled adults as part of a ceremony, rite, initiation, observance, performance, or
practice.
(4) Any person who commits, attempts to commit, or conspires with another to comm
it a violation of this Subsection shall be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than five nor more than twenty five years and may be fined not more than twenty five thousand dollars.
D. Each violation that occurs under the provisions of this Section shall be considered a separate violation.
E. The provisions of this Section shall not be construed to apply to generally accepted agricultural or horticultural practices and specifically the branding or identification of livestock.
F. The provisions of this Section shall not be construed to apply to any state or federally
approved, licensed, or funded research project.

MONTANA MONT CODE ANN §45 5 627 RITUAL ABUSE OF MINOR
(1) A person commits the offense of ritual abuse of a minor if the person purposely or knowingly
and as part of any ceremony, rite, or ritual or of any training or practice for any ceremony, rite, or ritual:
(a) has sexual intercourse without consent with a per
son less than 16 years of age; commits assault, aggravated assault, assault on a minor, or assault with a weapon against a victim less than 16 years of age; or kills a person less than 16 years of age;
(b) actually or by simulation tortures, mutilates, or sacrifices an animal or person in the presence of the minor;
(c) dissects, mutilates, or incinerates a human corpse or remains in the presence of the minor;
(d) forces upon the minor or upon another person in the presence of a minor the ingestion or
the external bodily application of human or animal urine, feces, flesh, blood, bone, or bodily
secretions or drugs or chemical compounds;
(e) places a living minor or another living person in the presence of a minor in a coffin or open grave that is empty or that contains a human corpse or remains; or
(f) threatens the minor or, in the presence of the minor, threatens any person or animal with death or serious bodily harm and the minor reasonably believes that the threat will or may be carried out. http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/Toture_Statutory_Compilation%5B1%5D.pdf

describes crimes
Delhi High Court commutes death penalty of man who killed father Press Trust of India  February 24, 2013  New Delhi: The death sentence of a man, who had killed his father as sacrifice to a deity in 2008, has been reduced to life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court….
According to prosecution, Jitender believed that if he offered a human sacrifice for the deity, his problem with his wife would be resolved. The convict, however, had argued before the trial court that once in his dream, deity asked Jitender for a human sacrifice to ward off his problems with his wife…. http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/delhi-high-court-commutes-death-penalty-of-man-who-killed-father-334832

Torso of African boy detectives believe was killed in a ritual sacrifice before being tossed into the Thames is ‘identified’ by key witness  Torso named Adam by detectives has been ‘revealed’ as Nigerian-born Patrick Erhabor
John Hall Thursday 07 February 2013
A torso found in the Thames, which detectives believe belongs to an African boy murdered in a ritual sacrifice, has reportedly been identified by a key witness.
Speaking to BBC News, Joyce Osagiede said the child was Nigerian-born Patrick Erhabor – a child she claims to have looked after in Germany before he was trafficked to the UK.
Ms Osagiede went on to say she had handed the boy over to a bogus asylum seeker and convicted people smuggler called Kingsley Ojo, who was deported back to Nigeria despite having offered to help with the inquiry.
The BBC said there is no evidence to suggest Ojo was involved in the murder or knew what would happen to the boy, however, and Ojo has always denied having anything to do with the killing.
The torso, which was found close to London’s Tower Bridge in September 2001, was named Adam by detectives. Forensic tests revealed he had come from Benin City in Nigeria….
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/torso-of-african-boy-detectives-believe-was-killed-in-a-ritual-sacrifice-before-being-tossed-into-the-thames-is-identified-by-key-witness-8485955.html

describes crimes
Missing dogs, ritualistic killing confound Idaho officials  Reuters March 21, 2013 By Laura Zuckerman SALMON, Idaho, March 21 (Reuters) – The mysterious disappearance of about 30 dogs in southern Idaho has baffled animal control officials and raised concerns among dog lovers after a German shepherd was found with its head crushed in a suspected ritual killing. The missing canines range widely in size, breed and age. “The dogs seem to vanish into thin air,” said Debbie Blackwood, director of the animal shelter in Twin Falls, Idaho. Officials say some 30 dogs have gone missing in recent months in Twin Falls and nearby communities in an agricultural region in south-central Idaho known as the Magic Valley….The dog, found in an area known as the Devil’s Corral in neighboring Jerome County, appeared to have suffered a “ritualistic execution”….
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-usa-dogsidahol1n0cd0be-20130320,0,3597508.story

Women’s History Month Spotlight: Judy Byington – Author of “Twenty-Two Faces
http://dangerouslee.biz/2013/03/25/womens-history-month-spotlight-judy-byington/

Justice Story: Killer priest murders nun in chapel sacristy, leaves demonic stab pattern over her heart http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/justice-story-killer-priest-murders-nun-chapel-sacristy-leaves-demonic-stab-pattern-heart-article-1.1162927

describes graphic crimes
Satanist killer gets life in prison  The Associated Press  Friday, September 21, 2007 MIAMI – An admitted Satanist convicted of brutally killing a romantic rival and then butchering him was  sentenced to life in prison Friday.
Lazaro Galindo, who represented himself, told the court he was God and that he would unite the Catholic and Satanic religions. He also maintained his innocence, saying he felt “the actual killer is still loose on the street.” A jury deliberated for just over two hours last month before convicting Galindo of second-degree murder. In a nearly 40-page confession, the 26-year-old detailed how he stabbed and beat Argelio Gonzalez and then spent two days inside his trailer home dismembering the man. Police found an altar and a cauldron filled with knives and metal weapons…..  http://jacksonville.com/apnews/stories/092107/D8RQ5B3G0.shtml

Iowa Man Convicted of Killing Two Stepdaughters During Satanic Ritual January 29, 2009
An Iowa man has been found guilty of killing his two stepdaughters during a ritual from a satanic bible. Lawrence Harris Sr., of Sioux City, was convicted Thursday on two counts of first-degree murder in Woodbury County District Court…. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,485444,00.html

describes graphic crimes
2 Killings At School Linked To Satanic Cult Teens Allegedly Plotted A Siege October 15, 1997 By New York Times News Service Luke Woodham BRANDON, Miss. — Providing the first chilling details about the purported plot behind a massacre at a nearby high school, a sheriff’s investigator testified Tuesday that an 18-year-old student served as the leader of a satanic cult of teenagers and masterminded a plan to kill enemies in a takeover of the school.
The investigator, Greg Eklund, said at least one witness had characterized Grant Boyette as “a self-proclaimed satanist” with an obsessive fascination of Adolf Hitler.
In several hours on the witness stand, Eklund described a bizarre plan for the members of his Kroth cult to lay siege to the school, setting off napalm fires and cutting telephone lines before killing selected people and then fleeing the town of Pearl for Louisiana, Mexico and, finally, Cuba.
On Oct. 1, a member of the group, 16-year-old sophomore Luke Woodham, arrived at Pearl High School in suburban Jackson, Miss., with a hunting rifle hidden under a blue coat.
Police charged that Woodham walked into the school’s commons area and began firing the weapon repeatedly, killing two girls and injuring seven other students before being subdued by an assistant principal…. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1997-10-15/news/9710150477_1_luke-woodham-pearl-high-school-satanic-cult

Teen-Ager Says Satanism Led to Killings June 12, 1998 Luke T. Woodham testified today that he opened fire on his Pearl High School classmates after becoming involved in satanism, which he said bestowed ”power over many things.”
Against his lawyers’ advice, the 17-year-old Mr. Woodham took the stand after a defense psychologist told jurors he was legally insane under Mississippi law when two students, including a girl he had dated, were shot to death. Seven others were wounded in the Oct. 1, 1997, attack. In rambling testimony, Mr. Woodham said he had seen demons and even sent them to plague others…. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/12/us/teen-ager-says-satanism-led-to-killings.html

Wiccan killer pleads no contest kobtv4 Aug 26, 2011 a self proclaimed witch, accused of stabbing a man to death on an albuquerque hiking trail, took a plea deal in court…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vuISkSRpLY

Smashed: The sex-slave cult where women were ‘forced to sleep with men claiming to be reincarnation of Christ’ on Mexico-US border
Cult was called the ‘Defensores de Cristo’ or ‘Defenders of Christ’
It allegedly recruited women to have sex with a Spanish man
Authorities raided house across the border from Laredo, Texas
By Leon Watson  30 January 2013
Mexican officials broke up a bizarre cult that allegedly ran a sex-slavery ring among its followers on the U.S. border, Mexican immigration authorities revealed today.
The ‘Defensores de Cristo’ or ‘Defenders of Christ’ allegedly recruited women to have sex with a Spanish man who claimed he was the reincarnation of Christ, according to an official of a victims’ advocacy group.
Followers were subjected to forced labor or sexual services, including prostitution, according to the National Immigration Institute that said it filed a complaint more than a year ago about the cult.
Federal police, agents of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute and prosecutors raided a house earlier this week near Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, and found cult members, including children, living in filthy conditions, according to the institute official….
But according to the cult’s website, the leader was Spaniard Ignacio Gonzalez de Arriba. He set up shop in Mexico about three years ago, after a stint in Brazil and other parts of South America, said Myrna Garcia, an activist with the Support Network for Cult Victims who has worked with victims of the Defenders of Christ cult.
He became involved in offering courses on ‘bio-programming,’ an esoteric practice that claims to allow practicants to ‘reprogram’ their brains to eliminate pain, suffering and anxiety, according to institute….
The Interior Department said the Defenders of Christ had not registered as a religious group, as required under Mexican law. Garcia said cells of the cult might still be active in Peru and Argentina
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270550/Sex-slave-cult-Mexico-US-border-women-forced-sleep-reincarnations-Christ.html

Sect leader’s wife recounts life in sex-driven cult
Blanca Castro, who says she is a victim of the sect ‘Defenders of Christ’, speaks during a conference press in Mexico City, on February 19, 2013.
AFP – A sect named Defenders of Christ that was broken up in Mexico last month forced women to participate in orgies, discouraged baths and made people eat raw animal organs, the wife of a cult leader said Tuesday.
Mexican immigration authorities raided the sex-driven sect’s house in the northern state of Nuevo Laredo on January 25, rounding up 14 foreigners, including its Spanish leader Ignacio Gonzalez de Arriba, and 10 Mexicans.
Gonzalez de Arriba saw himself as the reincarnation of Christ and used the Internet to recruit adherents, offering classes on “bio-programming,” alternative health care, psychic powers and sexuality, according to the Victim Support Network, which helps people who flee sects.
“They broke you down, making you even doubt your own name,” Blanca Castro, who was married to a Venezuelan leader of the Defenders of Christ, told a news conference….
http://www.france24.com/en/20130220-sect-leaders-wife-recounts-life-sex-driven-cult

Konstantin Rudnev: Russian cult leader jailed for sex abuse    A Russian cult leader who described himself as an “extra-terrestrial from Sirius” has been jailed for 11 years for sexually abusing his followers.   By Tom Parfitt, Moscow 08 Feb 2013   Konstantin Rudnev, 45, was convicted in a closed trial in Siberia of rape, drug trafficking, sexual assault and “creating an organisation that infringes on people’s personality and rights”.
It was the end of an extraordinary and bizarre journey for the self-proclaimed prophet, who also went under the moniker Great Shaman Shri Dzhnan Avatar Muni.
The former steelworker founded his strict, hierarchical cult called Ashram Shambala in the city of Novosibirsk in the late 1980s, cheating converts out of their belongings in exchange for a potpourri of esoteric and occultist teachings and the chance to “clean their energy channels” in mystical rituals. The cult grew rapidly, acquiring up to 20,000 followers at ashrams across Russia….  Followers of the cult were persuaded to sell their apartments and cars and hand over the cash, while breaking links with their relatives.
“Psychological pressure was put on the adherents,” said Irina Zebrova, a Federal Security Service (FSB) spokesperson. “They were forced to unquestioningly follow the commands of the leader of the sect. People were punished with lack of food and sleep.”
Rudnev was originally arrested in 1999, but he escaped from a psychiatric hospital after being sent for checks. He was detained again in 2005 but his followers refused to give evidence against him.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/9857871/Konstantin-Rudnev-Russian-cult-leader-jailed-for-sex-abuse.html

Satanic ritual abuse in the UK – Scotland Part 2   This is the second in our series on SRA in the UK, focussing on Scotland and Laurie Matthew. In this episode we read excerpts from Laurie’s book, Where Angels Fear (2002), identifying specific locations in the Dundee area (also near to Aberdeen) where survivors say they have been ritually abused by groups, some with Freemasonic connections. Please view with care: this video contains content that may disturb survivors. http://youtu.be/Uq-Tm3cyUoA

Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Satanic Thrill Kill March 4, 2013
Hayward, WI (NNCNOW.com) — A Wisconsin man will spend the rest of his life in prison for his part in a brutal murder in 2009.
30-year-old Christopher Roalson was shown no mercy for what authorities dubbed a “thrill kill” with satanic overtones.  A jury found Roalson guilty of stabbing 93-year-old Irena Roszak to death over three year ago in Raddison, Wisconsin.  Just minutes to his sentencing on Monday, he still denies taking part in the murder, blaming Austin Davis for the murder. “I’m very sorry about what happened to Ms. Roszak and I know that she didn’t deserve that but that was not the intent that night. Our intent was only to go out and commit a burglary,” said Roalson at his sentencing hearing. Burnett County Judge Kenneth Kutz didn’t buy Roalson’s plead for leniency.
http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/crime/Man-Sentenced-to-Life-in-Prison-for-Satanic-Thrill-Kill-195039801.html

describes violent crimes
Student faces 15 years in prison for ritual murder by Aleksandras Budrys 06/03/2013
An 18-year-old student suspected of committing a ritual murder in the Moscow Region on Walpurgis Night last year faces imprisonment of up to 15 years if proven guilty, regional police said on Wednesday. The investigation revealed that the student with a 21-year-old accomplice, both of whom practiced occultism, had beaten a man to death with nunchucks at a suburban cemetery on the night of May 1, 2012, and later carved a swastika on his forehead with a knife to shift the blame on skinheads, it said in a statement. It also revealed that prior to that crime the two performed a ritual act over the body of another man the accomplice killed in 2010 by chopping off his head and placing it on an anthill. http://themoscownews.com/local/20130306/191304741/Student-faces-15-years-in-prison-for-ritual-murder.html

describes violent crimes
Satanists Accused of Ritual Killing in Cemetery  06 March 2013  Issue 5083 The Moscow Times
Two self-proclaimed Satanists killed a man they found sleeping in a cemetery and carved a swastika into his head to pass the blame onto neo-Nazis, the Investigative Committee said Wednesday in a statement announcing the completion of the investigation into the May 2012 incident.
The two suspects, an 18-year-old student and his 21-year-old convicted-felon friend, are accused of beating the man with homemade nunchuks and then stabbing him 28 times. Police said the attack was performed in recognition of Walpurgis Night, a witching celebration in Northern and Eastern Europe exactly six months from Halloween.
After the suspects were detained, investigators found that the younger one had been involved in the 2010 killing of a robbery accomplice who cooperated with police. In that case, investigators say, the suspect severed the victim’s head and buried the body in an anthill, only to disinter the body to perform an occult ritual with his friend in April 2012….
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/satanists-accused-of-ritual-killing-in-cemetery/476606.html

The Journalist Who Was Arrested for Investigating a Pedophile Orphanage By Camille Standen
The Haut de la Garenne children’s home on the island of Jersey.
Jersey is an island of around 100,000 people nestled into a cozy nook between Guernsey and the coast of Normandy. It’s mostly been recognized in recent public memory for its potatoes and the fact that it’s basically in France but everyone there speaks English. In 2008, however, small human remains were found at Haut de la Garenne, a former orphanage on the island. A subsequent investigation exposed a history of sexual abuse at the orphanage, tainting the good name of the people of Jersey in the world’s media.
The list of suspects in the case included British government officials and—according to the detective who led the three-year child-abuse probe—media personality Jimmy Savile was also investigated by police, four years before the full extent of his crimes would eventually be exposed. The problem is, because Jersey is self-governing and has its own, slightly unorthodox court system, decades of possible crime against children in the orphanage may remain almost entirely hidden, unexamined, and untried. Since the initial media Mardi Gras, international interest has faded and locals who have continued searching for justice—including bloggers, senators, and police—have been shouted down….
VICE: Hi, Leah. So, when did sexual assault start taking place at Haut de la Garenne, approximately?
Leah McGrath Goodman: We’re not sure how far back it goes, and we’re not sure exactly when it stopped—that’s all still being researched. According to people on the island, there were incidents against children at the home before World War II, but they largely stopped during the Nazi occupation there. So the alleged crimes of physical and sexual violence against children there had been going on for decades. It closed in the late 80s, but my understanding is that a pedophile ring continued to meet there to commit acts of abuse against minors…..

Yeah, it seems a little shady.
What we do know from the law-enforcement officials who conducted interviews in Jersey is that nearly 200 people came forward and that nearly all of them had credible testimonies relating to abuse. We also know there were 151 suspects, 30 of them now dead, 121 still alive, which doesn’t sound that historic to me.
Were any of the suspects convicted?
Seven were brought to justice in Jersey, and four were convicted of physical and/or sexual crimes against children at Haut de la Garenne. During a trial I attended, I saw a victim beg Jersey’s government to bring charges against one of the “priority suspects”, who, as I understand it, still works in a government position in Jersey that exposes him to children every day. Yet nothing has been done.
What are some of the methods the Jersey government are using to cover up the situation?
I’ve seen what I would call a “standard playbook” that comes out whenever they detect a threat: The island’s press and judiciary push to marginalize whoever speaks out—be it police, victims, or the health minister who was in charge at the time—by attacking their credibility and soundness of mind; more or less calling them liars.
What did the health minister do?
Jersey’s then health minister, Stuart Syvret, pushed for a full investigation into Haut de la Garenne in 2008, also known as Operation Rectangle. Before speaking out, he was one of the most popular senators on the island. After speaking out, he found himself under fire, eventually losing his job and being sent to prison—twice—on grounds that I’d consider flimsy. All the while, he was smeared by the island’s only newspaper, the Jersey Evening Post, which is subsidized by the local government and doesn’t hesitate to act as its mouthpiece. Blogs have sprung up accusing the paper of the same thing.
I see.
To this day, if the former health minister speaks out, the paper strikes up, saying stuff like, “Here he goes again with his conspiracy theories and his children being murdered and raped.” That shows the island’s populace that anyone who stands up for victims’ rights will risk the same kind of treatment….
Why do you think they’re so committed to covering all of this up?
If you look at the number of suspects—151—and the number of victims—just shy of 200—identified in the Jersey investigation, you’ll notice two things. First, most of the people involved are still alive. Second, there are a lot of suspects per victim. Some of the “priority suspects” remain in high-level positions in Jersey’s leadership. Some of them have been identified by name by the victims as some of the worst of the abusers. Some of them are in positions in Jersey’s education and health departments, where they have access to vulnerable people and children every day….
http://m.vice.com/read/the-journalist-who-was-banned-from-investigating-jerseys-child-abuse

describes crimes
South African girl murdered in ‘satanic killing’; 10 classmates suspended Talia Ralph and Erin Conway-Smith March 6, 2013  South African teen Keamogetswe Sefularo was stabbed to death by a fellow classmate.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — A South African teenager was murdered Monday outside Lukhanyo Secondary School near Randfontein by a fellow student, prompting allegations that it was a “satanic killing.”
Seventeen-year-old Kamogetswe Sefularo was stabbed to death in her chest, throat and abdomen by a 15-year-old girl who allegedly drank her blood afterwards, South Africa’s Eye Witness News reported.
A friend of Sefularo’s told her family that “the leader and the girl who did the stabbing sucked Keamo’s blood from [a wound] on her neck,” the victim’s brother Zali Nxabi told News24.
“Her friend even told us that she knew nothing about their cult and that their leader had always been after Keamo’s blood,” he added.
The suspect appeared briefly in court Tuesday, and will remain in custody until her next court appearance on Tuesday next week, according to the Times Live….
GlobalPost senior correspondent in South Africa, Erin Conway-Smith, says that there have been several murders of young people where “satanism” was said to be involved, in the last few years in South Africa.
For example, there is a trial continuing in the murder of 18-year-old Kirsty Theologo who was doused with gas and set on fire in what was described as a satanic ritual.
Another example is the killing of a 6-year-old girl last month in KwaZulu-Natal province; charged in her murder is Wiseman Tholelani Shandu who is said to be part of a satanist group.
A leaked South African police memo from last year said that two detectives per province would receive special training to investigate “harmful occult-related crimes,” according to Conway-Smith.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/south-africa/130306/south-african-girl-murdered-satanic-killing

describes crimes
Girl’s attackers ‘drank her blood’  2013-03-06
Johannesburg – The family of a murdered West Rand schoolgirl have told of their horror at hearing that her murderers had drunk blood from her body after stabbing her. Keamogetswe Sefularo was stabbed in the neck, chest and stomach but lived long enough to tell her mother who her attackers were, The Times reported on Wednesday.
The murdered teen’s brother, Zali Nxabi, 28, said the family were holding a prayer meeting at their home when a friend of his murdered sister ran into the house and told them that “their leader” had instructed them to kill her. The family recorded the conversation.
“She [the friend] said the leader and the girl who did the stabbing sucked Keamo’s blood from [a wound] on her neck,” said Nxabi. He said he had heard rumours of satanic activity in the area but never thought it would affect his family. “Her friend even told us that she knew nothing about their cult and that their leader had always been after Keamo’s blood.”….
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Girls-attackers-drank-her-blood-20130306

describes crimes
‘They killed my sister and drank her blood’ POPPY LOUW  06 March, 2013 Keamogetswe Sefularo’s relatives listened in horror as one of her friends described how her killers drank the blood from her limp body after stabbing her three times. The 14-year-old’s brother, Zali Nxabi, 28, said his sister’s friend had stormed into their home in Mohlakeng, on the West Rand, on Saturday while the family was holding a prayer meeting.
“We recorded everything she told us and about how they were instructed by their ‘leader’ to kill Keamo. “She [the friend] said the leader and the girl who did the stabbing sucked Keamo’s blood from [a wound] on her neck.” Nxabi said he had heard rumours of satanic activity in the area but never thought it would affect his family….
http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2013/03/06/they-killed-my-sister-and-drank-her-blood

Journal and Trauma Information

Interview with Brian Moss: Qualities and Information Useful for a Therapist and a Client Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) Modified from version originally posted in the Survivorship Journal Vol. 18, Issue 2 December, 2012 at survivorship.org
….UNDERSTANDING OF THE TRUE ETIOLOGY OF DID
Complex DID systems are not simply a response to trauma and stress—even horrific trauma such as ritual abuse, though it does have a role to play. Nor is it caused iatrogenically by well-meaning therapists attempting to treat trauma survivors as Wikipedia would have us believe. DID is mind control, intentionally practiced and requiring a great deal of effort and conditioning over a period of many years. To develop an elaborate DID system is to endure an ongoing medical procedure throughout childhood, one that requires clinical settings with access to extensive equipment and pharmaceuticals.
….Mind control evolved from two main foundations:
1)  The Soviet discovery of conditioned reflexes (Pavlov 1903) and continued research within the field of behavioral psychology.
2)  Advances in understanding the creation of parallel dissociative states with independent memory systems and control mechanisms utilizing research in hypnosis and trauma-based splitting of conscious processes.

Interview with Brian Moss: Qualities and Information Useful for a Therapist and a Client Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking By ERIC LICHTBLAU March 1, 2013 THIRTEEN years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe.
What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust.
The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, during Hitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945.
The figure is so staggering that even fellow Holocaust scholars had to make sure they had heard it correctly when the lead researchers previewed their findings at an academic forum in late January at the German Historical Institute in Washington.
“The numbers are so much higher than what we originally thought,” Hartmut Berghoff, director of the institute, said in an interview after learning of the new data.
“We knew before how horrible life in the camps and ghettos was,” he said, “but the numbers are unbelievable.”

The documented camps include not only “killing centers” but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel.
Auschwitz and a handful of other concentration camps have come to symbolize the Nazi killing machine in the public consciousness. Likewise, the Nazi system for imprisoning Jewish families in hometown ghettos has become associated with a single site — the Warsaw Ghetto, famous for the 1943 uprising. But these sites, infamous though they are, represent only a minuscule fraction of the entire German network, the new research makes painfully clear….
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/sunday-review/the-holocaust-just-got-more-shocking.html

Holocaust Researchers Catalog 42,500 Nazi Ghettos, Camps; Numbers Are ‘Unbelievable‘ 03/02/2013
Researchers from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have concluded that over 40,000 Nazi camps and ghettos existed during Hitler’s reign of terror between 1933 to 1945.
The total is far higher than most historians had previously estimated, according to The New York Times. ….The Holocaust Museum team also created maps of the sites, which were scattered across Europe, and which imprisoned or killed between 15 and 20 million people.
Essentially, this study shows the Holocaust was far more extensive than even historians comprehended. ….Over the years, many scholars have worked to uncover the lost or unknown victims of the Holocaust, and some have insisted the death toll is higher than what the textbooks say. The number of Jews killed is often listed at around six million.
Father Patrick Desbois told the London Times in 2009 that after years of investigating mass graves in Ukraine, he feels the death toll should be revised upward….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/02/holocaust-researchers-catalogue-nazi-ghettos_n_2797031.html
Professional skepticism of multiple personality disorder. By Cormier, Jane F.; Thelen, Mark H.
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol 29(2), Apr 1998, 163-167. Abstract
If you saw a patient who appeared to have more than one personality, what diagnosis would you make? And how would you vary your clinical approach? Data from 425 respondents indicated that the majority of psychologists believed multiple personality disorder (MPD) to be a valid but rare clinical diagnosis. Respondents cited extreme child abuse as the foremost cause of MPD. Approximately one-half of all respondents believed that they had encountered a client with MPD, whereas less than one-third believed that they had encountered a client who feigned MPD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&uid=1998-00832-013

Mental health professionals’ skepticism about multiple personality disorder. By Hayes, Jeffrey A.; Mitchell, Jeffrey C. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol 25(4), Nov 1994, 410-415.
Abstract    Three studies were conducted to investigate the nature of mental health professionals’ skepticism regarding multiple personality disorder (MPD). An initial pilot study was conducted to develop a psychometrically sound survey instrument. In Study 2, the results of a national survey of 207 mental health professionals supported the hypothesis that skepticism and knowledge about MPD are inversely related, r=–.33, p<.01, although the strength of this relationship varied among professions. Moderate to extreme skepticism was expressed by 24% of the sample. Results from Study 3 supported the hypotheses that MPD is diagnosed with less accuracy than is schizophrenia and that misdiagnosis of MPD is predicted by skepticism about MPD. Findings are related to literature pertaining to mental health professionals’ skepticism about MPD and consequential effects on treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&uid=1995-11275-001

Letter to the Editor   |   July 01, 2000  Psychiatrists’ Attitudes Toward Dissociative Disorders Diagnoses A. STEVEN FRANKEL , PH.D., J.D.; SHERRY A. SPAN , M.A. Am J Psychiatry 2000;157:1179-1179. 10.1176/appi.ajp.157.7.1179 In our opinion, the article by Harrison G. Pope, Jr., M.D., et al. (1) failed to comport with the level of scholarship usually required for publication in scientific journals. The authors failed to mention two methodologically sound studies (2, 3) showing that favorable attitudes toward dissociative identity disorder are positively correlated with knowledge about the disorder (from reading texts, attending conferences about dissociative identity disorder, etc.). Furthermore, that they did not assess attitudes toward other DSM-IV disorders may have itself introduced bias. This omission also failed to provide a baseline of skepticism from which attitudes toward all disorders might be assessed.
In addition, the authors’ methodological and statistical procedures were flawed. Random sampling cannot be achieved by a “prescribed formula.” The variables assessed did not appear driven by theory. Thus, while their logistic regression appeared sophisticated, the variables it analyzed were not. The most striking problem concerned their interpretation of the data. They reported that “[the disorders] should be included [in DSM-IV] only with reservations” as the modal response. Nevertheless, a sign test shows no significant differences between this group and the group that opted for inclusion without reservations. Thus, the more reasonable interpretation is that the overwhelming majority of responders indicated acceptance—with or without reservations….
http://journals.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=174234

describes crimes
Abia House tasks security agencies on kidnapping, child trafficking February 26, 2013  BY ANAYO OKOLI   UMUAHIA —  ABIA State House of Assembly has called on security agencies and other relevant authorities to strictly enforce the law against kidnapping, child trafficking, among others to check the rising cases of child trafficking in some parts of the state. There are reports of increasing cases of kidnapping of children and child trafficking among related crimes in the state especially in Abia South. Reports of missing children and in some cases, some of them are found dead with vital body parts removed. Last week, while giving five additional new Hillux Pick-up vans to the Commander of 14 Brigade, Ohafia, Brigadier General Abubakar, Governor Theodore Orji tasked him to tackle head-on the rising problem of child trafficking. The governor lamented that some of the children have had the misfortune of being killed for  ritual purposes among others….
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/02/abia-house-tasks-security-agencies-on-kidnapping-child-trafficking/

Police warn on kidnap of new born babies, children in Abia    Friday, 08 February 2013 The Police Command in Abia State has alerted the public on the resurgence of kidnapping of new born babies and children by unknown gunmen in the state.  The command’s acting spokesman, Mr Jonathan Amaechi, gave the warning in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Umuahia on Wednesday. Amaechi said that the police was currently investigating cases of abduction of children in different parts of the state.  “Recent intelligence reports showed the presence of hoodlums that specialise in stealing new born babies and children.  “Such victims are either on errand in markets, going to or returning from school or church,” he said. Amaechi said that the criminals operated in buses, tricycles, motorcycles, posh cars and fanciful jeeps…. http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/component/k2/item/4831-police-warn-on-kidnap-of-new-born-babies-children-in-abia

Discovery of father’s Scout abuse file triggers memories, what ifs for brother and sister
February 17, 2013 Associated Press
On opposite sides of the world, the brother and sister sat transfixed before their computers, reading a stranger’s account of long-ago secrets and deeply buried sins.
The memo was just four pages long, about an incident in 1963 at a Boy Scout camp in New Jersey. A Scout executive had gotten drunk during an overnight outing, then was discovered gambling with a group of boys. But there was more.
The brother and sister read on — about how this man “was observed molesting an Explorer Scout sitting at his side.” About how he was admitted, voluntarily, to a mental hospital. They read about an investigation that determined he had tried to molest another Scout. It found that this man’s “problem,” as the document called it, had apparently existed for decades.
They read, too, about a call from this local Boy Scouts council for “suppression of spread of incident beyond group with knowledge of it.” ”We know enough to advise that Brandon P. Gray should never again be registered in any capacity with the Boy Scouts of America,” the memo stated….
According to his file, Gray started drinking on Feb. 2, 1963, at the Scouts’ Mt. Allamuchy camp in Stanhope, N.J., during the annual Klondike Derby, an event in which Scouts pull sleds. That evening, he was discovered playing cards for cash in a cabin with several Explorer Scouts, in violation of camp policy.
Gray, the file said, “was observed molesting” one of those Scouts, whose age wasn’t mentioned. An adult in the room moved the boy away from Gray, but took no further action “in an effort to avoid a ‘scene,'” the record stated. Gray continued to drink, grew agitated and attempted to hit someone. Adult Scouts then subdued him and eventually he fell asleep.
By the next morning, Gray’s wife, Ruth, had been contacted and Gray admitted himself to a mental hospital. The Scouts then met with the Explorer, who confirmed “the violation.” Upon his release from the hospital, Gray was terminated. No records identified by The Associated Press show any charges or convictions for Gray in connection with the incident or any other charges for sex abuse….
After his dismissal on Feb. 7, 1963, Gray went home to his family. Carol was 12 years old. Jim was only 7. Old memories can flicker and fade. But for Carol and Jim, some memories simply aren’t there, an abyss they say protects them from remembering some of the worst of their abuse. Carol believes hers began when she was 5 years old. Years of psychiatric help and attempts to recover memories haven’t yielded much more. But a fact from her past lingers: “I believe that mine stopped when Dad started abusing my brother.” Brandon Gray’s removal from Scouting was, his son said, the beginning of a decade of sexual abuse. It began soon after that February day in 1963 and continued until Jim graduated high school and joined the U.S. Marines Corps.
Unlike Carol, Jim has little trouble remembering. His father would stalk up the stairs and push his way into Jim’s room. Once, when Jim was about 11 years old, his mother walked in to find him and his father engaged in a sexual act. She turned and walked out. A day later, she moved Jim’s entire bedroom upstairs, the posters in the same place they had been in his old room, the bed in the same spot. It was, he said, his mother’s attempt at physically shunting off the problem she could no longer deny….
“The worst thing about the sexual abuse, mental health problems, alcoholism and all that … are the losses,” said Jim, 58. “The loss of being able to maintain healthy relationships, intimacy, having children. These things that most people take for granted, I won’t have those.
“By the time I recovered, it was too late to do those things.”….
Jim contacted The Associated Press after the files were released in mid-October. He did so because he said he wants to show that victims of sex abuse can, with a lot of work, live full lives. He believes that he and his sister are proof of that. He also wants to show the real consequences of the Scouts’ inaction…. He still struggles with the memories of his abuse. “Am I healed? I wish that were possible,” he said. “Like a person who has lost an arm or a leg, I have learned to adapt. I do not think I will ever be healed. I can say that I am happy more than I am sad.” http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/02/17/discovery-father-scout-abuse-file-triggers-memories-what-ifs-for-brother-and/

Rape Is Rape, Wrong Is Wrong, Where Is Decency? 02/19/2013  Stuart Muszynski
From the public outrage over the oxymoronic statements of this past election cycle about “legitimate rape” and “violent rape,” we learned, thankfully, that most Americans agree that rape of any kind is wrong. However, if you’re following the sordid story of the Steubenville High School “Big Red” football players who were charged with raping a 16-year-old girl from West Virginia, you see how the cruelty, immorality and true violent nature of rape is defended, diminished and deflected.
The allegations are that last August, two high school football players raped the girl, then dragged her unconscious from party to party while many people looked on and did nothing. Multiple cell phones recorded the events, and later onlookers posted the videos on the Internet. The video footage showed a naked girl, out cold, along with other football players laughingly boasting that “She’s dead” and “I’m going to join the rape crew.”
Clearly they knew what was happening, but they were caught up in the moment with their buddies. Some team members and their friends stood by and did nothing while others encouraged the rape or actively took part in it.

That’s bad enough, but what occurred next, after the girl’s parents reported the rape to the police, is just as shocking.
Big Red Football Coach Reno Saccoccia suspended the two players who allegedly raped the victim, but didn’t suspend any of the players who live-tweeted the attack while it was happening or joked about it afterward. The coach’s reason was that the boys said that that they didn’t think they had done anything wrong….
Consider the following statistics:….One third of high school girls will be involved in dating violence. Twenty percent of teens will be sexually assaulted.
While schools are trying to address bullying, they are not addressing decency, goodness, kindness or respect. Ultimately, not doing so has a cultural impact on both community and country.
Almost fifty years ago, in March, 1964, 38 people watched from their New York City apartments as Kitty Genovese was raped and then killed. Thirty years later, dozens of motorists on a Detroit bridge watched as a woman who, beaten during a road rage incident, jumped off the bridge to her death to avoid her assailant. Bystanders just sat in their cars.
When addressing rape, gun violence, bullying and other types of violent behavior, our country must depend on good people who recognize evil and do the right thing by standing up to help. To ensure decency, we have no choice but to rely on our schools because some parents just are not doing their jobs.
Anna Sewell, a British novelist who wrote Black Beauty, said, “If we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop and do nothing, we make ourselves share in the guilt.”….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stuart-muszynski/steubenville-rape-case_b_2718805.html

Steubenville Rape Trial Verdict: Judge finds both teens guilty of raping 16-year-old girl
March 17, 2013  By Julia Dahl  (CBS News) – Two former star high school football players broke down and openly wept on Sunday morning in court after being found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl during a night of partying last August. Ma’Lik Richmond, 16, and Trent Mays, 17, had been charged with digitally penetrating the intoxicated girl twice on the night of August 11, 2012. Richmond and Mays were found delinquent, which is the juvenile equivalent of being found guilty. Mays was also convicted of a second felony charge of using a minor in nudity oriented materials for taking and distributing photographs of the victim in states of undress….
“I’m aware this is the first time they have been in trouble with the law, but these are serious offenses,” said Judge Thomas Lipps, who decided the case without a jury. “If they were convicted in an adult court of these charges they would be spending many years in an adult prison.”
Judge Lipps sentenced Richmond to a minimum of one year incarceration in a juvenile facility. Mays was sentenced to a minimum of one year incarceration in a juvenile facility for the rape, and one year for the second felony, to be served consecutively. Lipps called Mays’ crimes “more egregious” than Richmond’s. Both teens were facing a maximum sentence of incarceration until age 21….
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57574728-504083/steubenville-rape-trial-verdict-judge-finds-both-teens-guilty-of-raping-16-year-old-girl/

The Benefits of Positive Parenting By DAVID BORNSTEIN  February 20, 2013
Is there a science to parenting?
For all the current discussion in the United States about gun violence and mental illness, there has been little attention paid to root causes. Any effort aiming to reduce gun violence — or child abuse, intimate partner violence, suicide or sexual abuse — must include a serious discussion about how society can improve the quality of parenting.
In 2010, children’s protective service agencies investigated 1.8 million referrals of child abuse and neglect pertaining to 3 million children. Although only 20 percent of these were substantiated, researchers report that physical abuse, including harsh physical discipline that is equivalent to abuse, is vastly underreported and may be 20 times more prevalent than is reflected in official statistics. (In other countries, including Spain, India and Egypt, harsh punishment is even more prevalent.) In Philadelphia, this behavior has recently been linked to the recession and the rate of mortgage foreclosures. When lenders put people out of their homes, one unforeseen consequence is that more kids end up with traumatic brain injuries.
It is now well accepted that physical discipline is not only less effective than other non-coercive methods, it is more harmful than has often been understood — and not just to children. A review of two decades worth of studies has shown that corporal punishment is associated with antisocial behavior and aggression in children, and later in life is linked to depression, unhappiness, anxiety, drug and alcohol use and psychological maladjustment. Beyond beating, parents can also hurt children by humiliating them, labeling them in harmful ways (“Why are you so stupid?”), or continually criticizing their behavior.

Children’s Memory May Be More Reliable Than Adults’ In Court Cases
Mar. 17, 2008 — The U.S. legal system has long assumed that all testimony is not equally credible, that some witnesses are more reliable than others. In tough cases with child witnesses, it assumes adult witnesses to be more reliable. But what if the legal system had it wrong?….
They say children depend more heavily on a part of the mind that records, “what actually happened,” while adults depend more on another part of the mind that records, “the meaning of what happened.” As a result, they say, adults are more susceptible to false memories, which can be extremely problematic in court cases…..
This research shows that meaning-based memories are largely responsible for false memories, especially in adult witnesses. Because the ability to extract meaning from experience develops slowly, children are less likely to produce these false memories than adults, and are more likely to give accurate testimony when properly questioned.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080313124445.htm

Child & Adolescent Medicine
TV content affects children’s behavior over time  SHERRY BOSCHERT, Family Practice News Digital Network     Both the quantity and the content of television viewing by children may affect social behaviors long term, with effects that may last into adulthood, the results of two studies have shown.
In one randomized, controlled trial involving 565 preschool-aged children in the United States, coaching parents to reduce viewing of violence on the screen and to increase exposure to prosocial programming resulted in significantly less aggression and more prosocial behavior in the children after 6 months compared with the control group, effects that mostly were maintained at 12 months, Dr. Dmitri A. Christakis and his associates reported.
A separate longitudinal study from New Zealand followed 1,037 people from birth to age 26 years and found a significantly increased risk for antisocial outcomes in adults who had watched the most TV as children. Every extra hour of weeknight TV watching as children was associated with a 30% increase in the likelihood of having a criminal conviction by age 26, reported Lindsay A. Robertson and her associates.

Previous studies have shown that children imitate what they see on the screen and that reducing TV watching reduced aggression in 9-year-olds. Few studies have looked at preschoolers or at interventions aimed at content, Dr. Christakis said.
His study found that children fed a “media diet” deemphasizing violent programs and promoting viewing of programs that focus on sharing, caring, and education had Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation (SCBE) scores at 6 months that were 2 points better than in the control group, a significant difference that continued at 12 months (Pediatrics 2013;131:431-8)….
http://www.familypracticenews.com/specialty-focus/child-adolescent-medicine/singleview-enewsletter/tv-content-affects-children-s-behavior-over-time/677a82222dd3520265f0bb767308e975.html

Long-Term Effects Of Bullying: Pain Lasts Into Adulthood (STUDY) Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer  02/20/2013  Kids don’t easily outgrow the pain of bullying, according to a new study that finds that people bullied as kids are less mentally healthy as adults….”To my surprise at least, there were some very strong long-term effects on their risk for depression, anxiety, suicidality, a whole host of outcomes that we know just wreak havoc on adult lives,” said study researcher William Copeland, a clinical psychologist at Duke University Medical Center.
How bullying hurts
Previous studies have found that both bullies and their victims are at higher risk for mental health problems and other struggles in childhood. One study, presented in 2010 at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, found that bullies were at higher risk of substance abuse, depression, anxiety and hostility than non-bullies.

For bully victims, being targeted can result in increased suicide risk, depression, poor school performance and low self-esteem. But most studies on the effects of bullying focus on the childhood period….
They found that any involvement in bullying boded poorly in adulthood. Pure bullies did not show problems with emotional functioning as adults, Copeland said, which is unsurprising given that they had all the power in their childhood relationships. But they did show increased risk of developing antisocial personality disorder. People with this disorder have little empathy and few scruples about manipulating others for their own gain. The disorder is linked with a greater risk of becoming a criminal. Most bullies did not go on to have the disorder, Copeland said, but they were more likely to develop it than other groups.
Pure victims, on the other hand, were at higher risk for depression, anxiety, panic attacks and agoraphobia than kids uninvolved in bullying, the researchers found. Worst off were the bully/victims, who were at higher risk of every depressive and anxiety disorder in the book. [5 Ways to Foster Self-Compassion in Your Child]
For example, pure victims were four times as likely to develop an anxiety disorder in adulthood compared with kids who were uninvolved in bullying. Bully/victims had a five-times greater risk of depression than uninvolved kids, as well as 10 times the likelihood of suicidal thoughts or actions and 15 times the likelihood of developing a panic disorder.
“By far, being a bully and a victim meant having the worst long-term outcomes,” Copeland said….http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/long-term-effects-of-bullying_n_2728190.html

A Personal Nightmare of Assault in India By SHALINI KANTAYYA February 19, 2013
….I found myself awake in this nightmare, with a man violently gripping my mouth shut, attempting to rape me. I was biting and kicking, using every ounce of my energy to fight for my life. My mouth was badly bleeding and in the struggle we fell to the floor. He continued to violently grab my face, and said, “Shalini, don’t shout.” He knew my name. I recognized him as the hotel waiter who served my dinner that night.
I continued to scream and fight incessantly, until finally he relented. He picked up his lungi and said, “I’ll leave. Don’t tell the manager.” Then he ran out and shut the door. Did he really think he could try and rape me in my sleep, without protest and that I wouldn’t tell? Yes. He did. He counted on the fact that he lived in a culture that blamed the victim — that the stigma associated with sexual assault would force a woman to keep quiet. And although I had escaped the worst-case scenario, and prevented a rape, the nightmare was far from over.

In the days that followed, bruised and battered, with excruciating body pain, I managed to shuttle to and from government hospitals to be examined and police stations to file reports. I was well acquainted with India’s bureaucratic process, and in spite of my injuries, I wanted to make sure I had filled out all the paperwork correctly to obtain “justice.”
For several weeks, I tried to get a response from several American and Indian bureaucracies, but they all responded the same way: by doing nothing. Despite my formal complaints, in which I detailed the attack in full, these institutions offered no assistance – not even a single follow up call. I was devastated. I traveled to India on part of an American organization, and received no mental, physical or emotional support. As someone who has committed my life to artistic expression and social justice, I have never felt so voiceless….http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/a-personal-nightmare-of-assault-in-india/

Are women safe in India? We ask if the country’s existing laws and the attitude of law enforcers are serving to compound or prevent sexual abuse. 24 Dec 2012  ….There are reports that suggest that in India, a woman is raped every 20 minutes. More than 24,000 rape cases in the country were reported last year alone, of which 570 were reported in the Indian capital, where already this year 635 rape cases have been registered. The legal news service Trust Law says India is the worst country in the G20 to be a woman. It says women and girls continue to be sold, married off at a young age, exploited and abused as domestic slaves. The number of crimes recorded against women, including kidnapping, abduction, and human trafficking exceeds 2.5 million. Many activists say Indians are protesting against what they say is a culture of impunity. There are 40,000 pending rape cases in the country and survivors have to wait years for their cases to be heard – even then the conviction rate is just 34.6 percent – according to the National Crimes Record Bureau. The Indian Penal Code lists punishments of up to life behind bars, but those convicted are often let off after serving a short sentence….
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2012/12/2012122472117251850.html

A New Model of Dissociative Identity Disorder Paul F. Dell, PhD Psychiatr Clin N Am 29 (2006) 1–26   Summary  Data from 220 persons who had DID were used to compare three models of DID: the DSM-IV’s classic model of DID (ie, multiple personalities, switching, amnesia), the subjective/phenomenological model of DID (Box 1), and the sociocognitive model of DID. The DSM-IV narrowly portrays DID as an alter disorder; the subjective/phenomenological model portrays DID as a far more complex dissociative disorder. The data indicate that the subjective/phenomenological model of DID is a superior predictor of the dissociative phenomena of DID. The three studies [14,70] that corroborate the subjective/phenomenological model of DID are important. They show that the subjective/phenomenological model of DID is more comprehensive and more accurate than the DSM-IV’s classic model of DID. They also refute the sociocognitive model of DID. The subjective/phenomenological model of DID was deduced from a novel, empirically supported model of pathological dissociation [4] ; that model fully explains the empirical literature on DID, whereas the DSM-IV model of DID can account for little of that literature.   http://www.copingwithdissociation.com/Dell_2006_ANewModelofDID1.pdf

Journal of Trauma & Dissociation   Sybil in her own words: The untold story of Shirley Mason, her multiple personalities and paintings  DOI:10.1080/15299732.2013.724611 Philip M. Coons MD 10 Oct 2012   Abstract  Suraci’s Sybil in Her Own Words is almost as fascinating as the original book Sybil(Schreiber, 19732. Schreiber, F.R. 1973. Sybil, Chicago: Henry Regnery Company). The story of Sybil is true, not fictional or fraudulent. One early commentator actually suggested that Sybil and Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, her treating psychiatrist, were a case of folie à deux, or shared psychosis (Victor, 19753. Victor, G. 1975. Sybil: Grand hysteria or folie a deux? [Letter]. American Journal of Psychiatry, 132: 202). Having met Dr. Wilbur, listened to her presentations on multiple personality (now known as dissociative identity disorder or DID), and read the many critiques and reviews of Sybil, I have concluded that Sybil was not iatrogenically created by Dr. Wilbur. Documenting this, however, is beyond the purview of this book review.
Shortly after the death of Sybil in 1998, her identity as Shirley Ardell Mason was revealed. She had been living in Lexington, Kentucky close to the residence of her former therapist and had been running her art business out of her home. Patrick Suraci, Ph.D., had discovered Sybil’s identity from a painting that he had inherited from a colleague at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. This colleague, Flora Rheta Schreiber, the author of Sybil, had died in 1988. Waiting until after the death of Dr. Wilbur in 1993, Suraci finally telephoned Shirley Mason and began a five-year telephone relationship with her until she died in 1998. This book grew from those telephone conversations and other research that Dr. Suraci conducted. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15299732.2013.724611

Beall Introduces Bill to Bring Justice for Victims of Child Sex Abuse January 25, 2013        SACRAMENTO – A proposal to eliminate the statute of limitations for victims of child molestation to file lawsuits against their abusers has been introduced by Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose.
Senate Bill 131 addresses the inability of victims to seek damages because of repressed memories that do not surface until after the deadline to file a lawsuit has passed. Currently, the law states that an action must be filed by the plaintiff’s 26th birthday or within three years of the date that the adult plaintiff reasonably discovers that the psychological trauma he or she is suffering from is linked to sexual abuse. Beall said the law needs to be updated to reflect recent medical findings.
“Well documented medical literature has been developed since the last time the statute of limitations for civil claims was last extended,’’ he said. “The medical evidence shows psychological injuries stemming from sexual abuse emerge later in life and well past the age of 26….”
http://sd15.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-01-25-beall-introduces-bill-bring-justice-victims-child-sex-abuse

HATTIE the novel begins with the end—the end of a woman’s life. In a spare and powerful narrative—delivered in three parts “In The Meadow,” “By the Stream,” and “Through the Woods” —this soulful novel takes us on an intimate journey through the meaning of Hattie’s life and life in general. It delves fearlessly into the complexity of our human relationships, our yearning for the divine, and the ways in which these paths cross throughout our lives. http://annabozenabowen.com http://annabozenabowen.com/hattie-the-novel/

All Of Me: My incredible true story of how I learned to live with the many personalities sharing my body  Kim Noble and Jeff Hudson  Piatkus Publishing 2011 ISBN-10: 0749955902
ALL OF ME
Kim Noble is an accomplished artist and a mother of a 14-year-old girl. She is bubbly and vivacious. To meet her you wouldn’t think anything was wrong. There’s just one problem. To all extents and purposes, Kim Noble does not exist. . .
At some point before her third birthday, as a result of repeated and horrific abuse, Kim Noble’s mind shattered. Her body now plays host to many different personalities. Suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) her body is occupied by a little boy who only speaks Latin, a gay man and an anorexic teenager. Some age with her body; others are stuck in time.
http://www.piatkusbooks.net/all-of-me/
Kim Noble  is a  woman who, from the age of 14 years, spent 20 years in and out of hospital until she made contact with Dr Valerie Sinason and Dr Rob Hale at the Tavistock and Portman Clinics.  In 1995 she began therapy and was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (originally named multiple personality disorder). D.I.D is a creative way to cope with unbearable pain. The main personality splits into several parts with dissociative or amnesic barriers between them. It used to be a controversial disorder but Kim has had extensive tests over 2 years by leading psychology professor at UCL, John Morton, who has established there is no memory between the personalities and that she has the misfortune of representing the British gold standard over genuine dissociation.
Kim has 20  main personalities, many fragments and 14 of the main personalities are artists. Having no formal art training, 14 of the main alters became interested in painting in 2004 after spending a short time with an art therapist. These 14 artists each have their own distinctive style, colours and themes, ranging from solitary deserts, sea scenes and abstracts to collages and paintings with traumatic content. Many alters are unaware that they share a body with other artists.  http://kimnoble.com/

Child Pornography: A Modern Day Childhood Gonorrhea Epidemic  By James R. Marsh on February 26, 2013  I am reading a fascinating book by Lynn Sacco, an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, entitled Unspeakable: Father-Daughter Incest in American History.
Unspeakable is an excellent book which explains how cultural mores and political needs distorted attitudes toward and medical knowledge of patriarchal sexual abuse at a time when the nation was committed to the familial power of white fathers and the idealized white family.
For much of the nineteenth century, father-daughter incest was understood to take place among all classes and legal and extra-legal attempts to deal with it tended to be swift and severe. But public understanding changed markedly during the Progressive Era, when accusations of incest began to be directed exclusively toward immigrants, blacks, and the lower socioeconomic classes. Focusing on early twentieth-century reform movements, Sacco argues that middle- and upper-class white males, too, molested female children in their households, even as official records of their acts declined dramatically.
One of the most interesting chapters in Unspeakable discusses the revolution in medicine in the early 20th century when doctors were first able to diagnose gonorrhea vulvovaginitis. Guess what they discovered?
When physicians began to use the new technology, however, they were shocked to discover that gonorrhea vulvovaginitis was widespread among American girls.…But though condemning child prostitution among the working class was one thing, explaining how girls from good families had become infected with a sexually transmitted disease was another. On the cusp of moving from the margins to the center of American health care, doctors used their professional authority, if not their medical skills, to twist the etiology of girls’ infections into existing narratives that fit more seamlessly with what doctors believed than with what they had discovered. In the process, doctors attributed fewer infections in girls to sexual assault.
Over the next ten years, doctors diagnosed gonorrhea vulvovaginitis so often that by 1904 an epidemiologist writing in the Journal of Infectious Diseases declared it an “epidemic” among girls. In 1909, Dr. Flora Pollack, who treated girls at the Johns Hopkins Hospital Dispensary, estimated that at least a thousand girls in Baltimore became newly infected each year, and she visited police stations and met with community groups to press for more aggressive prosecution of their assailants….
In terms of child pornography, it is not possible to provide an exact number of people trading child pornography across the world. UNICEF and the United Nations have provided some estimates. UNICEF estimates that there are more than four million websites featuring sexually exploited minors. Further, the number of child pornography websites is growing: 480,000 sites were identified in 2004 compared to 261,653 in 2001. More than 200 new images are circulated daily, and UNICEF estimates that the production and distribution of child pornographic images generates in between 3 and 20 billion dollars a year.
The United Nations released a report in July 2009 asserting that there are approximately 750,000 sexual predators using the Internet to try to make contact with children for the purpose of sexually exploiting them….http://www.childlaw.us/2013/02/child-pornography-a-modern-day.html

Most Mass Shootings Target Women and Families; Study Finds Men With Legal Guns Are to Blame
Data suggests that a gun present in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide for women by 500 percent.  AlterNet By Steven Rosenfeld  February 24, 2013
A new analysis of 56 mass shootings across America since 2009 finds women and family members are the most frequent victims, and that the shooter almost always acquired his guns legally, in cases where the gun source is known.
“In at least 32 of the cases (57 percent), the shooter killed a current or former spouse or intimate partner or other family member, and at least eight of those shooters had a prior domestic violence charge,” the Mayors Against Illegal Guns report on mass shootings said, suggesting that the problem of gun violence is far more related to violence against women in homes than rampages in public settings such as schools and theaters.

The study also found that in the cases where the source of the guns was known, almost all were acquired legally: only two examples were given of mass killings with a stolen or illegal gun. That finding runs counter to the gun lobby’s oft-cited rhetoric that only criminals abuse guns.
“We had sufficient evidence to judge whether the shooter was a prohibited gun possessor in 42 of the 56 incidents,” the report said, referring to laws barring ex-felons, mentally ill people, drug addicts and other categories of people from owning guns. “Of those 42 incidents, 15 (36 percent) involved a prohibited possessor and 27 (64 percent) did not.”

MAIG’s analysis should help focus the national debate about curbing gun violence, whether the most horrific mass shootings or ongoing violence where 33 Americans are killed daily from guns (not counting suicides). The report strongly suggests that better background checks before buying guns are needed, as well as far more discussion of domestic violence and violence against women….
“Assault weapons or high-capacity magazines were used in at least 13 of the incidents (32 percent),” the report said. “These incidents resulted in an average of 14.8 total people shot—135 percent more people shot than in other incidents (6.8)—and 8.0 deaths.”
http://www.alternet.org/most-mass-shootings-target-women-and-families-study-finds-men-legal-guns-are-blame

All the President’s Neuroscientists
President Obama’s proposed Brain Activity Map Project could lead to cures for Alzheimer’s, autism, and schizophrenia. But members of Congress should read the fine print when the $3 billion proposal hits their desks next month — because the project might also provide the first viable means of remotely controlling the human mind. By Luke Dittrich February 21, 2013
….I was reading up on President Obama’s hugely ambitious, quite expensive, and yet-to-be-officially-announced Brain Activity Map Project. The first public hint of the project came during last week’s State of the Union address, when Obama, after noting that the federal government’s investment in the Human Genome Project during the eighties and nineties had led to a 140-fold return on investment, declared that “today our scientists are mapping the human brain,” and that “now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the space race.” Since then, more details have begun to trickle out. The project, which is slated to cost north of $3 billion, is already well into its planning stages, and funding for it will probably be part of next month’s federal budget proposal. A handful of scientists have come forward and revealed that they have been instrumental in the project’s planning. Interestingly, most of these same scientists collaborated last year on an article in the academic journal Neuron. The article is called, “The Brain Activity Map Project and the Challenge of Functional Connectomics.”…. http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/obama-brain-control-map

Neuron  NeuroView The Brain Activity Map Project and the Challenge of Functional Connectomics
Paul Alivisatos, Miyoung Chun, George M. Church, Ralph J. Greenspan, Michael L. Roukes, and Rafael Yuste   DOI 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.06.006
The function of neural circuits is an emergent property that arises from the coordinated activity of large numbers of neurons.To capture this, we propose launching a large-scale, international public effort, the Brain Activity Map Project, aimed at reconstructing the full record of neural activity across complete neural circuits. This technological challenge could prove to be an invaluable step toward understanding fundamental and pathological brain processes. http://download.cell.com/neuron/pdf/PIIS0896627312005181.pdf

Federal Child Pornography Offenses – Report to Congress By James R. Marsh on February 28, 2013
This report is the result of a multi-year process in which the United States Sentencing Commission (“the Commission”) examined cases of offenders sentenced under the federal sentencing guidelines and corresponding penal statutes concerning child pornography offenses.
The purpose of this report is to contribute to the ongoing assessment by Congress and the various stakeholders in the federal criminal justice system regarding how federal child pornography offenders are prosecuted, sentenced, incarcerated, and supervised following their reentry into the community.  This report complements and expands upon the Commission’s 2009 report, History of the Child Pornography Guidelines. The 2009 report chronicled the federal non-production child pornography guidelines from their inception through 2009.     http://www.childlaw.us/2013/02/federal-child-pornography-offe.html

Legislative and Public Affairs » Congressional Testimony and Reports » Sex Offense Topics » 201212 Federal Child Pornography Offenses  Report to Congress: Federal Child Pornography Offenses
December 2012  This comprehensive report examines federal sentencing policy in child pornography cases. It focuses primarily on non-production offenses under USSG §2G2.2. One chapter also analyzes production of child pornography offenses under USSG §2G2.1. This report is the result of a multi-year study by the Commission and complements and expands upon the Commission’s 2009 report, The History of the Child Pornography Guidelines.  http://www.ussc.gov/Legislative_and_Public_Affairs/Congressional_Testimony_and_Reports/Sex_Offense_Topics/201212_Federal_Child_Pornography_Offenses/index.cfm

UNITED STATES SENTENCING COMMISSION  THE HISTORY OF THE CHILD PORNOGRAPHY GUIDELINES
http://www.ussc.gov/Research/Research_Projects/Sex_Offenses/20091030_History_Child_Pornography_Guidelines.pdf

Ending the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in California By James R. Marsh on February 28, 2013  Today the National Center for Youth Law released a new report, Ending Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children: A Call for Multi-System Collaboration in California.
CA Report Cover Page
Report author Kate Walker, an Equal Justice Works Fellow and Attorney at the Center, commented that “Every day, the unthinkable happens: thousands of America’s children are coerced into performing sex for hire. Exploitation can start as young as age ten. Some exploited children are brutally beaten and raped. Others are isolated, drugged, and starved until they become “willing” participants. Yet, these children are regularly arrested and held in juvenile detention facilities even though they are victims of crime.” Worldwide, human trafficking is a $32 billion industry, involving 100,000 children in the U.S. The FBI has determined that three of the nation’s thirteen High Intensity Child Prostitution areas are located in California. Studies estimate that between 50 and 80 percent of commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC) are or were formally involved with the child welfare system….  http://www.childlaw.us/2013/02/ending-the-commercial-sexual-e.html
http://www.scribd.com/

doc/127864957/Ending-the-Commerical-Sexual-Expolitation-of-Children-A-Call-for-Multi-System-Collaboration-in-California

Taking women seriously in abuse cases By Editorial Board 1/31/13  WE HAVE reported about the case of a 15-month-old boy allegedly murdered by his father for insurance money after the father obtained unsupervised visits over the objections of the child’s mother. The tragic death of Prince McLeod Rams has raised questions about the family court system in Montgomery County and whether there are differences in how it listens to men and women….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/taking-women-seriously-in-abuse-cases/2013/01/31/c4f360cc-6b5c-11e2-95b3-272d604a10a3_story.html

Gang rape widespread in Cambodia  Published on Mar 7, 2013 In a recent survey, five percent of men reported they participated in gang rape in Cambodia, one of the highest rates in the Asia-Pacific region. Still, fewer than 20 gang-rape cases were prosecuted in Cambodia last year. A law against domestic violence, passed in Cambodia in 2005, has led to a 15 percent reduction in violence in the home. There is increasing recognition that sexual violence needs to be tackled in the Southeast Asian nation. Al Jazeera’s Aela Callan reports from Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyxhEfBubGI

New York May Ease Statute of Limitations for Decades-Old Child Sex Abuse Claims     Bill Would Ease Path to Court for Yeshiva U. Victims  By Paul Berger Published March 07, 2013, issue of March 15, 2013.
Adults abused as children decades ago in New York could file civil lawsuits against their abusers and the institutions that employed them, if a national surge of legislative reform reaches Albany.
Advocates for child sex abuse victims say that this year, the prospects look good for a bill that sank four times previously following strong opposition from Catholic and ultra-Orthodox groups. If passed, the legislation could ease the way for a slew of lawsuits against Jewish and Catholic institutions accused of failing to report accounts of child sex abuse to law enforcement authorities.
“I’ve never been more optimistic we can succeed in 2013,” the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, said.
Yeshiva University may also be casting a wary eye toward Albany as it continues to investigate a scandal involving abuse allegations first reported by the Forward and dating back four decades.
Read the Forward’s COMPLETE COVERAGE of the allegations of abuse against staffers at Yeshiva U. high school.
The bill, known as the Child Victims Act, still faces a real test in the state senate where a key Democrat, Jeffrey Klein, indicated he would not support it….
http://forward.com/articles/172412/new-york-may-ease-statute-of-limitations-for-decad/

Sixth Circuit Rejects Commonsense Approach to Child Pornography Restitution By James R. Marsh on March 8, 2013 Last week, the Sixth Circuit issued this confusing decision on child pornography restitution.
The Court held that the child pornography restitution statute contains both a cause-in-fact requirement—i.e., a showing that the defendant’s conduct actually caused the victim’s losses—and and a requirement that the cause be proximate.
The Court found that “the statute still allows victims to collect more restitution than under earlier and concurrent restitution statutes. The statute expands the definition of victims and the categories of losses for which victims can receive restitution and makes restitution mandatory. In addition, the list of recoverable losses that the statute provides confirms the breadth of what is a foreseeable consequence of defendants’ actions.”
The Court concluded that “a proximate cause showing is necessary for restitution awards under § 2259, meaning the losses must be both “directly attributable” to the defendant’s offense, and “reasonably foreseeable.”…. http://www.childlaw.us/2013/03/sixth-circuit-rejects-commonse.html

False allegations of rape and domestic violence are few and far between   Our new report shows that while false allegations must be taken seriously they are relatively rare and are often complex cases   Keir Starmer guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 March 2013
The Crown Prosecution Service has come a long way in dealing with cases involving violence against women and girls. In the last year (2011-12) we have seen the conviction rate rise to 73%, delivering the lowest attrition rates ever recorded. The CPS has now published a trailblazing report on so-called “false allegations” of rape or domestic violence….
This report outlines the key findings from the review of those cases and the steps that we plan to take. Importantly, what it shows is that charges brought for perverting the course of justice or wasting police time for such “false” allegations need to be considered in the context of the total number of prosecutions brought for those offences. In the period of the review, there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape and 111,891 for domestic violence. During the same period there were 35 prosecutions for making false allegations of rape, six for making false allegation of domestic violence and three for making false allegations of both rape and domestic violence.
Furthermore, the report shows that a significant number of these cases involved young, often vulnerable people. About half of the cases involved people aged 21 years old and under, and some involved people with mental health difficulties. In some cases, the person alleged to have made the false report had undoubtedly been the victim of some kind of offence, even if not the one that he or she had reported….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/13/false-allegations-rape-domestic-violence-rare

Organizational Infidelity Amplifies Sexual Trauma  By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on March 11, 2013
A dispiriting sign of the times is human fallibility associated with hitherto “safe” environments. Previously sacrosanct institutions – universities, the military, the church, scouts — are now headline news for the wrong reason. Researchers are now learning that recovery from sexual trauma is more challenging when an individual has been betrayed by a perpetrator within a conceptually secure setting.
In a study of 345 female university students, University of Oregon researchers found that 233 of them had experienced at least one unwanted sexual experience in their lifetime, and 46 percent of those victims also experienced betrayal by the institution where incidents occurred. In the final analysis, researchers found, those who experienced institutional betrayal suffered the most in four post-trauma measurement categories, including anxiety and dissociation.
In the study which appears in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, investigators used a 10-item analysis tool — the Institutional Betrayal Questionnaire — to assess institutional betrayal and involvement. “Our work on institutional betrayal has coincided with increased public awareness of the harm inflicted by unresponsive institutions surrounding traumatic events,” said researcher Jennifer J. Freyd, Ph.D….

Those reporting a sense of institutional betrayal were found to have more severe post-traumatic symptoms of sexual abuse trauma, anxiety, sexual dysfunction and dissociation.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/03/11/organizational-infidelity-amplifies-sexual-trauma/52465.html

Pursuit of Truth
Adult Survivors Of Child Sex Abuse Seeking Justice
Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a crime that is committed behind closed doors without witnesses and remains in the dark because children typically are unable to speak about their abuse.  This inability to come forward frequently continues into adulthood.  Regrettably, close to 90% of cases go unreported.  Thus, despite its epidemic proportions in this country – at least 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 5 boys likely to be abused before age 18 – CSA remains in the shadows, hidden from the wheels of our justice system.
The legal system itself must share responsibility for such tragic underreporting.  As presently constituted, the legal process constructs unfair barriers for survivors to overcome to achieve justice against their abusers.  Unjust laws– including arbitrary statutes of limitations(SOL’s) that effectively bar 60%-70% of survivors’ cases from even being filed, erratic police/prosecution practices, and a court system weighted in favor of perpetrators combine to make it extremely difficult for survivors to successfully assert their legal rights and far too easy for perpetrators to walk free and continue to abuse other children.
But winds of change are stirring.  There is a growing movement to change the justice’s system fundamental approach to survivors’ cases.  Reformers in a number of states have either eliminated SOL’s or expanded the filing deadlines substantially.  Activists are shining the light on the need to transform the handling of survivors’ cases by police, prosecutors, and courts so that justice can become a reality for survivors. http://www.pursuitoftruthfilm.com/

UNC-Chapel Hill Faces Backlash Over Sexual Assault Victim Landen Gambill’s Honor Court Charge The Huffington Post   By Tyler Kingkade    03/06/2013
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is under intense community backlash after news broke that Landen Gambill, a sexual assault survivor, faces possible expulsion for “intimidating” her alleged abuser.
Gambill was part of a group that filed a federal complaint against UNC over the way the institution treats sexual assault victims. Though Gambill has never publicly identified her abuser, other than to say he’s an ex-boyfriend and a current UNC student, her alleged attacker filed an Honor Court charge against her last week.
The American Association of University Professors’ Committee on Women stood by Gambill and urged the university to drop the charges in a letter to UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp.
“Charging a plaintiff in a sexual assault case with an Honor Court violation appears very much like retaliation for raising the issue of sexual assault,” wrote professors Ann Green and Donna Potts, of St. Joseph’s University and Kansas State University, respectively. “Such action by UNC can only serve to silence survivors of sexual violence and to contribute to the chilly campus climate delineated by the recent ‘Dear Colleague’ letter issued by the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education.”
The university has insisted it has nothing to do with the Honor Code charge, but the AAUP noted the administration does have oversight of the Honor Court system. Indeed, the Committee on Student Conduct, comprised of students, faculty and administrators, “oversees the implementation of the Honor Code and the workings of the Honor System at UNC,” according to its website.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/unc-chapel-hill-sexual-assault_n_2814090.html

Abuse inquiry to proceed under changed law  March 19, 2013 – AAP  The Senate has agreed to change the century-old Royal Commissions Act to facilitate the inquiry into institutional child abuse. To allow the commission to hear all the anticipated evidence, victims will be able to tell their stories in private and hearings can be held before just one of the six commissioners. The Royal Commissions Amendment Bill 2013 has already passed the House of Representatives, with Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus saying it was important for the commission to have the flexibility to make the best use of its resources. It allows those who want to give evidence in a less formal setting to go before a private hearing, not swear an oath or affirmation but receive the same protections as those giving evidence at formal hearings. http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/abuse-inquiry-to-proceed-under-changed-law-20130319-2gcma.html

280,000 girls accept sex abuse as being normal Rob Hastings  Wednesday 29 February 2012 As many as 280,000 teenage girls are suffering from sexual abuse because they believe it is an accepted part of relationships or do not believe they can stop it, the NSPCC has warned. In a disturbing report, the charity said fewer than 20 per cent of cases are reported by young people, as opposed to the majority of cases in which adults are abused. “Many girls are being forced to carry out sexual acts and in some cases are even being raped,” said Jon Brown of the NSPCC….
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/280000-girls-accept-sex-abuse-as-being-normal-7463699.html

Nightline: When To Believe A Child’s Word  Nightline – November 14, 1996  TURNING POINT:  When Children Accuse – Who To Believe  Byline: Ted Koppel and Erin Haynes   ABC-Nightline – November 14, 1996  WHEN CHILDREN ACCUSE: WHO TO BELIEVE Child sex abuse is a very serious problem.
In 1994 alone 140,000 new cases were investigated and found to be real. But are innocent people being sentenced for crimes they never committed because of the testimony of the young?
Doubt over the testimony of children in sexual abuse cases has made it harder to try accused child molesters, sometimes with deadly consequences, but authorities say children do tell the truth in most cases.
TED KOPPEL: [voice-over] This week, another tragedy.
1st RESPONDENT: I don’t understand this. They- they knew. Why did they let him come into this neighborhood? Or in any other neighborhood?
TED KOPPEL: [voice-over] A convicted child molester avoids prison because there is doubt over the testimony of a child…..
STEPHEN CECI, Psychologist, Cornell University: Not only do I believe children can be reliable in sexual abuse cases, I believe the vast majority of them are reliable in those cases.
ERIN HAYES: [voice-over] But Ceci says what is missing from many accounts of his work is that it is fairly difficult to convince children to make up even the most harmless stories.
STEPHEN CECI: Because in our studies we work at it very hard….
ERIN HAYES: In fact, in his studies, most of the children ultimately do not give in to interviewers’ suggestions, and while many of the interviews are about more serious subjects, medical exams, for example, they are not about sex abuse, and many in the child protection field are troubled that Ceci’s research is being applied to sex abuse cases….
STEPHEN CECI: Maybe 1 percent, 5 percent, 10 percent. I suspect it’s nowhere near the majority. My hunch is the majority of interviews done with kids by front-line workers, child protective service, law enforcement, therapists, pediatricians, are well-done….
ERIN HAYES: [voice-over] But his critics point out Underwager uses his own standards for determining what is repeated and leading. For instance, he has said that interviewers’ questions like this one, “Okay … I don’t want you to say anything you can’t remember for sure,” could be considered leading. And most of the tapes he reviews come to him from defense attorneys, for whom he consults. When he testifies for them, he says, he is paid $2,500 a day. Underwager admits he has no way to known if the children’s accounts of abuse in the cases he reviews are actually false. [interviewing] How do you know, in each of these cases, that the abuse did not happen?
RALPH UNDERWAGER: I don’t. That’s not my function. That’s the function of the justice system.
ROB PARRISH: If that’s the case, then there’s no reason for him to be expressing an opinion in the justice system, any more than any of the rest of us. I mean, you could call anybody in that circumstance to say, “I’ve viewed the tape and I think it’s a bad interview, so therefore I think this child’s probably not telling the truth.”
ERIN HAYES: [voice-over] At least 10 courts have disallowed Underwager’s testimony. One ruled he “…did not have bone fide qualifications…” as a researcher. Another said his work “…was not scientifically reliable…” Underwager does continue to testify, which concerns many of his critics, who say is expertise is colored by what they see as a sympathetic view toward pedophiles. In a Dutch publication [Paidika] three years ago, Underwager said, “Paedophiles need to become more positive and make the claim that paedophilia is an acceptable expression of God’s will for love and will among human beings.” Underwager says he has always believed sex between adults and children is harmful, but says to help treat pedophiles, they must first be encouraged to openly proclaim their sexuality….
MARK ELLIS, National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse: His methods and theories are not accepted by others in his field, and have been subject to a great deal of criticism by others in his field.
ERIN HAYES: [voice-over] Prosecutors are also critical of Dr. Gardner, who not only testifies, but publishes and markets his own books on child sex abuse, books often quoted in court cases.
ATTORNEY: [law firm videotape] Now, I want to talk to you about the most common cause of false accusations.
ERIN HAYES: [voice-over] In this videotape produced by a law firm, an attorney cites from Dr. Gardner’s research Gardner’s conclusion that false allegations of child sex abuse are commonplace in custody disputes.
ATTORNEY: [law firm videotape] This phenomena [sic] has been examined in research and it’s now been given the name “parental alienation syndrome.”
ERIN HAYES: [voice-over] That disorder, however, cannot be found in the standard manual of psychiatric diagnoses. It is a term Dr. Gardner coined himself, based mainly on his own experience as a psychiatrist. But the largest study done on the subject to date found that false allegations of child sexual abuse rarely surface in custody disputes [“…less than 2% of cases involved an allegation of sexual abuse.” Dr. Gardner declined a videotaped interview for this report, but he sells tapes of his own, as well, in which he describes his criteria to help determine whether a child’s allegation of sexual abuse is true or false. Among his criteria?
Dr. RICHARD GARDNER: [videotape] If it sounds incredible, it’s probably not true. In extreme cases, children who are sexually abused become like little street-smart sluts. I believe that children who are false accusers are going to have a higher incidence of reading mystery stories.
ERIN HAYES: [voice-over] Dr. Gardner concedes no one has scientifically tested his criteria, not even he.
ROB PARRISH: Those tests are not based on scientific reality. They’re not verified, they’re not validated in any way…. http://theawarenesscenter.blogspot.com/2011/02/turning-point-when-children-accuse-who.html

Facebook users disgusted as ‘child porn’ video receives 16,000 shares and 4,000 likes
Clip allegedly showed a young girl being abused by an older man Steve Anderson Friday 22 March 2013 An apparent child porn video has appeared on Facebook, leaving the social network’s users reeling in disgust. Internet users today vented their fury on rival social network Twitter after the video – that those who have seen it claim showed a young girl being abused by an older man – was shared over 16,000 times and received almost 4,000 ‘likes’….
Although Facebook quickly removed the video, users had already taken screenshots of the video and began circulating it on other networks, in a seeming attempt to alert other internet users.
A Facebook spokesperson said: “Nothing is more important to Facebook than the safety of the people that use our site, and this material has no place on Facebook. “We have zero tolerance for child pornography being uploaded onto Facebook and are extremely aggressive in preventing and removing child exploitive content. “We are pleased that this material was reported to us quickly enabling its swift removal.”…. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-users-disgusted-as-child-porn-video-receives-16000-shares-and-4000-likes-8545876.html

ISSB of CA and CPPA present the Nineteenth Annual Northern California Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Conference:  NATIONAL SCANDAL: Family Courts Placing Children with Identified Sex Abusers
April 27th, 2013, 9:30 am to 5:00 pm,
at the Veterans Memorial Center, 203 East 14th Street, Davis, California
Keynote speaker Dr. Linda Barnard is a licensed Marriage Family Therapist, in private practice in Sacramento since 1981. Dr. Barnard has also served as a trainer and consultant to various domestic violence programs in northern California since 1982
Other professionals at the conference will be Geraldine Stahly, PhD, who will present research findings, and Kathleen Russell, legislative director of the Center for Judicial Excellence, who will present and discuss Garland Waller’s documentary:  No Way Out But One.
Journalist Jane Stevens will discuss the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) studies by Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control.  The ACE studies show that child sexual abuse as well as other types of traumatic childhood events prevent healthy development and have become a public health emergency.
This workshop will be appropriate for therapists, survivors, friends, and relatives. Professionals can earn up to six CEU’s by registering, but the 2013 ISSB Conference will be offered at no-cost and no-registration so that all who care to can attend free of charge. http://issb.us/2013conference.html

Official Audit Report (Massachusetts) Issued March 27, 2013 Department of Early Education and Care  For the period July 1, 2010 through September 30, 2011 ….EEC is not ensuring that its licensed child care providers are performing the required Criminal Offender Record Information
(CORI) checks on their staff, both at the point of hire and then every three years, as required by EEC regulations ….Although Massachusetts regulations require state child care agencies such as EEC to ensure that their contracted providers are requesting background checks for their staff, there is no requirement that state child care agencies perform other analytical procedures such as periodically matching Massachusetts registered sex offender addresses to Massachusetts licensed child care provider addresses. During our audit, we compared the most recently reported home addresses of all Level 2 and Level 3 registered sex offenders to all licensed Commonwealth child care provider addresses during the 15 month period July 1, 2010 through September 30, 2011 and found 119 instances where Level 2 and Level 3 sex offender addresses matched addresses of EEC child care providers. While we recognize that all 119 may not pose a problem because some of the information in the sex offender registry may be outdated, we believe that routinely conducting this match will serve to better ensure the safety of children in EEC’s programs. http://www.wcvb.com/blob/view/-/19490826/data/1/-/xcphqn/-/Audit-Report-EEC.pdf

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