Issue 111 – July 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 111 – July 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 Ariel Castro, Cleveland kidnaping, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight, Grimilda Figueroa, John Jamelske, Dozier School for Boys, sexual slavery, Jimmy Savile, Catholic Church, Catholic schools, Pentagon estimates sexual assaults, Eric Toth, BBC staff, bullying, sexual harassment, Margaret Thatcher, Stuart Hall, BBC, EastEnders, BBC Newsnight journalists, Wales child abuse, Oxford exploitation trial, Domhnall O Lubhlai, Bob Bellew,  Royal Commission, Pope, Priest cases, Joliet Diocese, Catholic child abuse, Archdiocese of Newark Vicar General, Rev. Michael Fugee scandal, Ex-swimming coach, Operation Holitna, Jaycee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart, teacher abuse, Captain Bill Nelson, Delhi Rape, ritual sacrifice, ritual murder, sacrifice, ritual killing, ritualistic killing, Jersey’s Haut de la Garenne, Harvard And the CIA, Ritual Abuse-Torture, satanic ritual, ritual bonfire killing, Cult, Theologo murder trial, Satanic attack survivor, Satanic killing, Satanic ritual trial, Alleged Galilee cult leader, Tony Alamo Properties, Child Sacrifice, Trafficking, Kevin Annett, Dissociative Disorders, dissociative identity disorder, DID, The Price of a Stolen Childhood, National Child Abuse Prevention Month, Blind to Betrayal, Child Molesters, Miss America,  Psychopaths, Capturing the Friedmans, Autism, neurobiology of Sexual Assault,  Rehtaeh Parsons, Lost in the Mall, battered mothers, Wartime sex slaves, child sex tourism, Maltreated children, brain activity, Human Trafficking, Child Pornography Restitution Case

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

Ariel Castro Allegedly Kept Sexually Abused Kidnap Victims In ‘Chains And Ropes’ 05/08/2013
The three kidnapped women who endured a decade inside a rundown Cleveland home were bound by ropes and chains and rarely let outside, according to Cleveland’s police chief.
“We have confirmation that they were bound and there was chains and ropes in the home,” Police Chief Michael McGrath said Wednesday morning on the “Today” show. He also said they were “very rarely” permitted in suspect Ariel Castro’s backyard.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/ariel-castro-had-ropes-an_n_3237412.html

Ohio man charged with kidnapping, rape By Meghan Barr and Thomas J. Sheeran Associated Press
May 08, 2013     CLEVELAND (AP) — Kidnapping and rape charges were filed Wednesday against a man arrested after three women missing for about a decade were found alive at his home.
Homeowner Ariel Castro was charged while his brothers, Pedro and Onil Castro, were held but faced no immediate charges.
The men were in custody and couldn’t be reached for comment. Their brother-in-law has said the family is ‘‘shocked’’ after hearing about the women at the home.
The three women were subjected to prolonged sexual and psychological abuse and suffered miscarriages, a city councilman briefed on the case said Wednesday.
Councilman Brian Cummins said that many details remain unclear, including the number of pregnancies and the conditions under which the miscarriages occurred. He also said the women were kept in the basement for some time without having access to the rest of the house. Police said they were apparently bound with ropes and chains.
The horrific allegations came out as police built a case.
‘‘We know that the victims have confirmed miscarriages, but with who, how many and what conditions we don’t know,’’ Cummins said. He added: ‘‘It sounds pretty gruesome.’’….
A 2005 domestic-violence filing in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court accused Ariel Castro of twice breaking the nose of his children’s mother, knocking out a tooth, dislocating each shoulder and threatening to kill her and her daughters three or four times in a year.
The filing for a protective order by Grimilda Figueroa also said that Castro frequently abducted her daughters and kept them from her.
In 1993, Castro was arrested on a domestic-violence charge and spent three days in jail before he was released on bail. A grand jury did not return an indictment against him, according to court documents, which don’t detail the allegations….
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/05/08/ohio-man-charged-with-kidnapping-rape/q3P6S4KfsEqM7Wx9T69ezO/story.html

Hints of a dark side in Cleveland abduction suspect’s life  By Daniel Trotta CLEVELAND  Wed May 8, 2013 (Reuters) – In hindsight, there were signs of a darker side to Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man suspected of abducting three girls and holding them captive for around a decade.
Divorced years ago and never seen in the company of women, Castro suddenly started showing up in the largely Latino, working-class neighborhood with a 6-year-old girl. It was his girlfriend’s child, he told neighbors.
Castro, 52, was believed to have lived alone, yet on his lunch break would bring home enough bags of fast food and beverages for several people.
He was a school bus driver given mostly “excellent” marks on his performance appraisals, but was repeatedly disciplined, including for one incident when he was accused of calling a young student a “bitch” and leaving the child alone on a bus. These incidents eventually caught up with him, and he was fired last November….
“Ariel was in my garage probably five or six years ago. We were recording a song, an idea we had – a little hard rock with some Latin,” said Joe Popow, 45, a father of six who said he has known the Castro brothers since childhood.
“And – you’re going to laugh – he said he was in the CIA. And I don’t know if he was joking or not, but it’s the way he said it, how serious he said it. I didn’t know what he was capable of. That just put me on defense, and I just started stepping away,” Popow said….
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/08/us-usa-missing-ohio-suspect-idUSBRE94704Z20130508

In note, Ariel Castro claimed he was sexually abused as a child CBS News  May 9, 2013
A Cleveland man allegedly confessed years ago in writing to taking the three women he’s accused of raping and holding captive and said that he was abused as a child and raped by an uncle, CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton reports.
According to a law enforcement source, Ariel Castro apparently contemplated committing suicide in the lengthy, handwritten note discovered in his house from which the women – Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32 – escaped Monday.
According to the source, Castro wrote about his whole life, saying that he was abused by his parents as a child and that he was raped by an uncle.
Castro also provided details about taking each of his alleged victims, who went missing in their teens and early 20s. The note was discovered by FBI agents searching his house this week.
CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports Castro called himself a “sexual predator” and blamed the women for their own kidnappings, but he asks for whatever money he has to be donated to his victims after his death.
Investigators inferred from the 2004-dated note that Castro was going to commit suicide. He asked in the note that all of his money be provided to each of his victims….
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57583660/in-note-ariel-castro-claimed-he-was-sexually-abused-as-a-child/

Cleveland kidnapping suspect had history of abuse, former lover said  By Alana Semuels and Ari Bloomekatz May 8, 2013  CLEVELAND — One of the men suspected of imprisoning and abusing three recently freed young women was earlier accused of a series of violent acts against the mother of four of his children and was ordered to complete domestic violence and substance abuse counseling.
Grimilda Figueroa, who in various court documents filed in 2005 said she had four children with Ariel Castro, told authorities that Castro broke her nose twice, knocked out her tooth and threatened to kill her and her daughters several times.
“Ariel Castro and I were never married. During our relationship, he was very abusive,” Figueroa said, according to an affidavit filed in Cuyahoga County in 2005.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ohio-women-cleveland-suspect-abuse-20130508,0,5534556.story

Cleveland kidnappings: Suspect Ariel Castro had ‘no flaw,’ neighbor says  By Michael Muskal and Alana Semuels May 7, 2013
CLEVELAND – Ariel Castro, the former school bus driver who is a suspect in the kidnapping of three women who escaped years of incarceration, was a friendly man who befriended area children and gave no hint of what was happening behind the locked doors of his Seymour Avenue house, his neighbors say.
“If a kid didn’t have a father, they would look up to him. There was no flaw,” said Juan Perez, 27, who lives two doors down from the house from where the three abducted women escaped on Monday. “I guess he had a great mask to cover a monster.”
Castro was known for giving children rides in his four-wheeler. He attended neighborhood parties and would have a beer….
Hector Lugo, 31, who lives on the same street, said he still can’t believe the friendly guy who would give his nieces rides was allegedly the perpetrator behind kidnappings that have baffled this city for a decade.
“He used to drive my nieces on his four-wheeler. That’s what threw me off,” Lugo said. “They always thought of him as a cool person — a cool person to kick it with. He was an outgoing person, he never messed with anyone. He was always cool.”….
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cleveland-kidnappings-ariel-castro-20130507,0,325028.story

Ariel Castro to cops: ‘I’m coldblooded’ DNA test shows Castro is the father of one of the victim’s 6-year-old daughter Tom Meyer, WKYC-TV May 10, 2013 CLEVELAND — During interrogation with police, Ariel Castro, the man charged with kidnapping and raping three women over roughly 10 years, referred to himself as “coldblooded,” addicted to sex and unable to control his impulses, WKYC Channel 3 News has learned.
With exacting detail, Castro recalled the abductions of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, explaining how he met each victim and even what he was wearing that day, according to sources….
The 52-year-old unemployed school bus driver was “cocky” during the interview, showing remorse only over his capture, Channel 3 News was told.
Castro, who was arrested on Monday after Berry escaped from Castro’s house with the help of neighbors and called police, was ordered held on $8 million bond Thursday by a Cleveland Municipal Court judge.
Meanwhile, in a suicide note discovered in his house by police, Castro blamed the girls for their abductions, writing that they were the ones who got into his car in the first place, the sources said. Castro did write that he wanted to give his money and possessions to the women if he was caught, the sources said.
The note appears to have been written in 2004, about the time police were investigating him on an apparently unrelated matter involving a child left on his school bus. In the note, he also mentioned his sex addiction, as well as having previously endured physical abuse as a child.
None of the abductions seemed planned, the sources said. Rather, they appeared to be crimes of opportunity….
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/10/ariel-castro-cleveland-abduction-cold-blood-kidnap/2149831/

Ariel Castro’s Ex-Relatives Say Ohio Accused Kidnapper, Rapist Is A ‘Monster’ AP  By MEGHAN BARR 05/10/2013  CLEVELAND — The man accused of holding three women captive for a decade in his home terrorized the mother of his children, frequently beating her, playing twisted psychological games and locking her indoors in the years before their relationship disintegrated, her relatives say.
Several relatives of Grimilda Figueroa, who left Ariel Castro years ago and died last year after a long illness, painted a nightmarish portrait of Castro’s family life as authorities made public horrifying details of the abuse endured by the imprisoned women.
In interviews with The Associated Press on Thursday, the relatives described Castro as a “monster” who abused his wife and locked his family inside their own home. Their views were at odds with those of some of Castro’s family and a neighbor, who knew the former school bus driver only as a happy and respectful man.
Figueroa’s relatives said Castro savagely beat her, pushing her down a flight of stairs, breaking her nose and dislocating her shoulder, among other injuries. Her sister, Elida Caraballo, said Castro once shoved Figueroa into a cardboard box and closed the flaps over her head.
“He told her, `You stay there until I tell you to get out,'” said Caraballo, who cried as she recounted her late sister’s torment. “That’s when I got scared and I ran downstairs to get my parents.”
Castro, to frighten his wife, kept a mannequin wearing a dark wig propped up against a wall and sometimes drove around the neighborhood with it, relatives said.
“He threatened me lots of times with it,” said Angel Caraballo, Castro’s nephew, who used to play with his cousins at the house where the kidnapped women were found. “He would say, `Act up again, you’ll be in that back room with the mannequin.'”….
Some relatives of Castro have said they were shocked by the allegations against him. An uncle, Julio Castro, said it’s been difficult news to absorb.
“Of course we have taken it hard,” he said. “We only knew one Ariel, my sweet nephew. He was a sweet, happy person, a musician. We didn’t have the slightest idea of the second person in him.”….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/ariel-castro-monster_n_3251920.html

Long before he was charged, Ariel Castro was accuser in sexual assault case  Fernando Colon was accused by Ariel Castro in 2004 of sexually assaulting the latter’s daughters, Emily and Arlene, who also were his stepdaughters. He was initially charged with 28 counts, including rape and kidnapping, but was found guilty of five lesser offenses.
By Mark Schone  NBC News investigative editor 5/9/2013
Nearly a decade before being charged with kidnapping, raping and torturing three Cleveland women, Ariel Castro was himself the accuser in a sexual assault case involving his daughters. The accusations, which resulted in the conviction of his ex-wife’s second husband, now offer a new window into Castro’s tangled family relationships.
The case against Fernando Colon also raises questions about whether FBI agents squandered an opportunity to question Castro about the disappearance of two of the women in the months after their abductions.
Castro made the accusations against Colon, 39, in July 2004, shortly after 14-year-old Georgina “Gina” DeJesus vanished on her way home from the west Cleveland middle school she attended.
Colon, the husband of Ariel Castro’s ex-common-law wife, Grimilda “Nilda” Figueroa, says he told two FBI agents nine years ago to investigate Castro in connection with the disappearances of Amanda Berry and DeJesus, but that the agents seemed uninterested in his tip….
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/09/18150055-long-before-he-was-charged-ariel-castro-was-accuser-in-sexual-assault-case

Chains, ropes found in Cleveland house where women were held By Alana Semuels and Tina Susman
May 8, 2013 CLEVELAND — Chains and ropes have been removed from the home where three women were rescued on Monday after being held captive as long as 11 years….
Speaking on NBC’s “Today” show, the police chief confirmed reports that the victims — Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight — had been physically bound in the Castro home.
“They were released out in the backyard once in a while, I believe,” he told Savannah Guthrie.
That could bolster some neighbors’ claims Tuesday that they had seen at least one naked woman in Castro’s backyard a couple of years ago. Police have said they have no record of calls reporting such a sighting, but neighbors have said their attempts to alert police were dismissed.
Ariel Castro’s first cousin, 45-year-old Maria Castro Montes, a hospital administrator, expressed shock and disbelief at her cousin’s alleged actions as she stood Wednesday outside his small white house in a downtrodden area about two miles from downtown Cleveland.
“He was a normal man. He was a loving cousin, a loving father a loving grandfather,” she said. “Just like any other member of a family that you think you know.”….
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cleveland-kidnapping-20130508,0,743912.story
Cleveland suspect Ariel Castro: A troubling portrait emerges By Matt Pearce  May 9, 2013
When three young women emerged from a Cleveland home Monday evening after being held captive for about a decade, neighbors were thunderstruck. Ariel Castro, 52, who owns the home and who faces kidnapping and rape charges, was known as a sunny face, someone who was good with children.
The neighborhood was shocked. But Fernando Colon wasn’t.
“The first thing I said was, ‘I knew it, I knew it,’ ” Colon told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, adding: “He’s a monster. He’s the opposite of what people thought he was.”
As the case gained worldwide attention, details were trickling out about the dungeon-like conditions in which Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, about 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, were purportedly imprisoned and abused.  A dark portrait of Castro also was emerging. Interviews and court documents detailed long-term, repeated allegations of manipulation and domestic abuse….
According to court records and interviews, allegations of abuse against Ariel Castro began in the early 1990s. Castro had three daughters and a son with Grimilda Figueroa between 1981 and 1990. The pair never married. In 1993, Figueroa would say later, Castro attacked her at their home on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland.
Figueroa, who died last year, suffered a broken nose, broken ribs, a blood clot in her brain and two dislocated shoulders, in addition to losing a tooth, according to a court petition she filed against him.
In 1994, a Cuyahoga County grand jury was to hear the abuse allegations, but Figueroa failed to testify. In a sworn statement she gave a decade later – in connection with the child abuse charges against Colon – Figueroa said Castro saw her on the day she was to testify and offered her money and a car if she didn’t tell the grand jury about his beatings.
“He also told me, ‘You know what will happen to you if you do testify,’ ” Figueroa said in the statement. “I knew that he would find me and assault me again. … I was unable to offer my testimony before the grand jury. I did not tell anyone about the threats.” The case against Castro was dropped….  http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-castro-abuse-history-20130509,0,1600490.story

Cleveland kidnappings: Was Ariel Castro record of abuse a red flag? (+video)
What if Ariel Castro’s past record of domestic violence had resulted in legal action? Could it have led authorities to discover that he was holding three women in his house? Could it have prevented the kidnappings from occurring?
By Mark Trumbull, Staff writer May 11, 2013
What if Ariel Castro’s past record of alleged domestic violence had resulted in legal action against him?
Could it have led authorities to discover sooner that the Cleveland man was holding three kidnapped women in his house? Could it have even prevented the kidnappings from occurring?
Those questions are emerging after details have surfaced that the Ohio kidnapping suspect had several run-ins with the law regarding alleged domestic violence.
The incidents involved the woman, Grimilda Figueroa, with whom Mr. Castro fathered four children.
Now Castro has been arrested and stands accused of kidnapping and abusing three other women and keeping them locked in his house since 2002, 2003, and 2004 respectively.
The Reuters news agency reported Saturday that Ms. Figueroa’s accusations against Castro began as early as 1989 and spanned through 2005. The most recent case involved a request by her for a court order of protection….
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2013/0511/Cleveland-kidnappings-Was-Ariel-Castro-record-of-abuse-a-red-flag-video

Cleveland captive Michelle Knight was gang-raped while in junior high  
Michelle Knight bore a child as a result of the sex attack, which happened roughly a year before she was abducted in August 2002 By Rich Schapiro AND Corky Siemaszko / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, May 9, 2013,
Michelle Knight went through hell even before she was kidnapped off a Cleveland street and imprisoned as a sex slave for nearly 11 harrowing years.
A year before her August 2002 disappearance, Knight was gang-raped while in junior high school and bore a child as a result of the ordeal, her great-aunt said Thursday. The boy, who she named Joey, was later taken from her and placed in foster care.
“She was a delightful girl, outgoing,” Deborah Knight, 62, told the Daily News. “She was very helpful. We just had a lot of fun together.”
But all that changed when three classmates “grabbed her by the arm and raped her at the school,” the great-aunt said. “That’s how she had Joey.”
Then, when Knight was at her lowest, Ariel Castro slithered into her life, police say.
Her abduction, imprisonment and rape — all at Castro’s hands, police say — ended on Monday, when she and two other women — escaped from Castro’s house of horrors on Seymour Ave. in Cleveland. Also liberated was a 6-year-old girl born to one of Knight’s two fellow captives. Knight, now 32, was forced to serve as a midwife during the delivery….
While fellow captives Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were quickly reunited with their families, it took police several hours to track down Michelle Knight’s twin brother, Freddie, the first member of her family police were able to reach.
Freddie Knight — who in earlier interviews said he wasn’t even aware his sister had been kidnapped because he was kicked out of the family’s home at age 14 — said “she looked white as a ghost.”
Michelle Knight suffered several miscarriages while imprisoned and lived in darkness for long stretches of her confinement.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cleveland-abduction-vic-gang-raped-jr-high-article-1.1339798

Cleveland captive Michelle Knight leaves hospital without telling family
After one visit with her mother, Barbara Knight, the hospital says the daughter refused to see visitors, including close family members.  By Michael Walsh / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Saturday, May 11, 2013   Kidnapping victim Michelle Knight slipped away from the hospital without seeing her family — upsetting and confusing her mother.
“Michelle Knight has been discharged from MetroHealth. She is asking for her privacy at this time,” MetroHealth Hospital said in a statement Friday.
Earlier that day, the hospital released a statement saying that Knight, now 32, is in good spirits and grateful for flowers and gifts from well-wishers. They added that she is particularly thankful for the Cleveland Courage Fund….
Michelle Knight’s grandmother, Deborah Knight, told local station WOIO-TV that Knight the young woman’s face had been beaten so severely that she might need to undergo facial reconstruction surgery.
Knight, the first of the three victims, was likely subjected to additional physical abuse at the age of 20 — before Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry joined her in the home on Seymour Ave. in Cleveland.
Large awareness campaigns were launched to find Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, the other victims, but Knight’s case was largely dismissed as a runaway case. She was removed from the FBI’s list of missing people after 15 months. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cleveland-captive-knight-avoids-public-family-article-1.1341364

Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Beat Wife, Threatened Neighbors, Police Records Say
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN and MATTHEW JAFFE CLEVELAND May 13, 2013
Cleveland cops were summoned six times to handle accusations that accused kidnapper Ariel Castro had assaulted or menaced people, including three alleged beatings of his wife, but he was only convicted once and was never sentenced to any prison time. One of the accusations against Castro was that he battered his wife while she was recovering from brain surgery, according to newly released police records.
It is unclear whether any of the reported incidents could have led police to the three women allegedly held as sex slaves for a decade in his house, but the number of times his name pops up in the Cleveland police database is far more than the two incidents police originally reported.
There was no immediate response today from police or prosecutors….
Castro’s ex-wife, Grimilda Figueroa, who died last year, first accused Castro of assault in 1989, 1993 and again in 2005, three years after he allegedly abducted his first victim Michelle Knight in 2002. Castro was “a monster,” according to Figueroa’s family members who spoke to ABC News last week on the condition of anonymity. He was “nice when he was outside but behind closed doors he was an animal. Two faced. He had done terrible things to her [Figueroa] and treated her like trash.”
http://abcnews.go.com/US/accused-kidnapper-ariel-castro-beat-wife-threatened-neighbors/story?id=19169152

Ariel Castro, Cleveland suspect, has a dark past that foreshadowed crimes he’s now accused of  By Manuel Roig-Franzia, Jerry Markon and Luz Lazo, May 11
Cleveland — Shorty needed a ride home.
She got confused sometimes, the result of some undefined mental condition, and wasn’t always sure where she’d wandered. Her family knew this about Michelle “Shorty” Knight, all 4 feet 7 inches of her, and that’s why they worried.
She got in a car.
It begins there, with that simple act, a 21-year-old — in many ways still very much a girl — got in a car. Aug. 22, 2002. If she’d looked up in that last moment of freedom, she would have seen a church steeple.
Eight months later, another girl. Same road. Two-tenths of a mile away.
Mandy had just finished her shift at Burger King, was still in her Burger King hat and shirt. Tomorrow would be Amanda “Mandy” Berry’s 17th birthday; a party was planned.
She got in a car.
The hunter of girls had found a rich hunting ground, a stretch of road clotted with used-automobile lots, discount jewelers, fast-food joints — and schoolgirls.
A year later, April 2, 2004, the hunter was back. Gina, just 14, was walking home with friends from Wilbur Wright Middle School, a stately brick building set on a shaded street two blocks from Burger King. Georgina “Gina” DeJesus broke off on her own, steps away from the spot where Knight was taken.
A car pulled up. The driver was the father of one of her best friends. She got in the car.
For the next nine years, authorities say, Knight, Berry and De-Jesus together endured an excruciating ordeal as captives in a seemingly normal house on a seemingly normal street in a busy residential neighborhood less than four miles away. Until their remarkable rescue last week, authorities say, they were physically, sexually and psychologically abused by their captor, Ariel Castro, a school bus driver who played salsa music in nightclubs and harbored a dark past that foreshadowed the crimes he’s now accused of committing.
At Castro’s home on Seymour Avenue, he chained the young women in his basement, according to a police report. Eventually, investigators say, he moved them to the second floor of his house, a two-story place with a small back yard, a saggy porch, peeling paint and faded white siding. Most of the time, they were trapped inside, and on the rare occasions they were allowed to venture into the yard, Castro forced them to wear wigs and sunglasses, the report says. He told them to keep their heads down. Castro, now 52, raped all his captives, authorities say….
In the beginning, the romance between the 20-something Ariel Castro and Grimilda Figueroa went fine. But it quickly deteriorated.
In the early 1990s, the unmarried couple lived on the second floor of the home of Figueroa’s parents. Once, Castro shoved Figueroa down a steep flight of stairs, family members recall. Her father, aided by a pack of neighbors and relatives, beat Castro in retaliation. He didn’t fight back. “He didn’t fight no man,” Figueroa Jr. says.
Things only got worse when the couple moved to their own place; Castro’s beatings of his common-law wife became more frequent and more severe, Figueroa’s relatives say.
He exhibited strange, domineering traits. Grimilda Figueroa became a near-prisoner in her home, a sister, Elida Caraballo, says. Castro padlocked doors from the outside when he left. One day, Caraballo went into their house and saw Castro shoving Figueroa into a cardboard box and closing the lid….
More recently, neighbors say police have been contacted at least twice in the past two years because of suspicious activity. The first time, neighbor Elsie Cintron says she called police after spotting a child’s face in an attic window and hearing banging. Officers responded, Cintron says, but left when no one answered the knocks at Castro’s door. The next time, her son Israel Lugo says, a group of elderly women who were exercising in the area called police. According to Lugo, the women and his sister had all seen a naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck in Castro’s back yard. Cleveland police say they have no record of the calls….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/cleveland-suspect-ariel-castros-american-dream-darkened-by-allegations-of-violence/2013/05/11/61302bd8-ba44-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html

describes alleged crimes in detail
‘It was like they were prisoners of war:’ Gina DeJesus cannot move her head after being chained up with Michelle Knight in basement for years, say medics
The basement where the women were held had chains coming from the wall, and dog leashes attached to the ceiling, according to police sources
Description comes as lawyers for Castro announce that he will plead not guilty to kidnapping and rape charges
The women were restrained with them and duct tape in ‘stress positions’ for long periods that left them with bed sores and other injuries
Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were in worse condition than Amanda Berry with the source saying: ‘There is a reason why you have only seen a picture of Amanda
Abductor would duct tape the women over all parts of their faces, even their eyes, only leaving an opening so they could breathe
Former daughter-in-law Monica Stephens says Castro always gave her ‘the heebie-jeebies’
The women, especially DeJesus and Knight, were now exhibiting signs of malnutrition as Ariel Castro used food as a means to torment them
By Reuters Reporter  15 May 2013
Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, two of the women imprisoned in a Cleveland house in conditions described as similar to a prisoner of war camp, have suffered from severe malnutrition.
The women will require long-term therapy for injuries such as hearing loss and joint and muscle damage, two sources with direct knowledge said.
The harrowing details come as Castro’s attorneys claim he’s not the ‘monster’ depicted in news reports – and he will plead not guilty to kidnapping and rape charges….
Castro appeared to treat Berry – his ‘favorite’ – better than the other two, the sources said.
‘There is a reason why you have only seen a picture of Amanda,’ said one of the sources, referring to the condition of DeJesus and Knight.
Knight told investigators she fell pregnant five times, but lost the baby each time. She said that Castro starved and repeatedly punched her in the stomach to force her to miscarry.
Police sources told the National Enquirer that Castro had no interest in having children with Knight, because she was only 4-foot-7 and believed her to be ‘mentally disabled.’
The magazine’s source added that he was grooming his 6-year-old daughter with Amanda, Joselyn, as another sex slave because the other captives ‘were getting to old for him.’….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324731/It-like-prisoners-war-Cleveland-women-suffer-injuries-severe-malnutrition-including-hearing-loss-muscle-damage.html

Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Preyed on His Daughters’ Friends, Emily Castro Says
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN  May 16, 2013
Ariel Castro, the man accused of kidnapping three women and keeping them imprisoned in his home for a decade, stalked the neighborhood where his daughters lived and preyed on the girls’ friends, his daughter says.
Two of his alleged victims, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, went to school with Castro’s two daughters and the four girls all knew each other, his daughter Emily told a private investigator in a recorded jailhouse interview obtained by ABC News.
“It couldn’t be coincidence,” Emily Castro told private eye Chris Giannini of her father’s decision to allegedly target two girls his daughter’s knew.
READ: Cleveland Kidnap Suspect Comforted Victim’s Mom Last Year
Emily Castro is serving a 25 year prison sentence for stabbing her own infant daughter in 2011.
At the time of her 2003 abduction, Berry lived just a few houses down the block from the home in which Castro’s daughters lived with their mother and stepfather. And Emily’s sister Arlene was the last person to see DeJesus before she disappeared.
Berry, now 26, and Emily, now 25, attended school together. “I went to Wilbur Wright (Middle School) with her,” Emily Castro told Giannini.
She said she was bothered that her father allegedly “used” her and her sister to look for victims on their street where they lived and played….
She said her father was routinely abusive of her mother Grimilda Figueroa, even beating her once while her mother was recovering from brain surgery. During the incident Emily Castro said she jumped on her father’s back stabbing him with a pencil in an effort to get him to stop.
Ariel Castro was arrested following that incident, but the charges were later dropped….
http://abcnews.go.com/US/accused-kidnapper-ariel-castro-preyed-daughters-friends-emily/story?id=19195556

Castro Neighbor Reported Screams in Past   Juan Perez discusses his neighbor Ariel Castro, who was arrested in the abduction of three women.   Transcript for Castro Neighbor Reported Screams in Past  05/07/2013
We’re joined by another neighbor, juan perez. Thank you for joining us this morning. I know you live just two houses away from ariel castro.
Before you saw the police pull up last night, had you had any sense that something terribly wrong was happening inside that house? No, I had no idea. Like I can’t lie, I thought he was a nice guy.
He was loving to all the kids in the neighborhood. He was nice to me since I was 5 years old. Never had any kind of suspicions….
What can you tell us what happened there? Well, my sister — my mother had heard the screaming and then I heard it too. My sister then reported it.
But we didn’t know which direction it was coming from. We didn’t know seriously if it was from the right side or the left side because we were inside the house, but there’s a difference between — there is a difference between a woman that’s, you know, playing around and joking around screaming and there’s another kind of scream that makes you want to report. And my sister reported it….
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/missing-cleveland-girls-found-alive-castro-neighbor-reported-19123728
Ariel Castro may have beaten Michelle Knight worst in Cleveland hell house  The first victim in the Ohio house of horrors was allegedly the captors’ main ‘punching bag.’ By Michael Walsh / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, May 16, 2013   Inside Ariel Castro’s Cleveland hell house, three young women allegedly suffered over a decade of abuse — but his first captive, in particular, may have borne the brunt of that beast’s brutality.
Michelle Knight’s family friend told CNN that she was Castro’s main “punching bag,” having been beaten so severely with hand weights and other objects that she suffered vision and hearing loss, as well as muscle and joint damage.
Back in August 2002, Castro abducted Knight, 21, but she was removed from the FBI’s missing persons database after 15 months and slowly forgotten; whereas, awareness campaigns sprung up for the other victims, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry.
Castro allegedly raped the women repeatedly and impregnated Knight at least five times. But each time, he starved her for at least two weeks before punching her stomach until she miscarried, the police report read….
Knight appears to have gone into seclusion, even from some family members, her grandmother said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/michelle-knight-worst-article-1.1345709

New details emerge about Michelle Knight — oldest of the woman freed from Cleveland hell house
Michelle Knight disappeared Aug. 23, 2002. She was reportedly beaten repeatedly by her captors and suffered hearing loss and damage to some of the bones in her face — but her mother tells the ‘Today’ show she never gave up hope. By Corky Siemaszko / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS  Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Word that Michelle Knight had escaped from the Cleveland house of horrors came as a double shock Wednesday to her twin brother Freddie.
“I was freaking happy as hell because I didn’t know my sister was kidnapped,” he told CNN. “My mother never tells me anything.”
Freddie Knight said his mom, Barbara, kicked him out of the house when he was 14 and he was estranged from the rest of the family. But the years melted away when he saw his sister at the hospital….
Knight, who is believed to be 32, was reportedly beaten repeatedly by her captors and suffered hearing loss and damage to some of the bones in her face….
Police have already conceded that they paid more attention to the disappearances of the younger women Knight had been imprisoned with — Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry.
Knight reportedly had a troubled childhood and dropped out of high school at 17 after she was bullied by classmates….
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/details-cleveland-escapee-michelle-knight-article-1.1338149
Behind the forgotten abductee Michele Knight     Matt Young     news.com.au     May 10, 2013       Knight was never officially classed as a missing person      Abducted women found alive in Cleveland home   HORRIFIC details are emerging about Cleveland abductee Michele Knight’s difficult past, including an alleged gang-rape before her decade-long kidnapping.
Knight is also reported to have given police crucial evidence indicating there may have been more victims, telling authorities she was unsure how many women were detained inside the house.  It’s alleged she suffered up to five miscarriages while imprisoned and lived in darkness for long stretches of time…. 19 Action News reports she is being treated at Metro Health Medical Centre for anxiety, and reports she may undergo reconstructive surgery to “heal injuries suffered at the hands of her attacker during her decade in captivity”.
“When she was severely beaten, he had beat her so bad in the face, she has to have facial reconstruction, and she’s lost hearing in one ear,” her grandmother, Deborah Knight said.
But it is unclear whether those injuries were sustained during her imprisonment or whether it was due to a gang-rape which allegedly occurred in junior high school, one year before her August 2002 disappearance.  Knight’s grandmother claims three of her classmates “grabbed her by the arm and raped her at school”.  Knight bore a child after the ordeal, a boy named Joey. She later lost custody of the child who was placed in foster care, reports the Daily News…. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/behind-the-forgotten-abductee-michele-knight/story-fnat7jnn-1226639583612

Gina DeJesus: Girl allegedly kidnapped by Ariel Castro watched mother on TV once a year Mirror News  By Chris Bucktin 20 May 2013  She says that was the only glimpse of the outside world Gina, now 23, was allowed in her nine years of captivity  One of the girls allegedly kidnapped by Ariel Castro was allowed to watch TV once a year – to see her mother conduct a prayer service on the anniversary of her abduction, it is claimed.
Mum Nancy Ruiz says that was the only glimpse of the outside world Gina DeJesus, now 23, was allowed in her nine years of captivity. She told a Spanish TV show: “She knew I hadn’t given up looking because she had seen me on television. “It gave her more strength to carry on living.”….
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/gina-dejesus-girl-allegedly-kidnapped-1901787

describes violence
The Cleveland Horror and a Week of Violence Against Women Leslie Savan on May 9, 2013
In just the last few days, we’ve seen a series of news stories involving violence against women. The violence comes in different forms—physical, psychological, financial—and from different quarters—a former school-bus driver in Cleveland, the NRA convention in Houston, the military, Congress—and so it’s not surprising that the media, as usual, are delivering these stories as unrelated incidents. But arriving almost simultaneously, these tales of misogyny should jolt us all to connect the dots and to shine an unblinking light on the violence against women that’s always there, just below the surface….
When I first saw the photo of a freed Amanda Berry with her sister and daughter, and tried to imagine the women’s unimaginable captivity, I couldn’t get another set of images out of my mind—that of “The Ex,” a target mannequin that squirts blood when you shoot her. “The Ex” (variously called “The Ex-Girlfriend” and “Alexa”) is a large-breasted white woman, her clothes party ripped off, blood dripping from her mouth down her cleavage, and she was sold with other “bleeding zombie targets” at the NRA convention in Houston last weekend. A target mannequin that looks like Obama painted green (one happy customer calls him “Barry” in a video that has been removed) also made the news. Buzzfeed reported that the NRA asked the vendor, Zombie Industries, to remove it from display, but it continued to be sold, a reminder of the racism that fuels the pro-gun paranoia. But the NRA didn’t object to displaying “The Ex,” and she still appears on the company’s website….
Tim Murphy of Mother Jones cites other shelters and domestic violence programs that are being reduced or completely eliminated in Louisiana, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Oregon and other states. “The projections are bleak,” he writes.
Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-Iowa) office estimates that 70,120 fewer domestic violence victims will have access to recovery programs and shelters; 35,900 fewer people will get help obtaining non-shelter services such as restraining orders and sexual assault treatment. Cuts to programs related to the Victims Against Crime Act will hurt another 310,574 people….
And you know that big-shock Pentagon report released Tuesday that estimates 26,000 sexual assaults took place in the armed forces in 2012, a 37 percent increase over 2010? The report that also said fewer than 10 percent of the sex-assault cases end with a conviction at court-martial, while 62 percent of victims who dare to report an assault are rewarded with retaliation?….
In the Pentagon report above, an estimated 13,900 of the 1.2 million active duty men said they had experienced some form of sexual assault in the past year (a far smaller portion than the active duty women). About a quarter of the victims of non-family child abductions are boys. And from 1994 to 2010, about four in five victims of intimate partner violence were female, according to the Bureau of Justice stats. But that leaves one in five victims to be men….
http://www.thenation.com/blog/174267/cleveland-horror-and-week-violence-against-women

Emotional and physical abuse brought into the light in Cleveland BY MARILOU JOHANEK BLADE COLUMNIST  5/17/2013
….Ariel Castro terrorized his wife. He has a history of domestic violence and restraining orders.
What he’s accused of doing to three other women is not classified as domestic violence, said Linda Dooley, who is the CEO of the Domestic Violence and Child Advocacy Center in Cleveland, but his alleged tactics of power and control are classic traits of a domestic violence offender.
“He clearly isolated the victims, manipulated them — that’s how he wound up getting them to his house — and abused them both physically and emotionally.”
Domestic violence offenders are masters at manipulation, Ms. Dooley added.
“I think the emotional mind-set is really a big part of this [Cleveland case], especially when you hear that he [Castro] intentionally left the door open and if they [victims] came out, he would beat them,” she said.
Emotional abuse takes a toll.
“When you’re in this day after day, year after year, and no one’s rescuing you, no one’s hearing you, many times victims give up.”
But contrary to common belief, Ms. Dolley added, victims of ritual abuse are anything but passive.
“Every day, they’re actively looking at how to survive,” Ms. Dooley said. “Escaping is secondary. They do a lot of things to stay alive like trying not to get their abuser angry or do something he doesn’t like so maybe he won’t beat them….
http://www.toledoblade.com/MarilouJohanek/2013/05/18/Emotional-and-physical-abuse-brought-into-the-light-in-Cleveland.html

Amanda Berry Has Nightmares That Ariel Castro Is Coming For Her Wed, May 22, 2013 Amanda Berry escaped from a decade of captivity in Ariel Castro‘s home in Ohio on May 6, but her suffering is far from over. In a new interview, her father Johnny Berry reveals that Amanda is having nightmares every night, in which she dreams that her captor Ariel is coming after her. He says she wakes up “screaming and crying.”….
Amanda, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus escaped from the house of horror May 6, and since then, Amanda has only been photographed once. In the photo, she is smiling with her sister, whom she had not seen for over a decade, and it is clear that she was in ecstasy after seeing her family again.
However, 27-year-old Amanda has since been having a hard time readjusting to the world, and it appears she is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder….
http://hollywoodlife.com/2013/05/22/amanda-berry-after-escape-nightmares-trauma/

The rescue of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight: 30 minutes that ended a decade of nightmares (video, slideshow) by Henry J. Gomez, Plain Dealer Politics Writer  May 13, 2013
CLEVELAND, Ohio…. In these tense and emotional minutes of Monday, May 6 is the story of how bravery and swift action ended a decade-long nightmare. The heroes are the neighbors, the police officers and the women. Berry especially. Tonight, after 10 years, two weeks and one day of cruel incarceration inside Ariel Castro’s Seymour Avenue home, she summons her courage….
Castro had jumped into his blue sports car, leaving behind the women as he always does.
Sometimes he takes the child — the 6-year-old girl who calls him Daddy. But not this evening.
Inside the house, Berry stares at the front door. Castro has left it unlocked. Is he testing her? He does that sometimes. She thinks about it some more. Will she have another opportunity? She moves toward the door, pulls it open.
Another door. A storm door. Chained or bolted so it can’t open wide enough for her to escape.
Berry sees people outside on a neighbor’s porch. She cries out and reaches through the crack.
“Help get me out of here!”….
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/30_minutes_that_ended_a_decade.html

Experts question death penalty in Ohio missing women case May 26, 2013 COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A prosecutor faces numerous obstacles as he weighs whether to bring death penalty charges against a man accused of kidnapping three women and forcing one of them into miscarriages through starvation and beatings, capital punishment experts say.
Most agree that such charges are possible against Ariel Castro, though not without legal fights starting with constitutional questions over the definition of a murder victim for the purposes of a death penalty case.
Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said at a news conference on May 9, days after the women were rescued from Castro’s run-down home, that capital punishment “must be reserved for those crimes that are truly the worst examples of human conduct.”
“The law of Ohio calls for the death penalty for those most depraved criminals, who commit aggravated murder during the course of a kidnapping,” he added….
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/26/ariel-castro-death-penalty-ohio-kidnap/2362045/
Justice Story: John Jamelske, the Ariel Castro of Syracuse, held 5 women and girls captive  
After keeping victims hidden in secret basement rooms, kidnapper undone by trip to return bottles By David J. Krajicek / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Saturday, May 25, 2013
John Jamelske, a scruffy bottle-picker from Syracuse, regarded himself as smooth with the ladies. To the rest of the world, he was a kidnapper and sexual predator. Before there was Ariel Castro, Cleveland’s industrious triple kidnapper, there was Jamelske, New York’s dungeon dragoon.
For 15 years beginning in 1988, he held a succession of females as sex slaves in a filthy bunker beneath his house in upstate DeWitt. Jamelske was finally busted on April 3, 2003, three weeks before Castro kidnapped Amanda Berry, the second of his three victims.
Castro seemed shamed by his arrest. Jamelske, on the other hand, claimed his victims were “buddies.” He said he chained them “only a tiny little” and saw himself as “a tremendous influence” on them.
“No, I never considered anybody a kidnap victim,” he told the Syracuse Post-Standard. He explained that kidnappers demand cash ransoms. He didn’t do that….
The law disagreed, and convicted kidnapper Jamelske, 78, is living out his life in prison.
His case didn’t get the national attention of the dramatic escape of the three women in Cleveland earlier in May, but Jamelske’s story is just as implausible.
Though he described himself as “a little bit crazy,” Jamelske had a rather ordinary life until he reached his 50s.
He was married with three sons, had a community college degree, and worked at grocery stores in the Syracuse area, where he grew up.
His life turned in the 1980s. He lost his job and began scavenging for bottles and cans. His hoarding tendencies flourished as he stacked his house floor to ceiling with cast-off crap….
Jamelske began cruising in his distinctive vintage Mercury Comet, seeking females from the wrong side of the tracks.
And he built a 12-by-24 foot bunker accessible through a crawl space behind a hidden door in his garage. He told busybodies it was a storm shelter. It featured a plastic bucket toilet, a filthy foam cushion as a bed, and a salvaged bathtub filled with cold water from a garden hose.
In September 1988, he lured a 14-year-old girl into his car and secreted her in the dungeon for two years. The girl was reported missing by her family, and they were shocked when she came home in 1989. The victim later said Jamelske had threatened to kill her brother, so she lied and said she had run away from home….
In 1995, Jamelske abducted a second 14-year-old. For two years, he subjected the teen to daily sexual assaults — all while his wife, ill with cancer, was upstairs. He freed that victim in 1997, again with a threat if she squealed. The girl told her mother she had been kidnapped and raped by an older man, but she was so terrified the crime was never reported….
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/justice-story-john-jamelske-girls-dungeon-article-1.1351897

Dozier survivor: Judge’s decision just a temporary roadblock  By Paul Mueller, Reporter Friday, May 24, 2013  MARIANNA –  A Circuit Court judge has denied a request to exhume the bodies from gravesites at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna. In the court order, Judge William Wright of Jackson County Circuit Court states the petition was denied because the Petitioner “failed to meet the threshold for an order granting exhumation in a civil case,” and that the “Interim Report prepared by the University of South Florida does not provide any information or opinion regarding what physical evidence is likely to be found that will lead to the identification of the human remains or a determination of the causes of death.”
A local survivor of the school said it’s just a temporary roadblock in the search to find the remains of so many boys who were forgotten.
From his home in Clearwater, Robert Straley remembers the first day he walked into the Dozier School for Boys. The year was 1963 and Straley was just 13 years old. Looking back, Straley calls it “one of the most horrible times of my life, if not the worst.”
On the first night, he said men in charge gave him the first of three floggings during his 10 and a half months there.
“I was in a state of shock,” Straley said.  “I didn’t even know what was going on.  It was like it was happening to somebody else.  It was like a bad nightmare.”
Investigators said the beatings went on at the school for nearly 70 years and some of the boys would simply disappear. But then in 2007, Straley and others began asking questions and wanted to know where those boys ended up. While doing forensic research on the school’s grounds, a team of USF researchers uncovered dozens of shallow graves. http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2013/5/24/judge_denies_request.html

Teen Girls Held Captive, Forced Into Prostitution    Part 2 of 2008 “Primetime”: Two Ohio cousins kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery.   05/10/2013
Transcript for Teen Girls Held Captive, Forced Into Prostitution
Two teenage cousin. — who vanished off the streets of Toledo have now been missing for 48 hours. I think it — price — something’s happened.
Police think the girls ages fourteen and fifteen have probably run away in the most likely come home soon. — Kimberly his mother Stephanie refuses to just sit and wait…. All the while the girls are being held captive for us towns and — — less than six miles away by a pimp and two prostitutes.
….The FBI thinks it’s the bigger number a 100000. Minors in America. Forced to trade sex for money.  http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/teen-girls-held-captive-forced-prostitution-19153038

Police force admits mistakes that let Jimmy Savile escape justice Kiran Randhawa 10 May 2013
A police force today denied a cover-up of Jimmy Savile’s five-decade reign of sex crimes but admitted to “mistakes” and missed opportunities which allowed the DJ to escape justice.
According to a new review, the disgraced entertainer was rumoured to be a “pervert” and officers were passed on information about his possible sex offending while he was alive.
One officer even commented on the late DJ getting “so many of these type of complaints”.
Despite this, he was left free to sexually assault 68 victims in his hometown of Leeds, including eight under the age of nine, and one as young as five. The inquiry, dubbed Operation Newgreen, examined the history of the TV presenter’s relationship with West Yorkshire Police, including how officers attended his well-known Friday Morning Club at his Leeds flat.
But although the force admitted there was an “over-reliance on personal friendships” between the Jim’ll Fix It host and officers who socialised with him, it found he was not shielded or protected from arrest. Http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/police-force-admits-mistakes-that-let-jimmy-savile-escape-justice-8610304.html

Sex assault survivors, former gymnasts, reunite for justice  Catholic Church and others oppose change that would let them sue by Mike TeSelle May 07, 2013 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) …. But with the smiles expressed by six former Olympic-hopeful gymnasts were also tears.
“I was raped,” said Charmaine Carnes, a former gymnast who shared the same coach as the other women. One by one, this reunited group shared a painful past. “The rape that was happening was rampant. It was nonstop,” added Monica Lenches, another teammate. The group of six met in Sacramento on Tuesday to lobby for a proposed change in the statute of limitations civil law involving past victims of child sexual abuse.
“This man was extremely, extremely good at controlling us and manipulating us into believing this is what we wanted,” said Anne Malver, another teammate. Current California civil law limits the ability of child sex-abuse victims to seek damages — an action must be filed by the plaintiff’s 26th birthday, or within three years of the date that the plaintiff reasonably discovers the psychological trauma he/she is suffering (comes) from consequences of sexual abuse, read a news release from the sponsors of SB 131….
However, the California Catholic Conference, as well as a list of other private organizations, oppose the bill because it would virtually exempt all public employees and public schools from the proposed change in statute of limitations, said Kevin Eckery, a spokesperson for the Catholic Church…. http://www.kcra.com/news/sex-assault-survivors-former-gymnasts-reunite-for-justice/-/11797728/20052016/-/sjblpt/-/index.html

Paedo probe at Catholic schools: 20 priests and teachers to be quizzed by detectives 25 May 2013
School where sitcom Bad Education is filmed is at centre of inquiry as Met police launch investigation after claims of sex abuse dating back to 1950s
Detectives are investigating allegations of widespread child sex abuse at schools run by a Catholic order in Britain, the Sunday People reveals today.
The Metropolitan Police paedophile unit will quiz around 20 priests and teachers over claims of abuse dating back to the 1950s.
Thirty former pupils from schools run by the Salesians of Don Bosco order have come forward with allegations, an investigation by Exaro, the news website, with the Sunday People found.
The probe – launched in strict secrecy two months ago – will go beyond the Salesians to examine historical reports of sexual abuse at other Roman Catholic schools…..
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/paedo-probe-catholic-schools-20-1911825

Eric Toth, accused of child pornography, evaded authorities for 5 years By Justin Jouvenal, May 5, 2013   Eric Toth was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list and had been featured on “America’s Most Wanted,” but last fall, one of the most notorious fugitives in America may have been set to take a stage.
He appeared to be booked to speak at a Las Vegas tech conference.
Colleagues knew the speaker under a different name as an Austin-based tech writer and computer technician they described as brilliant and friendly. But they now suspect that he is the same man who is accused of filming a sex act with a child while he was a teacher at the District’s exclusive Beauvoir school in 2007 or 2008.
They realized the night before the October speech that the tech writer had vanished. Calls and e-mails went unreturned. His Facebook page went dormant. They never saw him again.
His whereabouts remained a mystery until Toth, 31, was arrested in Nicaragua in April. Three people who saw arrest photos of the lanky man with long brown hair said he was the same person they knew from Austin. FBI officials declined to confirm their account. Toth’s attorney did not return a call for comment.
“My reaction was shock,” said Joel Stewart, one of the man’s former bosses at a computer repair store. “This was not an unlikable person. I think a lot of us came to think of him as something of a friend.”
During Toth’s five years on the run, the pattern played out again and again as the man the FBI says is an expert in social engineering and computers was able to invent fresh personas, allegedly obtain fraudulent documents and win the trust of unsuspecting people. When it appeared that he might be discovered, he would simply melt away.
All the while, the man, who authorities warned would not stop molesting children until he was caught, had contact with kids. The Washington Post has been able to reconstruct his time in hiding from the District to the Southwest to Latin America.
“It’s a case study in you never know who you are standing next to,” said Chris Bangs, who worked with the tech writer….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/eric-toth-accused-of-child-pornography-evaded-authorities-for-5-years/2013/05/05/02813d9a-ae8f-11e2-a986-eec837b1888b_story.html

850 BBC staff complain of bullying and sexual harassment in wake of Savile scandal
Hundreds of BBC employees contact consultants as part of internal inquiry
Accusations involve harassment, sexual harassment and bullying
One senior BBC executive believed to be subject of more than 20 complaints
By Simon Cable 1 April 2013 More than 850 BBC employees have come forward to raise concerns about bullying and sexual harassment at the corporation, it has emerged. The staff members have contacted private consultants brought in by the BBC as part of an internal inquiry set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal. The Rose Review, overseen by human rights lawyer Dinah Rose QC, was launched last October following a wave of damaging claims from female presenters including Liz Kershaw and Sandi Toksvig who said they were routinely groped while working for the BBC.
Staff were asked to detail their experiences under a guarantee of anonymity, while one-to-one sessions have also taken place between BBC staff members and an outside company, Change Associates.
It is believed that one senior BBC executive is the subject of more than 20 complaints of bullying….
Among the hundreds who came forward to the enquiry, up to 20 former employees initially thought they would not be give evidence because they been paid off and made to sign contracts to stop them turning whistleblower. Gagging clauses are typically part of ‘compromise agreements’ signed when an employee agrees to drop an employment tribunal claim in return for a pay-off. However, it is understood that, following negotiations, their evidence was eventually allowed to go forward. 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-2302558/850-BBC-staff-complain-bullying-sexual-harassment-wake-Savile-scandal.html
        
Suspected pedophile Jimmy Savile boasted of IRA connections for protection  Accused BBC superstar used dark threats to keep his secrets safe while alive By KERRY O’SHEA, IrishCentral Staff Writer Monday, October 22, 2012 Jimmy Savile, former BBC personality who died last year, and now an accused pedophile, reportedly boasted IRA connections as a form of protection for himself. The Mirror reports on Savile’s IRA threats and the terrifying warnings he issued to anyone who crossed him.  Savile once told a Sunday Mirror journalist that, “All I have to do is call my friends in the IRA. They’ll have someone waking up in hospital the next morning eating their breakfast through a f***ing straw. “I know the IRA, men from the IRA, and you don’t need to ask these guys twice. I’m serious. Don’t f***ing think I’m not serious. I can get them done – just with a phone call. That’s all it takes, young man.”….
Despite having died a year ago at the age of 84, authorities believe that some victims have yet or will not come forward out of fear of the threats that Savile had made. A source told the Mirror that:“He [Savile] boasted of knowing gangsters and men who you wouldn’t want to double cross. It is likely that some had been threatened with the IRA.”
“They [the victims] are still worried about coming forward. From all of the evidence -gathered there is a clear picture developing of someone who not only abused vulnerable children but intimidated them and left them fearing for their lives.” Once a presenter for BBC’s popular music program ‘Top of the Pops,’ Savile was constantly in the public eye. He often visited Ireland under the guise of doing charity work. Having once even been blessed by the Pope, Savile was keen to keep up appearances in order to make his crimes even harder to prove….
Williams-Thomas was informed of Savile’s threats and said that, “The pattern of behaviour which has emerged is that Savile’s victims felt in great fear of him and this has -prevented many from speaking out then or ever since. Having researched Savile and knowing what I know, their fears were and are very genuine.        http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Suspected-pedophile-Jimmy-Savile-boasted-of-IRA-connections-for-protection-175218501.html

New BBC boss apologises for Jimmy Savile on his first day in the job  By COLIN ROBERTSON, TV Editor 4/2/13 NEW BBC director general Tony Hall yesterday admitted the BBC dropped the ball over the Jimmy Savile scandal. Speaking on his first day in the job, Lord Hall, 62, said: “I feel very sorry for the organisation but also for those who were victims of Jimmy Savile. “Today is about creating a sense of what the BBC wants to be going forward, absolutely learning those lessons, not forgetting that history.”…. He replaces George Entwistle, who quit after 54 days when he failed to get a grip on the Savile row. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/4870964/New-BBC-boss-Tony-Hall-apologises-for-Jimmy-Savile.html

Conservatives outraged over CNN photo of Thatcher with ‘pedophile’ Jimmy Savile By David Edwards  Monday, April 8, 2013 Conservative supporters Margaret Thatcher expressed outraged on Monday after CNN marked the death of the the former British prime minister by airing a photo of her with former BBC television presenter Jimmy Savile, a suspected pedophile.
In a CNN Starting Point segment soon after the news of Thatcher’s death broke on Monday, the morning show displayed the black and white photo of Thatcher and Savile appearing together at an event in the 1980s to support the NSPCC children’s charity. CNN showed the photo at least four times during the five-minute segment.
Scotland Yard announced that in 2012 that it had launched an investigation about a year after Savile’s death in October 2011 into allegations that he had sexually abused hundreds of children.
Wall Street Journal Social Media Editor Neal Mann noted on Twitter that CNN “obviously didn’t get the memo” when it ran the photo of Thatcher with Savile.
“That is the picture CNN chose to run for Margaret Thatcher’s obituary? A pedophile?” Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy website asked, accompanied by a list of tweets by conservatives slamming CNN’s decision….  video from CNN’s Starting Point, broadcast April 8, 2013.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/08/conservatives-outraged-over-cnn-photo-of-thatcher-with-pedophile-jimmy-savile/

Jimmy Savile sought Margaret Thatcher Stoke Mandeville help 27 December 2012  Jimmy Savile met Margaret Thatcher several times to get support for his Stoke Mandeville Hospital appeal, newly released government papers show. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20797726

Top British publicist charged with 11 sex assaults  LONDON Fri Apr 26, 2013 3:10pm EDT
(Reuters) – Celebrity publicist Max Clifford on Friday became the first high profile figure to be charged in a wide-ranging investigation into a sex scandal that has grabbed front page headlines in Britain in recent months. Clifford, 70, was charged with 11 counts of indecent assault, prosecutors said, including on two underage girls, after being arrested in December as part of an investigation into sex crime allegations against the late Jimmy Savile….
Clifford, whose clients have included “The X Factor” reality TV creator Simon Cowell, is best known in Britain for selling “kiss and tell” stories about the rich and famous to scandal-hungry tabloid newspapers. “Having completed our review, we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest for Mr Clifford to be charged with 11 offences of indecent assault relating to seven complainants,” the Crown Prosecution Service’s Alison Saunders said in a statement….
http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSBRE93P14920130426

Stuart Hall: victims say they were abused at BBC – Steven Swinford – 03 May 2013
Two of his victims have come forward to say they were sexually abused by Hall in the 1960s and 1970s after he was hired for their school prizegivings.
Hall invited both girls to the BBC’s Manchester headquarters after promising that he would help them with their careers. One victim said Hall plied her with “plenty of champagne” before raping her in his dressing room.
Another said Hall sexually assaulted her in his car after inviting her to a “mocked up” studio session at the corporation’s Manchester studios.
Both said Hall was helped by his friends, amid growing concerns that other staff at BBC may have turned a blind eye to the abuse.
Angie Bray, a Conservative member of the culture, media and sport select committee, said: “They have to look at this all over again. Depressingly, we see a pattern developing. Jimmy Savile is not just a one-off.”
The investigation into Hall’s activities began after one of his victims wrote an anonymous letter to a columnist at The Independent newspaper.
She said that she had been groomed and sexually abused by Hall after meeting him at her school prize-giving in the 1970s, when he was a presenter on Look North, a local BBC news programme.
Hall told her headmaster he was “impressed” and thought she could have a “future in television journalism”, inviting her back to the BBC’s studios.
She said:”I was young for my years and easy meat for a man like him,” the woman wrote. To have a man of my father’s age take a benevolent interest in me seemed wonderful.
“Sadly the world is too full of girls (and boys) who are looking for love, and find out too late that they have found sex with a predator instead.”….
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/stuart-hall-victims-say-they-were-abused-at-bbc-29240672.html

BBC to investigate Stuart Hall abuse as part of Jimmy Savile review
Lord Patten says there will be no separate inquiry into how disgraced broadcaster Stuart Hall gained access to victims      guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 May 2013
Stuart Hall, above, admitted indecently assaulting 13 girls during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The BBC may be liable to pay compensation to the victims, says Lord Patten. There will not be a second inquiry into how broadcaster Stuart Hall was able to abuse his victims while working at the BBC, the chairman of the corporation’s trust has said. Lord Patten said instead a review by Dame Janet Smith into the Jimmy Savile scandal would also investigate how Hall – who has admitted indecently assaulting 13 girls during the 1960s, 70s and 80s – gained access to his victims. Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Patten said the BBC was also likely to face compensation claims from Hall’s victims….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/may/05/bbc-stuart-hall-jimmy-savile-review

After Stuart Hall and Savile, the more victims’ voices are heard, the better   Stuart Hall’s admission of sexual offences has brought the abuse scandal that started with Jimmy Savile back into the headlines. It’s painful, but important, that victims are now speaking out Suzanne Moore The Guardian, Friday 3 May 2013
….This is why today, when I hear the voices of Hall’s victims, I would argue that naming the suspects (which enabled some women to come forward) remains powerful. Some of these women have been silent for a very long time. When Susan Harrison, whom Hall plied with alcohol then assaulted, told her father after returning home in tears, he said: “He is famous and we are nobodies. Nobody is going to believe you if you tell.” Unless victims waive their right to anonymity, the victims do indeed remain nobodies. Harrison felt guilty, worrying that Hall may go on to abuse others, which he did. She later suffered from depression.
Kim Wright, another of Hall’s victims, was watching the news about Savile when she decided to make a formal complaint. She is a policewoman who has worked in child protection. “I’ve always felt what Stuart Hall did to me is not something he’d do once, that it was part of some kind of modus operandi.” Wright felt that if the police could tell other victims they were not the only one, they would have the courage to come forward. And she was right. “When he picked on me,” she said, “he picked on the wrong person.”….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/03/stuart-hall-savile-victims-voices

Stuart Hall described as ‘opportunistic predator’ by CPS – video
The Crown Prosecution Service issues a statement outside court after Stuart Hall, the veteran BBC broadcaster, admitted assaulting 13 girls between 1968 and 1986. Nazir Afzal, chief crown prosecutor for north-west England, describes Hall as an ‘opportunistic predator’, saying he established a pattern of behaviour that was ‘unlawful’ and for which no innocent explanation could be offered
Source: ITN     Thursday 2 May 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2013/may/02/stuart-hall-predator-cps-video

Stuart Hall put home in wife’s name ‘to avoid payouts to victims’
Disgraced BBC broadcaster, who signed over property valued at £1.2m February, faces compensation claims
Josh Halliday, Barry Neild and Maggie Brown
guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 May 2013
Stuart Hall, 83, has admitted indecently assaulting girls, the youngest of whom was nine. He will be sentenced in June. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
The disgraced broadcaster Stuart Hall is facing accusations that he recently transferred ownership of his home to his wife in a deliberate attempt to avoid paying compensation to his victims.
Land Registry documents show that Hall’s detached property in Wilmslow, Cheshire – said to be worth £1.2m – was placed under sole proprietorship of Hazel Hall on 22 February of this year. The transfer occurred less than a fortnight after Hall denied indecently assaulting 13 young girls, calling allegations against him “pernicious, callous, cruel and above all spurious”. He has since admitted all counts.
At least six of Hall’s victims are set to sue as a result of the “enormous suffering” inflicted on them by the former It’s a Knockout presenter. The BBC is also said to be facing huge compensation claims for sexual abuse that may have occurred on the corporation’s premises….
Land Registry documents show that until February, Hall and his wife had jointly owned the home since 1981. Hall told the Daily Telegraph he had transferred the deeds because he has “an extreme heart condition and at any moment I’m likely to pop off”….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/04/stuart-hall-home

Stuart Hall admits to sexual abuse of girls
Veteran BBC broadcaster described as ‘opportunistic predator’ after admitting to assault of 13 girls between 1968 and 1986     Nigel Bunyan         guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 May 2013
Stuart Hall, the veteran BBC broadcaster, has been described as an “opportunistic predator” by the Crown Prosecution Service after he admitted to a string of historic sex offences against girls.
Three months after dismissing the allegations as “pernicious, callous, cruel and, above all, spurious”, the 83-year-old was forced to admit that his accusers had been telling the truth.
Hall, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, first made the admissions at a brief hearing at Preston crown court on 16 April. But they could not be reported because he was facing trial over an allegation that he raped a 22-year-old woman in 1976. On Thursday it emerged that the rape case had been left to lie on the file, along with three other allegations of indecent assault….
Earlier, Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, said Hall’s 13 victims had been aged between nine and 17. They were abused between 1968 and 1986….
In a statement issued later on his behalf, Brabners Chaffe Street said: “Stuart Hall confirms that he has pleaded guilty to 14 charges of indecent assault. Mr Hall deeply and sincerely regrets his actions. He wishes to issue an unreserved apology to the individuals concerned. He now accepts his behaviour and actions were completely wrong and he is very remorseful….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/02/stuart-hall-admits-sexual-abuse-girls

Stuart Hall told 5 Live: ‘Any 10-year-old can instruct you in oral or anal sex’
Comments eight years ago had been defended as ‘satirical banter’ by BBC
John Plunkett        The Guardian, Thursday 2 May 2013
When Stuart Hall appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live eight years ago telling listeners: “Your average 10-year-old can instruct you in oral or anal sex,” the corporation defended his comments as “satirical banter”.
The veteran broadcaster’s admission, revealed on Thursday, of a string of historic sex offences against girls aged between nine and 17 casts his comments in a different, horrific light. Hall made the comments in a 2005 edition of 5 Live’s Saturday morning panel show, Fighting Talk.
Living up to his reputation for outspoken views and colourful language, Hall told the programme that Zimbabwean cricketers should “black up” and branded Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, a “witch doctor”…. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/may/02/stuart-hall-5-live-instruct-sex

Disgraced Jimmy Savile was ‘sex mad’ during 1970s Irish trip  Fellow celebrities arrested in sweep are a who’s-who of 70s pop  By IrishCentral Staff Writers,  Friday, April 26, 2013,
Jimmy Savile, once the biggest star in the BBC’s pop pantheon, was obsessed with sex and that fact came to light during his many visits to Ireland in the early Seventies.
According to the Daily Mail the disgraced media personality who was revealed to be a pedophile after his death was heard making suggestive comments to young Irish girls he met, sometimes in front of their own parents. Later he bounced young girls on his knee without challenge.
The star, most famous for his turns on Top of the Pops and Jim’ll Fix It, was a regular visitor to Ireland throughout his decades long career and for the first time an eyewitness has come forward to document his behavior.
RTE’s former head of entertainment David Blake Knox, who was paid to spend a day with Savile while he attended a charity event in Ireland in the 1970s has come forward with a shocking portrait of the British DJ and charity fundraiser.
‘My abiding memory of Jimmy Savile is that he talked about sex the whole time. I was actually quite shocked because I wasn’t used to hearing adults talking about sex as crudely as he did. The way he talked about young women was shocking. I remember him making suggestive comments to young girls sometimes in front of their parents, and even priests,’ Blake Knox told the Evening Herald….
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Disgraced-Jimmy-Savile-was-sex-mad-during-1970s-Irish-trip-204832131.html

Shame of ‘theft, fraud and under-age sex’ at the BBC: Dossier reveals crimes that have never been reported to police     Dossier spanning four years show many crimes never reported to the police
High number of suspects in the 500 crimes a year were BBC employees By Paul Revoir and Christian Gysin 1 April 2013 BBC staff are suspected of  a catalogue of crimes at work – many of which have never been reported to police. A dossier spanning four years shows theft and fraud allegations running at more than 500 a year. A significant number of the suspects were employees at the broadcaster. Documents also reveal allegations of sexual or indecent assault, as well as incidents of suspected drug use. Thefts of TVs, radios, iPhones, Blackberry devices and computers from BBC staff were endemic. In one instance, an employee was accused of having under-age sex while on assignment. Because the allegation could not be proved, the log showed the staffer was given only a warning.
This allegation, like many others, was not passed on to police for further investigation because the BBC’s internal investigations service – which employs former police officers – decided it could not be substantiated. The disclosures follow the Jimmy Savile revelations which saw the corporation accused of turning a blind eye to decades of sex abuse by the presenter….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2302540/Shame-theft-fraud-age-sex-BBC-Dossier-reveals-crimes-reported-police.html

EastEnders paedo probe
— Staff ‘used TV jobs as cover to groom kids’
— Suspects ‘targeted autograph-hunters at Elstree set’
— Scotland Yard and Herts Police investigating
By STEPHEN MOYES 24th March 2013 PAEDOPHILES working on EastEnders preyed on under-age fans who hung around the set hoping for autographs, police believe. A team of officers are investigating a group of “mature adults” thought to have been employed by the BBC soap in the 1980s and ’90s….The movements of people connected with the show over a period of 20 years in various capacities have been monitored. An insider said: “Arrests are very likely. This is bigger than anyone imagined.” A six-member Special Operations unit has been set up to work full-time on the investigation — an indicator of the serious nature of the claims….It is believed police have taken statements from alleged victims and wish to interview others who may have been preyed on by the paedophile ring….A BBC spokesman said last night: “The BBC is not aware of this investigation but we take any allegations of this nature extremely seriously. We will be approaching the police to ascertain the details and to offer our full co-operation.” http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4856892/Suspected-EastEnders-paedophiles-investigated.html

Entertainer Rolf Harris arrested in fallout from Jimmy Savile sex-abuse case London – The Associated Press  Friday, Apr. 19 2013 Rolf Harris, a veteran entertainer who has released hit singles and painted the Queen’s portrait, has been arrested as part of a police investigation into sexual abuse allegations stemming from the Jimmy Savile scandal, British media reported Friday.
Major media outlets followed The Sun newspaper in identifying Harris, an Australian-born artist, musician and television host who is a household name in Britain….
Harris, who lives in Berkshire and turned 83 on March 30, has been a British entertainment stalwart for decades. He has had musical hits with “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” – which he once performed with The Beatles – and “Two Little Boys.” He also has hosted television shows, painted an official portrait of the queen for her 80th birthday in 2006, and performed at the monarch’s Diamond Jubilee concert last year. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/entertainer-rolf-harris-arrested-in-fallout-from-jimmy-savile-sex-abuse-case/article11400305/

Child abuse victims step forward in wake of Jimmy Savile scandal  STV 23 May 2013
More adults are reporting sexual abuse from their childhood in the wake of high-profile scandals such as the Jimmy Savile case.
Scottish Government figures show 384 sexual assaults against children under 13 were recorded between 2011 and 2012, a 246% increase on the previous year.
Crimes recorded against 13 to 15-year-olds have gone up by 266% over the same period.
One survivor told STV News how she waited 30 years to report a relative who abused her for seven years until she was 13. Her abuser was later jailed….
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/226604-more-child-abuse-cases-reported-by-adults-after-jimmy-savile-scandal/

BBC Newsnight journalists win award for spiked Jimmy Savile investigation
Liz MacKean and Meirion Jones, as well as two other journalists, win scoop of the year at London Press Club awards   Jason Deans guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 May 2013 Liz Mackean and Meirion Jones, who worked on Newsnight’s spiked Jimmy Savile investigation, have won scoop of the year at the London Press Club awards, sharing the prize with two others involved in exposing the late Jim’ll Fix It presenter’s sexual abuse of children.
In an unusual move, the London Press Club awards judges gave the 2013 scoop of the year award jointly to Mackean, Jones, Miles Goslett – who eventually broke the Savile abuse story in the Oldie magazine – and Mark Williams-Thomas, the former policeman and child protection expert behind the ITV Exposure documentary that finally propelled it into a full-blown national scandal last autumn….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/may/22/jimmy-savile-scandal-scoop-year-press-club

Jimmy Savile driver at Cambridge court on sex offences Written by CHRIS HAVERGAL  Friday 24 May 2013  A former BBC chauffeur was due to appear at Cambridge Crown Court today facing five sex charges as part of the Jimmy Savile investigation.
David Smith, who drove celebrities including Savile during the 1980s, faces one count of sexual assault on a boy aged under 16, two counts of gross indecency on a boy aged under 14, and two counts of indecent assault on a boy aged under 14. The 66-year-old from Lewisham is alleged to have committed the offences against a single victim between June and July 1984….
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Jimmy-Savile-driver-at-Cambridge-court-on-sex-offences-20130524093217.htm

Wales child abuse: Report finds evidence of 140 allegations  29 April 2013
An independent investigation examining claims of historical child abuse at children’s homes in north Wales has found “significant evidence of systemic and serious sexual and physical abuse”.
Investigators in Operation Pallial have found evidence of 140 allegations of historical abuse between 1963 and 1992. Seventy six new complainants have also come forward and 84 suspected offenders been identified. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22339417

Wales child abuse: Operation Pallial inquiry finds evidence of 140 claims  29 April 2013
An independent investigation examining claims of historical child abuse at children’s homes in north Wales has found “significant evidence of systemic and serious sexual and physical abuse”.
Investigators in Operation Pallial have found evidence of 140 allegations of historical abuse between 1963 and 1992. Seventy six new complainants have also come forward. The claims centre on 18 homes involving offences against boys and girls aged between seven and 19. A total of 84 suspected offenders have been named – 75 male and nine female. Of these, 16 have been named by more than one complainant…. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22306588

describes crimes
Oxford exploitation trial: Guilty verdicts over child rapes 14 May 2013
Seven members of a sex grooming ring have been convicted of abusing children from Oxford.
An Old Bailey jury heard six girls were drugged and suffered sadistic abuse while aged between 11 and 15. The court heard victims were plied with alcohol and drugs before being forced to perform sex acts. Some had also been beaten, burnt and threatened. Nine men had denied charges including rape, arranging child prostitution and trafficking between 2004 and 2012. Two were acquitted of all charges….
The abuse began in Oxford but some of the victims would be later taken around the country to be offered to other men who were in contact with the gang. Victim: “I was scared to say no”
The court heard how the men identified vulnerable girls for abuse then groomed each one of them until they were under the control of the gang….
The Old Bailey was told the key members of the group used and abused the six victims in a systematic and organised sex trafficking ring over eight years until their arrest in 2012.
The court heard how the men identified vulnerable girls for abuse and then groomed each one of them until they were under the control of the gang.
They were then each either abused by the men themselves, given to their friends or offered at a price to others who were not on trial.
The youngest girl to be targeted was 11-years-old. The girls were mostly chosen because their unsettled or troubled lives made them easier to manipulate….
One of the victims had complained to police twice but no one was charged.
A care home manager, who was later sacked, refused to pay her taxi fare when she returned after running away and the 14-year-old was driven back to Oxford where she was raped….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-22438623

describes crimes
Horrific ordeal of ‘Girl D’ who was raped injected with heroin, branded and sold for sex at £600 an hour   Mohammed Karrar plied girl with drink and drugs and raped her
She then became his ‘property’ and a sex slave
Was loaned out to abusers around the country for up to £600 an hour
By Arthur Martin  14 May 2013
The ordeal for one of the victims began after she became desperate for love and attention because she was forced to care for her sick parents.
So when Mohammed Karrar entered her life, bought her perfume and treated her like an adult, she believed in him. But the ‘nicey-nicey honeymoon period,’ as she described it, would last barely a year.
After grooming her, Karrar made sure she was ‘out of it’ on drink and drugs before raping her on his sofa.
From that moment she became his ‘property’ and a sex slave loaned out to abusers around the country for up to £600 an hour.
Over five years she was repeatedly attacked in what she described as ‘torture sex’. Injected with heroin, she was sold to groups of Asian men who violently gang-raped her in bedsits and guesthouses around Oxford and elsewhere.
The victim identified as Girl D for legal reasons, frequently broke down in tears giving evidence via videolink as she described her horrific ordeal….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324621/Horrific-ordeal-Girl-D-raped-injected-heroin-branded-sold-sex-600-hour.html

Loving parents. An utterly respectable home. So how did Rachel, 11, fall prey to the Oxford sex gang?    Victim started not turning up for family suppers at 7.30pm
Lured into life of sex slavery by Oxford gang with gifts of cocaine, cannabis, cigarettes and vodka   By age of 13, she had 700 men’s names on Facebook
Mother: ‘We did everything to try to keep her indoors, locking all windows and doors at night’ By Sue Reid  18 May 2013
….As her mother, Georgina, says today: ‘Rachel loved school and was the teacher’s pet. She was excited about going to the big secondary with her friends. She is the youngest of our big family and we doted on her. We called her our baby.’
Yet five months after the holiday picture, Rachel’s childhood was abruptly ended. Instead of returning home straight after school, she started staying out in the park with the same group of girls who used to come to her home for tea.
She would arrive late for the 7.30pm family supper. And — after a time — she often did not come home at night and went missing for days on end.
Now her horrified mother knows the reason for her daughter’s worrying behaviour. She was being seduced by a predatory gang of paedophiles, who lured her into a life of sex slavery by giving her gifts of cocaine, cannabis, cigarettes and vodka.
By the age of 13, Rachel had more than 700 men’s names on her Facebook page. Hundreds of others were sending text messages and even naked photos of themselves to her pink mobile phone.
She changed her online identity to a Muslim name. And when she did come home, she often had savage bruises and bites all over her face and body….
Rachel was the youngest of six girls who bravely gave evidence at an Old Bailey trial that ended this week as seven men from Oxford were convicted for brutal sex assaults on them over eight years.
The men, five of Pakistani origin and two North African brothers, were convicted of 23 rapes, 15 charges of rape  conspiracy and nine of child prostitution, as well as other offences including trafficking the girls for sexual exploitation and having sex with a child.
Scandalously, police and social workers knew in 2005 that the Oxford girls were being preyed on by  the gang, but did little to stop the nightmare unfolding before they finally started to investigate  in 2010.
As with similar outrages in Rochdale, Derby, Rotherham and Telford in Shropshire, where street-grooming gangs have been convicted recently….
Georgina contacted Oxford social services hundreds of times to ask for help with her out-of-control daughter and says they did not return her calls.
She stormed down to their offices in Oxford and says she was ignored.
She phoned the police, who to their credit often went out searching for Rachel, but officers (and social services) failed to tell Georgina that a gang of men, predominantly British-born Pakistanis, was operating a sex-grooming ring in the city and any white girl was at risk from them….
Today, she is in the care of Oxford social services and living in another part of the country. It is a unit where she is secure so the gang cannot contact her — nor she them.
Aged 16, she is not allowed a mobile phone or computer access. She can speak to her family only when a phone call is made for her by a warden at the home.
Suffering from post-traumatic stress because of her five-year ordeal, she is studying for her GCSEs  and is visited by her mother regularly….
Oxford police said this week that 60 other girls may have been abused by 50 men from similar gangs in Oxford….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2326381/Loving-parents-An-utterly-respectable-home-So-did-Rachel-11-fall-prey-Oxford-sex-gang.html

Irish TV host and child camp founder Domhnall O Lubhlai never stood trial for 11 sexual abuse charges   Language activist and Irish college founder dubbed “Ireland’s Jimmy Savile” was up on 56 horrific charges By IrishCentral Staff Writers, Tuesday, April 9, 2013
The Irish language activist and TV host Domhnall O Lubhlai (84) died before facing sexual abuse claims. O Lubhlai, the founder of one of Ireland’s largest Irish colleges, Colaiste na bhFiann, and the presenter of a TV show on RTE, has been dubbed “Ireland’s Jimmy Savile” due to the allegations against him…. In 2000 O Lubhlai was charged with the molestation of 11 children. O Lubhlai faced 56 charges of sexual assault, buggery and attempted buggery. Five men testified that they had been abused….
However the trial collapsed due to the fact that the accused claimed he was on medication during his interviews with detectives, in 1998 and 1999. Last January a former Irish college student made a fresh complaint against O Lubhlai. He claimed O Lubhlai abused him between the ages of 12 and 15, during the mid-1970s…. The police were compiling a report and witness statement when O Lubhlai was found dead at his Mullingar home, County Westmeath…. Although there were 11 complaints against him in 2000 it was believed that there may have been other victims during his 30 years as a teacher. His alleged crimes only came to light in the early 1990s when he reported that he was being blackmailed by a former student. Until the end, O Lubhlai maintained his innocence and claimed his accusers were motivated by jealousy.  http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-TV-host-and-child-camp-founder-Domhnall-O-Lubhlai-never-stood-trial-for-11-sexual-abuse-charges-202093361.html

‘Irish Jimmy Savile’ shared bed with pupils – dead celebrity could have abused 100s of children
Domhnall O Lubhlai allegedly sexually abuse dozens of children over decades at Irish summer camps    By IrishCentral Staff Writers, Tuesday, April 16, 2013 A new documentary claims that Domhnall O Lubhlai, who has been branded the “Irish Jimmy Saville”, sexually abused dozens of boys over two decades. The families of some of his alleged victims estimate that O Lubhlai could have abused up to 100 boys while he was teaching Irish and religion between 1971 and 1991. O Lubhlai, an Irish language advocate and founder of one of Ireland’s largest Irish colleges Colaiste na bhFiann, allegedly attacked children, telling them there was only one bed available during trips to the Gaeltacht, forcing them to sleep with him…. http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-Jimmy-Savile-shared-bed-with-pupils—dead-celebrity-could-have-abused-100s-of-children-203171881.html

‘Irish Jimmy Savile’ shared bed with pupils Anne-Marie Walsh – 15 April 2013
A DECEASED RTE presenter – branded Ireland’s Jimmy Savile – allegedly attacked children after telling them there was only one bed available during trips to the Gaeltacht.
A shocking TG4 documentary on the late Domhnall O Lubhlai – known as ‘Donal Lovely’ – has led to claims that he may have abused dozens of boys over two decades. TG4 investigators said Mr O Lubhlai, who died last month, admitted to gardai that he sexually abused boys but was never brought to trial. They said alcohol was given to children and when they reached their destination they were told there was only one bed so they would have to share with him….
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/irish-jimmy-savile-shared-bed-with-pupils-29195838.html

Garda to examine sex abuse claims against ‘Irish Jimmy Savile’  Tom Brady, Security Editor – 17 April 2013  A garda unit has been ordered to take a fresh look at the allegations of sexual abuse against an Irish college founder stretching back over five decades.  Domhnaill O Lubhlai died last month without facing any criminal prosecution into complaints that he had abused boys.  Claims have now been made that the gardai were given two opportunities in 1991 and 1998 to inquire into the allegations, which date from 1955 to the present, but no investigation was held.
Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan said yesterday that having read reports in the media at the weekend he had decided to ask the force’s domestic violence and sexual assault unit to have another look at the case and determine if there were outstanding issues that needed to be addressed….
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/garda-to-examine-sex-abuse-claims-against-irish-jimmy-savile-29204067.html

Gymnastics coach who sexually abused seven girls as young as six walks free from court as judge accepts his ‘remorse’ despite attempts to blame victims
Bob Bellew admitted a string of sexual abuse charges spanning 40 years
Was handed 15-month prison sentence suspended for two years
Judge said offences were ‘not specimens of a course of conduct’
She said ‘punishment has in effect already begun’
Sentence slammed as ‘everything that is wrong’ with British justice system
‘You get six months for taking your husband’s speeding points,’ say victims
Bellew had ‘passed the blame onto his victims’ in a probation report By James Rush  12 April 2013  An internationally renowned gymnastics coach who sexually abused seven girls as young as six over a 40-year period has walked free from court. Bob Bellew, 66, has published books on gymnastics, taught at schools across the UK and was a former Community Coach of the Year. He also served on committees planning the 2012 Olympics and was chief coach of the Tower Hamlets Schools gym and dance display team. Bellew was also awarded the ‘Order of the Smile’, a UN-recognised citation for adults ‘distinguished in their love, care and aid of children’. But he admitted a string of sexual abuse charges, spanning 40 years, against girls he was tutoring….
She described two sets of allegations, the first in the 1970s, and the second in the 1990s and early 2000s. She said: ‘The offences would not have occurred but for the position of trust held by the defendant as a gymnastics coach, which gave him access to the victims who were young and therefore vulnerable.’

Bellew  was due to stand trial in September after pleading not guilty to a number of offences in April last year. However, the second set of allegations came to light after the victims read news reports of the pending court case and contacted police. Bellew admitted eight of 17 charges against him, involving seven victims as young as six years old.
However in a probation report he backed down from his admissions, denying the touching was sexual and passing the blame onto his victims. His lawyer Barry Kogan said: ‘He has had great difficulty coming to terms with the shame of what he has done, and this is demonstrated by what he has told the probation officer, trying to deny his actions, pass them off as inappropriate not sexual, and blame the victims.’….  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307610/Bob-Bellew-Gymnastics-coach-sexually-abused-girls-young-walks-free-court-judge-accepts-remorse-despite-attempts-blame-victims.html

NewsChannel 5 Investigates: Parents Claim School Officials Ignored Sexual Assaults  Feb 25, 2013  By Phil Williams Chief Investigative Reporter NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Two families claim, in a federal lawsuit filed Monday against Robertson County schools, that their young sons were sexually assaulted by other children. It allegedly happened inside East Robertson Elementary School. And even more disturbing: they claim school officials failed to stop it, failed to report it, even refused to cooperate with investigators. NewsChannel 5 Investigates confirmed that those allegations even sparked a criminal investigation into the conduct of school officials. “My child was bullied sexually, and nobody seemed to want to do anything about it,” one of the mothers, Taryn Spivey, told NewsChannel 5. Both families say the assaults have left their young children with deep emotional scars…. http://www.newschannel5.com/story/21346334/parents-claim-school-officials-ignored-sexual-assaults

Royal Commission begins 3 April, 2013   For victims of institutional abuse it was a long time coming, but the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse has finally arrived, with the first hearing to be held this morning. The first public sitting of the Commission can be seen via webstream at the Royal Commission’s website from 10am. Today’s sitting won’t hear any evidence but is expected to explain the work of the Royal Commission so far, and provide more details of future hearings with all six commissioners present…. The Catholic Church will be among the groups investigated by the Royal Commission.  http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/04/03/3728584.htm

Pope: Stopping child sexual abuse key to ‘credibility’ of Catholic Church By Philip Pullella, Reuters  Fri Apr 5, 2013 VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis wants the Catholic Church to “act decisively” to root out sexual abuse of children by priests and ensure the perpetrators are punished, the Vatican said on Friday. Francis, in a meeting with the Holy See’s doctrinal chief, Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, had declared that combating sexual abuse was important “for the Church and its credibility”, a statement said.
Francis inherited a Church mired in problems and a major scandal over priestly abuse of children. It was believed to be the first time he had taken up the issue of sex abuse with a senior member of his staff since his election on March 13.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/05/17614945-pope-stopping-child-sexual-abuse-key-to-credibility-of-catholic-church

Clergy still groom for sex, inquiry told   Peter Rolfe     Herald Sun     April 04, 2013
CLERGY are grooming children of “particularly devout” families for abuse believing they won’t report it, or if they do that their parents won’t believe them, a state parliamentary inquiry has heard. The inquiry into child sexual abuse was told clergy continued to prey on children, brainwashing them into the belief they are “unloved by God” and will incur the “wrath of God” if they report sexual abuse. Professor Caroline Taylor, who has worked with victims and police in Victoria and overseas to prosecute paedophile clergy, told the Melbourne hearing cases were particularly evident in small rural areas.
“One of the reasons they target particularly devout families is they felt it would offer protection from either a child disclosing or a child not being believed if they disclosed,” she said. Prof Taylor said she had seen cases of clergy using positions of trust to prey on vulnerable children, and churches weren’t doing enough to stop it nor showing sufficient leadership to bring to justice to those responsible. “Offenders are still grooming children at an alarming rate and some of that, I’m sure, would be occurring in the church,” she said. http://www.news.com.au/national-news/victoria/clergy-still-groom-for-sex-inquiry-told/story-fndo4cq1-1226612788291

Priest cases show abuse issues persist   Joliet Diocese has struggled to fulfill its public promise to better protect children, records show
April 07, 2013 By Stacy St. Clair, David Heinzmann and Christy Gutowski, Chicago Tribune reporters    When Will County sheriff’s deputies found the Rev. William Virtue sneaking into a private quarry in 1986, police records state that the Roman Catholic priest had blankets, two six packs of beer and a 10-year-old boy with him. He fled on foot when officers arrived, leaving the child behind.
Authorities took Virtue into custody after he returned to his car but later released him without charges because the boy’s mother said she had given her son permission to go swimming with the priest. Still, a deputy forwarded the report to Joliet Diocese officials who put it into Virtue’s personnel file — which already contained several accusations involving inappropriate behavior with underage boys.
The arrest report would remain tucked away for 20 years as Virtue continued to have contact with youths, and even after a seemingly repentant Joliet Diocese pledged in 2002 to improve its handling of sex abuse cases and held up guidelines approved by American bishops as proof of its commitment to transparency and victims’ needs.
Virtue’s personnel file, which contains 500 pages of letters, memos and reports, reflects the struggles the church faced since its public vow to better protect children after a bruising, national sex abuse scandal. Records obtained by the Tribune reveal several instances in which the diocese’s handling of abuse allegations contradicted those promises, adding to concerns about the overall efficacy of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that U.S. bishops signed amid fanfare in June 2002.
For four years after that charter’s passage, Virtue continued to minister in the central Illinois Peoria Diocese, where he officially transferred at his own request in 1988. A Tribune review found no indication that Joliet Diocese officials re-examined his personnel records after the adoption of the guidelines, which call for a review of all priests….
Virtue was removed from ministry in 2006 by the Peoria Diocese shortly after a former parishioner at St. Mary Catholic Church in Mokena alleged the priest raped him in the 1980s when he was an altar boy, according to church records.
A review board deemed the allegation credible, a decision Virtue is appealing. He has denied any inappropriate behavior.
The diocese reached an out-of-court settlement with the alleged victim from Mokena, church records show.
A Tribune investigation, which included reviewing more than 7,000 pages turned over in a settlement in an unrelated case, uncovered cases in which the Joliet Diocese failed to recognize the severity of allegations, made little effort to find victims and misled the public, raising concerns about the church’s adherence to the charter’s spirit….
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-04-07/news/ct-met-secret-priest-files-20130407_1_priest-cases-joliet-diocese-roman-catholic-priest

Files detail decades of abuse in Joliet Diocese  By Christy Gutowski, Stacy St. Clair and David  Heinzmann Tribune reporters March 21, 2013
The Joliet Diocese readily admitted that David Rudofski was sexually abused during his first confession at St. Mary Catholic Church in Mokena. It offered him an in-person apology from the bishop and more than six times his annual salary in the hope of putting a quick, quiet end to yet another ugly incident involving a priest.
But Rudofski wanted more than money.
The south suburban electrician wanted the diocese to truly pay for its repeated and, oftentimes, willful mishandling of sexual abuse cases involving clergy — and he insisted on a currency far more precious to the church than money. He demanded that the diocese settle its debt by turning over the secret archives it maintained on abusive priests and making them available for public consumption.
“What was I supposed to do? Take the money and run?” Rudofski said. “How would that help anybody else? If people don’t know how this was allowed to happen for decades, they can’t prevent it from happening again.”
The diocese, however, fought Rudofski’s efforts for more than a year before agreeing to turn over the personnel files of 16 of the 34 priests with substantiated allegations against them. It also issued a news release adding his alleged abuser, the Rev. James Burnett, to its still-growing list of accused clergy.
The files, which Rudofski’s attorney shared with the Tribune after redacting the names of other victims, contain more than 7,000 records detailing how the diocese purposefully shielded priests, misled parishioners and left children unprotected for more than a half-century. They also raise new questions about whether the church has been forthcoming about the number of local priests involved in the scandal and the percentage of clergy confronted with credible claims.
Though the Joliet Diocese’s botched handling of pedophile priests has been well-documented in recent years, the records offer the most complete portrait of the ineptitude and indifference that greeted the allegations almost since the religious district’s inception in 1948. The errors span more than six decades and involved three bishops, 91 places of worship and more than 100 victims.
Researchers and Roman Catholic Church officials have previously said that about 4 percent of priests nationally committed an act of sexual abuse against a minor between 1950 and 2002, with church officials claiming the rate of abusers within the priesthood is no different from that among other professions.
However, the files show that the Joliet Diocese — which includes parishes in DuPage, Ford, Grundy, Iroquois, Kankakee, Kendall and Will counties — had double or triple that percentage in the 1980s. In 1983, for example, more than 13 percent of priests serving in the diocese would later have credible abuse allegations leveled against them….
Rudofski was 8 years old when the Rev. James Burnett fondled him while the boy was making his first confession, documents indicate. Court records show he immediately told his mother that the priest had forced him to pull down his pants in the confessional, but she chastised him for making up an outlandish story on such an important day.
After his mother’s reprimand, Rudofski said he buried the memory and went on to have a normal childhood. He says it wasn’t until adulthood, when he struggled with nightmares about a caped man chasing him, that he confronted the past.  He sued the diocese in 2007.
In an October 2006 affidavit for her son’s lawsuit, Patricia Rudofski said she scolded him for lying because she trusted her pastor. She said she forgot about her son’s allegation until years later, when another alleged victim accused Burnett of abuse.
“I was feeling horrible thinking about my son, thinking that I’m the one who told him to do whatever the priest said,” she said in the affidavit. “I mean, I’m feeling horrible, and I just — it was like a flashback. … Oh my God, he told me.”
David Rudofski, who received a personal apology from former Bishop Peter Sartain in 2010, said he hopes the newly released files will help his mother heal, as well….
Rudofski eventually settled for $600,000 and access to 16 priests’ personnel files.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/joliet_romeoville/chi-open-files-part-of-settlement-for-priest-sex-abuse-victim-20130320,0,440885.story

Memorial to victims of child abuse expected to be approved by planners   Six entries for scheme at Garden of Remembrance have been shortlisted  The Irish Times  Frank McDonald  Thu, Apr 11, 2013
Dublin City Council’s planners are expected to approve the winning scheme for a memorial to victims of institutional abuse at the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square after they receive further information on the €500,000 project….
The winners say their project “creates a fluid progression between the Garden of Remembrance, which commemorates those who died for the cause of Irish freedom, with a memorial dedicated to the young victims of abuse” in Irish institutions….
The proposal for a memorial was made in the Ryan Report, which said it should “spotlight an episode of significance in the history of the State [and] provide a point of reference with sensory significance that keeps alive the memory of those who suffered loss and pain”….
The site adjacent to the Garden of Remembrance was made available by the OPW for the project, which the memorial committee — appointed by Mr Quinn — said should be “an enduring symbol of lost innocence that inspires others to ensure the protection of all children”.
Mr Quinn said he believed the winning scheme would be “a testimony to one of the darkest chapters in our State’s history and … serve as a constant reminder that we must never let such horrendous crimes against children happen again”….
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/memorial-to-victims-of-child-abuse-expected-to-be-approved-by-planners-1.1357503

Abuse survivor demands state inquiry Sarah Stack and David Young – 24 April 2013
AN abuse survivor who alleges an uncle of the former Bishop of Clogher was one of his attackers has demanded a state inquiry into clerical sex crimes in Northern Ireland. The Stormont Executive has established a statutory probe into abuse committed in state and church-run institutions, but its remit does not cover criminal acts committed by priests outside of children’s residential facilities.
Michael Connolly claims he was victimised for five years of his childhood in Donagh, Co Fermanagh, by parish priest Peter Duffy, who was later promoted to canon. The deceased cleric was the uncle of the former Bishop of Clogher, Joseph Duffy, who was today heavily criticised for unsatisfactory responses to child abuse allegations and risky behaviour of priests in the diocese….
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/abuse-survivor-demands-state-inquiry-29220069.html

Catholic child abuse: 187 allegations against 98 priests have led to zero convictions  4/24/13
“I am one of the fortunate survivors to have succeeded in securing a criminal conviction against one of two Spiritan priests who sexually abused me,” writes campaigner Mark Vincent Healy.
THE DIOCESES OF Clogher, Elphin, Killala and Waterford join the infamous group of seven Catholic Church authorities, including Derry, Dramore and Limerick, where not one priest has been convicted for having committed an offence or offences against a child or young person despite numerous allegations since 1 January 1975. From the 16 dioceses reviewed to date by the National Board for Safeguarding Children, there have been 187 allegations made in relation to 98 priests where there have been no convictions. This represents a third of the church authorities examined where not one priest was held to account….
To date there have been four reviews of missionary orders where a total of 113 priests have had 287 allegations raised against them but only seven priests have ever been convicted. The sad reality is that only 6.2 per cent of accused Irish missionaries are ever convicted. “I am one of the fortunate survivors to have succeeded in securing a criminal conviction against one of two Spiritan priests who sexually abused me from the ages of nine to 12 and then tried to cover it all up.” Forty-seven Spiritans had 142 allegations made against them in the second tranche of audits, and only three were convicted….
Fr Andrew Greely, a professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago believes there could be up to 50 victims per priest. Meanwhile, Richard Sipe a psychotherapist in Maryland, has said 250 victims may suffer over the lifetime of a paedophile. Shockingly, the 106 priests accused in the third tranche could possibly have abused between 5,300 to 26,500 potential victims. Just 271 came forward….
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/catholic-child-abuse-187-allegations-against-98-priests-have-led-to-zero-convictions-883536-Apr2013/

N.J. Catholics outraged over accused priest’s access to children  By Mark Mueller Religion News Service, April 30, 2013  NEWARK, N.J. — Amid calls for a Vatican investigation, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers is facing fierce criticism for his handling of a priest who attended youth retreats and heard confessions from minors in defiance of a court-ordered lifetime ban on ministry to children.
At St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Colts Neck, where the Rev. Michael Fugee had been spending time with a youth group, angry parishioners said they were never told about Fugee’s background, and they questioned Myers’ defense of the priest, the subject of a lengthy story in The Star-Ledger….
Fugee, 52, is a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark and under Myers’ supervision. His work at St. Mary’s, however, was in the neighboring Diocese of Trenton, where Bishop David O’Connell has ordered the pastor of St. Mary to bar Fugee from any church activities, a spokeswoman said in a statement….
Fugee was convicted in 2003 of criminal sexual contact for allegedly fondling a 14-year-old boy’s genitals on two occasions. Three years later, an appellate court vacated the verdict, ruling the trial judge should not have allowed jurors to hear the part of Fugee’s confession in which he described himself as homosexual or bisexual. The rest of the confession was not called into question.
Rather than retry Fugee, prosecutors allowed him to enter a rehabilitation program for first-time offenders, on the condition that he undergo counseling for sex offenders and sign an agreement barring him from any work in which children are involved. The archdiocese’s vicar general, on behalf of Myers, signed the agreement as well.
Yet The Star-Ledger found Fugee has apparently violated that pledge with impunity, attending retreats and hearing confessions and traveling with members of the St. Mary youth group to Canada….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/nj-catholics-outraged-over-accused-priests-access-to-children/2013/04/30/f222d2ca-b1c6-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html

Catholics paid $36m to 600 abuse victims in Victoria  By Greg Ansley Thursday May 2, 2013
Australia’s bid to prise open the secret world of endemic child sexual abuse in churches and other powerful institutions has stepped up a notch with revelations of the scale of perversion.
The Victorian inquiry resumed this week to admissions, contrition and apologies from the Catholic Church, which said it had paid A$30 million ($36 million) in compensation to about 600 victims of deviant priests in the state.
Next week the New South Wales special commission of inquiry will open its hearings in Newcastle, north of Sydney, in the diocese that triggered both the state inquiry and the federal royal commission into abuse of children in the care of religious, government and other institutions.
A key focus of the NSW hearings will be the late, defrocked priest Denis McAlinden, whose long-term abuse of dozens of children was known to the church but hidden as he was shuffled between Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, where he worked at Tokomaru Bay near Gisborne.
McAlinden – whose predecessor was later convicted of child sexual abuse – was central to investigations by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, the whistleblower policeman who sabotaged his career by making public alleged cover-ups by the Church….
In Ballarat, Church officials knew by 1975 that priest Gerald Ridsdale was a paedophile, but allowed him to continue working. Ridsdale was later twice convicted for child sexual abuse, and moved to different parishes.
The Catholic Order of Salesians of Don Bosco, which works with homeless and at-risk youths, and runs schools and boys’ clubs, said it had paid more than A$2 million in compensation to abuse victims and had 49 complaints against its priests in Victoria, three of whom will face courts this year. The Brothers of St John of God said it had received 31 cases of abuse by 15 members.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10880999

Child protection advocate Hetty Johnstone wants Family Court investigated by Royal Commission
Michael Madigan   The Courier-Mail May 27, 2013 A FATHER winning custody of a daughter despite evidence he had sexually abused the toddler was just one of the cases warranting the Family Court’s inclusion in the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, an advocacy group says.
Child sexual assault victims will suffer on in silence unless the Family Law Court is investigated by the Royal Commission, according to child protection advocate Hetty Johnston.
The founder and executive director of Bravehearts says the inquiry contains a glaring omission in its terms of reference. The Family Law Court often hears disturbing allegations of sexual abuse.
“Every week in Australia the family courts are ordering children into contact with, and even into the custody of parents who are dangerous, toxic and abusive because Family Courts do not have the powers, expertise and resources to competently investigate allegations of child abuse,” Ms Johnston said…. http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/child-protection-advocate-hetty-johnstone-wants-family-court-investigated-by-royal-commission/story-e6freoof-1226650909760

NSW priest facing 124 child sex charges AAP May 8, 2013 A former Catholic priest is accused of 124 child sex offences after scores of additional charges were laid against him.
The 59-year-old man faced Armidale Local Court, in the NSW New England region, on Wednesday, when prosecutors laid 64 fresh charges.  He remains on bail until his next appearance in the same court on July 3.
Police allege the offences relate to alleged assaults on a boy and two girls, aged from nine to 19, that took place in the early 1980s at Moree, Narrabri, Inverell and Armidale.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/newshome/17067429/nsw-priest-facing-124-child-sex-charges/
Judge could order Leesburg child porn suspect to pay for own attorney  Friday, April 5, 2013
LEESBURG, Fla.  A man who the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said downloaded the most child pornography in the state of Florida was denied bail Friday morning. Officers said John Shearen had more than 500,000 images and videos at his home in Leesburg. He was arrested Thursday, on his 51st birthday, at his home in the Lakeside Pointe apartment complex, FDLE said. Agents said they identified Shearen last month while monitoring child porn websites, and they caught him at his computer Thursday morning as he was downloading more videos….
“We were able to seize anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million images and videos. They were stored on several computers and external hard drives to actually being transferred from the computers to separate DVDs, and he has a DVD collection of child pornography. So, we have a lot of work to do. Those initial cases will be charged today,” said Special Agent Jeff Duncan. Agents said Shearen admitted his crimes….  Shearen faces 20 counts each of distribution and possession of child porn, but agents said there may be more charges filed as the investigation continues.
“He is the No. 1 person who can distribute child pornography throughout the world,” said Duncan. “And he’s been doing it.”
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/fdle-man-who-downloaded-most-child-pornography-sta/nXCb3/

Church Whistle-Blowers Join Forces on Abuse  By LAURIE GOODSTEIN May 20, 2013
They call themselves Catholic Whistleblowers, a newly formed cadre of priests and nuns who say the Roman Catholic Church is still protecting sexual predators.
Although they know they could face repercussions, they have banded together to push the new pope to clean house and the American bishops to enforce the zero-tolerance policies they adopted more than a decade ago.
The group began organizing quietly nine months ago without the knowledge of their superiors or their peers, and plan to make their campaign public this week. Most in the steering group of 12 have blown the whistle on abusers in the past, and three are canon lawyers who once handled abuse cases on the church’s behalf. Four say they were sexually abused as children.
Their aim, they say, is to support both victims and fellow whistle-blowers, and identify shortcomings in church policies….the whistle-blowers’ group contends that vigilance is necessary because some bishops are violating the zero-tolerance policies, and abusive clergy (who now number 6,275, according to the bishops’ count of those accusations that they deem credible) still have access to children. They point to the revelations in the last month that a priest in Newark who was a convicted sex offender restricted by a court order from working with children had been ministering in a Catholic parish in Trenton, taking confessions from children and going on weekend youth retreats….
The whistle-blowers’ group plans to hold its first news conference this week in New York, and some members are bracing for the reaction. They said they know priests who spoke up and were removed from their parishes, hustled into retirement or declared “unstable” and sent to treatment centers for clergy with substance-abuse problems or sexual addictions…..
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/us/catholic-church-whistle-blowers-join-forces-on-abuse.html

Archdiocese of Newark Vicar General resigning in wake of Rev. Michael Fugee scandal     By Ron Zeitlinger/The Jersey Journal May 24, 2013 An Archdiocese of Newark official who was born and raised in Jersey City is resigning in the wake of the Rev. Michael Fugee scandal.
In a letter that will be read to all parishioners during this weekend’s Masses, Archbishop John J. Myers said that Monsignor John E. Doran, previously a pastor at St. Cassian in Montclair and Our Lady of Sorrows in South Orange, is stepping down as Vicar General, effective immediately.

Fugee was charged last week with violating a lifetime ban on ministry to children by working with a Monmouth County youth group. The Star-Ledger has reported that Fugee has gone on numerous retreats with children over the years since the agreement, an that the interactions were never hidden from the Archdiocese.
A jury convicted him in 2003 of aggravated criminal sexual contact, but three years later the verdict was overturned in appellate court. In that decision, the panel said that the trial judge should not have allowed jurors to hear the part of Fugee’s confession in which he questioned his sexual identity.
Fugee, 52, signed the agreement in July 2007 to avoid retrial on the groping charges. The archdiocese also signed onto the agreement, pledging to supervise the priest. Doran’s signature is on the document…. http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2013/05/post_309.html

N.J priest charged with violating ban on working with kids appears in court By Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger May 24, 2013  HACKENSACK — Stripped first of his ministry and then his freedom, the priest shuffled into a Hackensack courtroom yesterday, his arms and legs shackled, a dazed expression on his face, to hear the charges that could land him in prison for 18 months.
He said nothing during his five-minute appearance, staring almost exclusively at the wooden wall before him, his left arm and left leg twitching.
It has been a dizzying descent for the Rev. Michael Fugee, who was given a second chance in the priesthood after admitting to police 12 years ago that he groped a teenage boy.
It was a chance that Fugee squandered, authorities say, by interacting with children in violation of a 2007 agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office.
“Michael Fugee purposely and knowingly disobeyed a judicial order,” Assistant Prosecutor Demetra Maurice announced to the courtroom.
In an efficient, emotionless tone, Maurice laid out the heart of the state’s case, saying Fugee had heard confessions from children at youth retreats, churches and a private home over the past three years.
The contact with children, first reported by The Star-Ledger late last month, was clearly barred under the agreement, Maurice said, adding that authorities would soon seek an indictment before a grand jury…. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/05/priest_charged_after_violating.html

Evangelical leaders stand by pastor accused of abuse cover-up  By Sarah Pulliam Bailey Religion News Service, Friday, May 24, 2013 Several leading evangelical pastors and authors have come to the defense of a pastor accused in a lawsuit for covering up sexual abuse of children.
C. J. Mahaney was named as a defendant in a lawsuit, which charged that he and other leaders of Sovereign Grace Ministries permitted the abuse of children to occur in churches that formed part of the group. Sovereign Grace, an association of 80 Reformed evangelical churches, is based in Louisville, Ky.
Maryland Judge Sharon V. Burrell dismissed the lawsuit ruling that nine of 11 plaintiffs waited too long to sue under the statute of limitations. Their attorney plans to appeal the judge’s decision….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/evangelical-leaders-stand-by-pastor-accused-of-abuse-cover-up/2013/05/24/30d6208a-c4b9-11e2-9642-a56177f1cdf7_story.html

Judge lifts ban on naming ex-priest Bill Carney accused of historic child sex abuse  Tom Tuite – 22 May 2013 A FORMER priest awaiting trial on historic child sex abuse charges does not have the right to anonymity, a judge held today. William Carney, aged 62, is charged with 34 counts of indecent assault of eight boys and two girls, at locations in Dublin and north east Leinster from 1969 until 1989. Today at Cloverhill District Court, Judge Grainne Malone lifted an earlier gag order prohibiting the news media from naming the 62-year-old who currently has no fixed address.
Her ruling came following submissions from lawyers for the Irish Independent, RTE, The Irish Times, and the Irish Daily Mail’s publishers Associated Newspapers….
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/judge-lifts-ban-on-naming-expriest-bill-carney-accused-of-historic-child-sex-abuse-29288765.html

Ex-swim coach accused of abuse appears in court  By Peter Schworm    Globe Staff    May 20, 2013
MEDFORD — When the young boy joined the Arlington Boys & Girls Club swim team in the late 1970s, his coach was Paul Collins, who also dated his family’s neighbor and would sometimes fill in as baby sitter.
On those occasions, when the boy went to sleep, Collins would sit at his bedside and “begin rubbing his back and chest,” according to allegations detailed in court documents released Monday. Collins would then massage the boy below the waist and tell him he should not talk about it to anyone else. It was, he told the boy, “our little secret.”
The boy, now a middle-aged man, is one of four adults who in recent weeks have accused Collins of sexual assault, part of an expanding investigation into child abuse at the youth club. The men came forward after club officials announced in February that another former employee, William Sullivan, had allegedly sexually abused children at the club between the 1970s and 1990s. Sullivan is deceased.
On Monday, two days after being arrested in his Long Island home, Collins, 62, was arraigned in Cambridge District Court on charges of sexually assaulting the boys and ordered held on $250,000 bail. Collins pleaded not guilty to the accusations, but prosecutors said he had admitted to sexual contact with two accusers and told investigators he may also have had contact with the other two….
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/20/new-york-man-charged-with-sexually-abusing-children-arlington-boys-girls-club-late/dQnWc6GwgfQDC1WtXq5iMI/story.html

Ex-swimming coach Rick Curl gets 7 years in child sex abuse case By Amy Brittain and Chris Trevino, Published: May 23   Former D.C. area swimming coach Rick Curl was sentenced to seven years in prison for child sexual abuse at a hearing Thursday that also featured a revelation from Curl’s attorney that the University of Maryland knew about the abuse more than 25 years ago.
The sentencing in Montgomery County Circuit Court brought closure to a criminal case centered on Curl’s five-year sexual abuse of a swimming pupil that began in the 1980s, but it also raised new questions about the University of Maryland’s role in the decades-old case.
The victim, Kelley Currin, now 43, was 13 when the abuse began. She swam for the Curl-Burke Swim Club, one of the nation’s largest such organizations, through which Curl, now 63, had guided athletes to Olympic gold medals.
Currin’s parents became aware of her sexual encounters with Curl in 1986 and confronted the coach around their kitchen table, Thomas Kelly Jr., Curl’s attorney, said at the sentencing hearing.
They demanded that Curl sign a letter admitting that he had had sex with their daughter, who was then known as Kelley Davies. At some point, the attorney said, the letter was given to the athletic director at the University of Maryland, where, in 1987, Curl began coaching swimming and diving, in addition to his private coaching job. Kelly said in court that after U-Md. officials received the letter, they quietly pushed Curl out….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ex-swimming-coach-rick-curl-to-be-sentenced-in-child-sex-abuse-case/2013/05/23/d80320f2-c3a5-11e2-9fe2-6ee52d0eb7c1_story.html

No bond for Leesburgh child porn suspect  A man who the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said downloaded the most child pornography in the state of Florida was denied bail Friday morning.
http://www.wftv.com/videos/news/no-bond-for-leesburgh-child-porn-suspect/vxQyP/

News Releases  May 6, 2013 Boston, MA
Massachusetts man pleads guilty to solicitation to kidnap a child   Dungeon discussed in online chats discovered in defendant’s basement; discussed mutual interest in abducting, raping, murdering and eating children with others in California, Florida, Kansas, New Jersey and New Mexico – latest developments in Operation Holitna
BOSTON — A citizen of the United Kingdom and most recently of Worcester, Mass., pleaded guilty May 6 to solicitation to commit a crime of violence – kidnaping of a child – and distribution and possession of child pornography. The guilty plea is the result of an extensive worldwide investigation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
According to the agreed upon statement of facts, Geoffrey Portway, 40, of Worcester, engaged in numerous chats with many individuals about a mutual interest in abducting, raping, murdering and eating children. Many of these conversations were accompanied by the trading of child pornography. These chats also included images of children known to them, accompanied by discussions of the desire to sexually abuse, murder and cannibalize those children….
At least as early as 2010, Portway utilized Skype and other programs to communicate with Arnett, trading child pornography including images of injured, mutilated and deceased children while chatting about the sexual abuse, rape, abduction, murder and cannibalism of children. Over months, Portway repeatedly solicited Arnett to kidnap a child for him, with the intent that Portway would ultimately rape, kill and eat that child. These solicitations for help abducting a child included discussing real children – by name and photo – that Arnett claimed to know and have access to.
In the chats, Portway and Arnett discuss different ways to kidnap children and the age range that Portway prefers. During the time that Portway was soliciting Arnett, Portway had been told that Arnett had helped others with such requests before and that Arnett had experience with the abduction and sexual abuse of children. Arnett has since pleaded guilty in Kansas to the sexual exploitation of a child for the purposes of producing child pornography….
A forensic examination of the computers uncovered evidence of over 4,500 trades of child pornography between Portway and others. Many of these trades involved Portway distributing child pornography to others based on their stated specific preferences, including images and videos appearing to depict dead children and the cannibalism of children….
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1305/130506boston.htm

News Releases  February 11, 2013 Kansas City, KS
Eastern Kansas man pleads guilty to producing child pornography
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A suburban Kansas City man, who was arrested in May as part of an international investigation into child sexual exploitation, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to producing child pornography.
This guilty plea resulted from an extensive investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Michael D. Arnett, 38, of Roeland Park, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of producing child pornography. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison.
During a May 15 search warrant, investigators discovered images of child pornography on a computer at Arnett’s home in Roeland Park. The discovered child pornography included images of victims from Overland Park, Kan., who were identified through clues in the photos. For example, some photos showed a water bottle with a unique business logo and a phone number beginning with the 913 local area code. Both clues identified an aquatics business in Overland Park. This detective work allowed HSI investigators to significantly narrow the focus of their search for the victims.
With the assistance of teachers at an elementary school in Shawnee Mission, Kan., HSI investigators ultimately identified three boys who had been photographed at Arnett’s home at 5451 Juniper Drive in Roeland Park. At the time the photos were taken, the boys were 11, 8 and 2 years old….http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1302/130211kansascity.htm

News Releases  June 8, 2012 Boston, MA Massachusetts man sentenced for production of child pornography   Led to a network of child pornographers around the world; 38 arrested, 138 children rescued BOSTON – A Milford man was sentenced to 18 years in prison in federal court. This investigation has led to an international child pornography case involving the abuse of 138 children. This ongoing worldwide investigation is being led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Robert A. Diduca, 48, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV to 18 years in prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release. On Nov. 17, 2011, Diduca pleaded guilty to production, distribution and possession of child pornography….
Diduca engaged in an online chat with an individual being separately prosecuted in Arizona, persuading him to sexually abuse a four-year-old child and take sexually explicit photos of the child. Diduca provided the individual with a camera and suggested how the child should be posed.
Diduca was also a member of an online forum for those with a sexual interest in children, and sent a pornographic image of a child via email. An investigation of that distributed image led to the identification of the child, and the arrest of a Dutch national in the Netherlands, who was charged with production, distribution and possession of child pornography, as well as the sexual assault of 87 minors.
Forensic evidence revealed over 27,000 images of child pornography in Diduca’s possession….
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1206/120608boston.htm

News Releases December 13, 2010 Boston, MA
Boston-area child sexual exploitation investigation leads to arrests in the Netherlands
BOSTON – Special agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Boston, along with Massachusetts State Police (MSP) detectives assigned to the Worcester District Attorney’s Office, conducted advanced computer forensics on a computer seized in a child sexual exploitation investigation in the Boston-area. After intensive investigative work, HSI special agents and the MSP, working with Interpol and Dutch authorities, were able to track these photos to the Netherlands. Dutch officials consequently arrested a 27-year-old daycare center employee who confessed to dozens of sex crimes with children….
KLPD-Ipol, along with Amsterdam Police, arrested a 27-year-old suspect. The suspect had babysat the victim and had worked at at least two daycare centers in Amsterdam. He also offered his services online as a babysitter.
The man’s computers were seized and will be searched for evidence of child sexual exploitation and he has since confessed to dozens of sex crimes allegedly committed over the past year and a half. On Sunday, more than 50 parents were also informed that the suspect has either confessed to abusing their children or was thought to have done so….
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1012/101213boston.htm

Extraordinary endings in kidnapping cases Tue May 7, 2013
The rescue of three kidnapping victims is an extraordinary ending for the child abductees.
Such endings are rare, but here are some similar cases of child kidnappings which have occurred in recent years:
Jaycee Dugard
Ms Dugard was kidnapped in June 1991 in South Lake Tahoe, California at age 11 and remained missing for more than 18 years….
Elizabeth Smart
Ms Smart was abducted from her bedroom in an affluent suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah, in March, 2003, at age 14.
She was found nine months later in Sandy, Utah, only a few miles from her home….
Shawn Hornbeck
Mr Hornbeck was 11 years old when he was abducted near his home in Richwoods, Missouri while riding his bicycle and remained missing for more than four years.
He was found, along with Ben Ownby, 13, who had been abducted more recently, in the Kirkwood, Missouri, apartment of Michael J Devlin, in January 2007.
Devlin pleaded guilty to abduction and child sex abuse and was sentenced to life in prison.
Natascha Kampusch
Ms Kampusch was abducted at the age of 10 in March 1998 on her way to school in Vienna, Austria and held for more than eight years in a secret cellar in the small town of Strasshof until she escaped in August, 2006….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-07/extraordinary-endings-in-kidnapping-cases/4674938

U.S.: Women forced into sex 25 times a day  Associated Press Wed May 1, 2013
NEW YORK — The young Mexican women were driven to rural New Jersey, where their handlers used threats to make them have sex with 25 farmworkers a day. Or they were confined to dingy brothels in the New York City area that advertised their services with “chica cards,” business cards passed out on street corners to attract customers. They were paid very little, or nothing at all.
U.S. authorities detailed their ordeal in a criminal complaint charging 13 people with smuggling dozens into the United States and forcing them into prostitution. Some of the defendants were to appear Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan to face multiple counts including sex trafficking and interstate transportation for prostitution.
The ring “lured their unsuspecting victims to the United States and then consigned them to a living hell,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
The investigation was among several aimed at “blockading the repugnant sex trafficking corridor” used to exploit victims from Tenancingo, Mexico, said James Hayes, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York…. http://www.azcentral.com/news/free/20130501new-york-sex-ring.html

An ongoing battle against the porn connection  Bharat Dogra  The Statesman Asia News Network New Delhi May 2, 2013   Recent years have seen massive worldwide changes in cultural and social norms that are closely related to the spread of pornography and new forms of prostitution. These need to be studied and understood carefully, particularly in the context of their impact on violence and crime against women and children.
Researchers Rebecca Whisnant and Christine Stark describe the many-sided spread of this global industry: “Prostitution is a multi-billion dollar global industry that includes adult and child pornography, bartering sex for food and shelter, massage parlours, prostitution rings, stripping, saunas, live sex shows, street prostitution, escort services or outcall, ritual abuse, peep shows, phone sex, international and domestic trafficking, mail-order bride services and prostitution tourism. The prostitution industry is an enormously powerful and pervasive culture presence.”….
According to Forbes magazine, the contemporary legal pornography business is a $56-billion global industry, including a huge presence of some big multinational companies….
In a research paper titled “The Use of New Communication Technologies for Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children”, Donna Hughes…. This study quotes experiences of police officers who blame the Internet particularly for the spread of child porn. Raymond Smith of the US Postal Inspection Service, who has handled hundreds of cases of child pornography, found that the rise in Internet use by sexual predators has also increased their use of the US mail service. He said that from the time they first started investigating child pornography in the early 1980s until five years ago, they had almost eliminated the distribution of child pornography.
But since the Internet this has steadily increased. In 1998, 32 per cent of cases of distribution of child porn were related to the Internet. In 1999, 47 per cent were Internet-related, and in 2000 this had risen to 77 per cent. This paper concludes, “The use of new communication and information technologies for the sexual exploitation of women and children is creating a crisis for women’s and children’s status, and dignity all over the world.”
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/An-ongoing-battle-against-the-porn-connection-30205229.html

Retired Teacher: School Officials Knew About Sexual Abuse, Did Nothing   Carol Buchanan tried to come forward in the 1990s, but was punished for it   By Cheryl Hurd   Friday, Mar 29, 2013
Carol Buchanan is a retired teacher who taught in the Moraga School District.
Now she may become best known as a whistleblower in the sexual abuse case involving now University of California at Berkeley swim coach, Kristen Cunnane.
“Why didn’t somebody listen? What else could I have done?” Buchanan asked.  “I do feel guilty in hindsight.  If this happened today, there would be no problem.  I would immediately go to (Child Protective Services).”
Buchannan said in the 1990s, students told her  that  a popular science teacher, Dan Witters, was sexually abusing them, and she complained to administrators
She says the district wasn’t responding to her complaints and, after a 25-year career with the  district,  she wasn’t fired — but they strongly suggested that She take a leave of absence. She did.
Buchanan says she felt vindicated when Cunnane publicly came forward last year. She was a middle school student decades ago, and is now a 30-year-old swim coach at UC Berkeley….
A recent article written about Buchannan’s allegation pointed out hat it failed to find documents to corroborate her story but superintendent Bruce Burns says the district is still looking.
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Retired-Teacher-Schools-Officials-Knew-About-Sexual-Abuse-Did-Nothing-200555861.html

Parents sue Grain Valley School District after teacher’s abuse  March 29, 2013, by Michelle Pekarsky GRAIN VALLEY, Mo. —  Attorneys for the parents of a girl allegedly abused by a teacher in the Grain Valley School District filed a lawsuit against the district principal, superintendent, and other school officials, alleging they did not take appropriate action against Matthew Nelson.
Nelson, formerly a teacher at Prairie Branch Elementary School, was arrested in January 2012 and later pleaded guilty to 10 counts of child molestation, five counts of statutory sodomy and one count of attempted child molestation for incidences dating back to August 2008. The crimes involved children under 14 years of age, some under the age of 12.
The lawsuit states the Grain Valley superintendent and assistant superintendent, along with the former and current principal of Prairie Branch Elementary failed to take action against Nelson even though they had knowledge of prior inappropriate contact by Nelson against at least one other student.
In a letter sent home to parents in February 2012, district superintendent Dr. Roy Moss said that someone first filed an anonymous report on teacher Matthew Nelson in 2008, and that the district investigated the allegations with the limited information that they had at the time….
http://fox4kc.com/2013/03/29/parents-sue-grain-valley-school-district-after-teachers-abuse/

Scientists prepare to exhume bodies at Dozier School for Boys in the Florida panhandle      03/27/2013 By Carson Chambers   MARIANNA ….Wards of the defunct Dozier School for Boys, children, are buried in the Marianna, Florida graveyard.  Ground-penetrating radar revealed nearly 50 unmarked graves that the state never detected. “Like a sorority or a fraternity, everything was closed-mouth,” said Bryant, talking about his town. Bryant, 79, grew-up in Marianna with the silence in the woods.  He heard the hushed stories of boys who were beaten, tortured, or worse:  Disappeared.
He says his town was complicit in keeping these secrets.  “Nobody knew anything or was going to tell you anything,” he said.
Bryant tells a story he heard about Dozier boys running away at night.  He says a group called the “Dog Boys” would wait for them in the woods.
“The dogs would about tear them to pieces and they would holler and yell,” he says.
“How many?  What happened to them?  Were there crimes committed?” asked U.S. Senator Bill Nelson standing atop Boot Hill on Wednesday.
Now, after nearly a century of quiet, Nelson, University of South Florida researchers and a Tampa Bay family searching to bring their loved one home, may have made enough noise to answer these questions. They are pushing for a massive exhumation of an unknown number of bodies. “We were uncovering what was clearly grave shafts,” said USF’s Dr. Erin Kimmerle.
Her team of anthropologists have spent months mapping the Boot Hill Cemetery.  Their work turned up nearly 20 more graves than the Florida Department of Law Enforcement originally documented.  They have asked family members of missing boys for DNA samples to help them identify remains.  “If there were crimes committed, remember the statute of limitations never runs out on murder,” said Senator Nelson. Now a court order sits on a judge’s desk.  A signature would mean the USF team would return to the site to begin work….
http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/state/scientists-prepare-to-exhume-bodies-at-dozier-school-for-boys-in-the-florida-panhandle

Dozier School for Boys survivor Captain Bill Nelson speaks out for first time   Captain Bill Nelson says he was beaten, assaulted  03/29/2013 By Carson Chambers  MADEIRA BEACH, Fla. ….Nelson is speaking out for the first time about the two-and-a-half years he spent at the Dozier School for Boys. Just a skinny 11-year old, he was sent away for a crime he was later exonerated of.
“I was raped over there as a kid, and there were several boys raped.  Anything we spoke out about, we went to the White House,” he said.
It’s a story many Dozier boys never lived to tell.
“A lot of boys didn’t make it. They weren’t strong enough to make it,” said Nelson.
….”Sometimes at night you could hear the screams,” said Nelson.
It’s a small building where the temperature drops inside and paint peels off the walls and where Nelson remembers being tortured.
“Sometimes you stayed two or three days in chains and they beat you and you know, some of them made it. Some of them didn’t,” he said.
What do you think happened to them?  “Well,” said Nelson, “they were beaten to death.
Soon the Dozier graveyard, known as Boot Hill, may become a crime scene.
“We’ll work together with the Medical Examiner and do skeletal autopsies basically, which then allows for identification through DNA,” said USF’s Dr. Erin Kimmerle….
The state shut down the institution for wayward boys in 2011 after allegations of abuse and suspicious deaths….
http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_south_pinellas/madeira_beach/dozier-school-for-boys-survivor-speaks-out-for-first-time

Predatory paedophile’s ‘twisted and depraved’ plot to ‘breed’ a daughter so he could sexually abuse her Robin Malka, 38, hatched a plan to father his own victims
He said he believed having sex with babies was ‘natural and beautiful’
Also sent sickening images of infants being molested and raped
By Anthony Bond  3 April 2013  ….Malka used the online username ‘dom4padeomom’ while he chatted with undercover officers ‘Stevie’ and ‘Craig’ about abusing two girls aged three and five.
He was also a member of sickening internet groups including ‘family fun incest’ and ‘all about incest’. In addition to arranging a child sex offence in November last year, Malka also admitted possessing 721 indecent images, including pictures and movies at level five – the most serious category which includes images of sadism and bestiality. ….further admitted distributing more than 30 films and photos. He is now facing a lengthy jail term….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2302976/Predatory-paedophiles-twisted-depraved-plot-breed-daughter-sexually-abuse-her.html

describes crimes
Delhi Rape: Man Arrested After Police Bribed Victim’s Family with £24 to Keep Quiet
By IBTimes Staff Reporter April 20, 2013
A 25-year-old man accused of the brutal rape of a small girl in the Indian capital of New Delhi has been arrested in the neighbouring state of Bihar. Identified as Manoj Kumar, he is accused of keeping a five-year-old girl hostage for two days and repeatedly raping her….
the young girl’s parents have revealed shocking tales of woe at the hands of police officials. They claim local policemen refused to take any action when they filed their complaint and even bribed them with Rs 2,000 (roughly £24) not to take any official action.
“We went to the police to register an FIR (First Information Report) but they refused. They never tried to find her, and instead drove us away,” the victim’s father explained, adding, “The police told us that we should not highlight the issue in the media and gave us Rs 2,000 as kharcha-pani (for expenses and refreshment).” The police are also said to have told the father to “thank god that his daughter was alive” and be happy with that. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/459462/20130420/delhi-girl-rape-bottle-police-bribe-genitals.htm

Police offered bribe, advised me to thank god: rape victim’s father
New Delhi, April 19, 2013  The father of the five-year-old girl who was held captive and raped by her neighbour said on Friday that the police had offered him Rs.2,000 to keep quiet, and advised him to “thank god that his daughter was alive”.  “We went to the police to register an FIR (First Information Report) but they refused. They never tried to find her, and instead drove us away,” the father of the victim told reporters here outside the Swami Dayananda Hospital in east Delhi’s Shahdara, where the girl is battling for life.
The father said that when the family finally found the girl on Wednesday, the police told the family to not highlight the issue, and offered them Rs.2000 to keep mum. “The police told us that we should not highlight the issue in the media and gave us Rs.2,000 as kharcha-pani (for expenses and refreshment),” said the father, adding that the police further told them to “thank god that his daughter was alive”….
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/police-offered-bribe-advised-me-to-thank-god-rape-victims-father/article4633445.ece

President shocked and anguished over five-year-old girl’s rape in Delhi Press Trust of India April 20, 2013
New Delhi: Shocked and anguished at the rape of a five-year-old girl in Delhi, President Pranab Mukherjee today called for urgent introspection to identify causes behind repeated failure of society to ensure security of women and children. He also sought urgent steps for bringing perpetrators to immediate justice.
“I am shocked and deeply anguished at the latest incident of sexual assault and rape of a five-year-old child in Delhi. I join her family in praying for a speedy recovery and call upon concerned authorities to ensure the best possible medical attention for her,” Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson Venu Rajamony quoted the President as saying….
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/president-shocked-and-anguished-over-five-year-old-girl-s-rape-in-delhi-356577

Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Information

Pierced ears save Gulu girls from ritual sacrifice  by MOSES AKENA Tuesday, April 2  2013
Rose Ongom tells a tale of how her two daughters were kidnapped for ritual sacrifice in a period of five months. You could say death has knocked on Rose Ongom’s door, twice. And twice, she has been lucky. Last Saturday, Ongom’s daughter survived being sacrificed, after she was snatched from among her friends as they were collecting water in a nearby well in Gulu Municipality.
It was at 11am that the six-year-old, Lilly Adong was kidnapped. After she heard that her child was missing, Ongom was prompted to send boda boda cyclists as far as Pabbo Sub-county in Amuru District in search of the missing child. The journey is 25 kilometres.
It was only at 6pm that the minor was returned, terrified and crying, to the very spot where she was snatched by a young woman. According to her parents, Adong said she was taken to a house where she saw another young boy, and later to a forest. They believe she was brought back because she had pierced ears….
However, the two kidnappers reportedly started disagreeing when they realised that she had pierced ears. She escaped in the confusion but recounted seeing three headless bodies of children where she was taken. There has been an outcry from the residents about these cases….
The deputy officer in-charge of Aywee Police Post, Mr George Willy Rachkara, confirmed the prevalence of the cases, but blames some wrong elements in Lira District, whom he says use people in Gulu to carry out the act.   http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Pierced-ears-save-Gulu-girls-from-ritual-sacrifice/-/688334/1736456/-/gqibl2/-/index.html

Boy, 6, escapes ritual murder  Sunday, 31 March 2013 Police in Eastern region are holding a man for attempting to have his six-year-old nephew murdered for ritual purposes. The suspect, 35-year old Kofi Tawiah of Akyem Sedimase, allegedly offered the boy to a Nigerien Fetish priest at Asiakwa for human sacrifice as part a set of rituals needed to be performed to make him rich.
The fetish Priest had earlier given the suspect the options of either sacrificing an animal, in which case he will do dry fasting for a week or sacrificing a human being in place of the animal and to also make up for the seven-day dry fasting.
The Fetish Priest however reported Kofi Tawiah to the Kyebi Police after the suspect had returned to him with news that he intended sacrificing one of his sister’s children for the ritual….
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=269559

Man admits trying to sacrifice son at cemetery 4/5/13
SAN DIEGO — A man who tried to sacrifice his 8-year-old son at Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego pleaded guilty Friday to attempted murder, leaving it up to a judge to decide if he was insane at the time of the offense.
Joseph Adalberto Ramirez, 32, also admitted allegations that he inflicted great bodily injury on the victim and used a piece of broken glass to injure him. Ramirez faces 13 years in prison if he’s found sane. If a judge finds he was insane when he committed the crime, he would be sent to a state mental hospital…. Paredes testified that Ramirez started acting strangely after being baptized at a Christian church….  Once at the cemetery, Ramirez had the family drink sangria and eat energy bars, calling it `The Last Supper,” according to Paredes. After he was arrested, witnesses said Ramirez said something about his grandmother being evil, according to court testimony. http://fox5sandiego.com/2013/04/05/man-admits-trying-to-sacrifice-son-at-cemetery/

The case of a vodou curse, drugs and rape heads to trial  Saturday, 04.06.13 By DAVID OVALLE
When a New York woman believed she had a vodou curse placed upon her, she turned to a Miami religious practitioner named Pierre Jenty, investigators say. But after paying more than $20,000 to Jenty, sometimes for help with the “spirits” to win the lottery, her experience ended in a North Miami hotel room — with the older man drugging and raping her, according to prosecutors….
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/06/3327302/the-case-of-a-vodou-curse-drugs.html

Lover given 15 years for ‘ritual’ killing  Published in: Legalbrief Today  Date: Wed 03 April 2013  Category: In Court Issue No: 3245  Keeping satanic symbols, speaking in tongues and performing weird rituals were the things Grace Tommy (37) was exposed to while she was in a relationship with her killer, Samantha Mitchell (38), who was sentenced yesterday to 15 years’ imprisonment, says a report in The Herald.
Tommy’s sister welcomed the sentence, handed down in the Eastern Cape High Court (Port Elizabeth), and detailed the bizarre life of the couple before it ended in the death. Mitchell was convicted of killing Tommy in their flat in December 2009….In handing down sentence, the judge said Mitchell had deprived the court of vital information about the motive behind Tommy’s death. ‘The accused has not been honest to the court, especially regarding the manner in which the deceased got the injuries that led to her death.’
http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=20130403082938269

‘Satan made me’: NSW nursing home murderer May 27, 2013 A registered nurse has become the worst mass murderer in New South Wales history, pleading guilty today to killing 11 elderly residents. Their nurse, Roger Dean….
On the first day of his Supreme Court trial on Monday, Dean, 37, pleaded guilty to the murders of 11 elderly residents who died as a result of the fires he lit at the home on November 18, 2011.
He also admitted to causing grievous bodily harm to a further eight residents who were injured in the blaze, described by paramedics and firefighters as one of the worst scenes they had ever come across. According to crown documents, the registered nurse had stolen more than 200 pills from the nursing home the night before and police officers were called to the home during his November 18 night shift to investigate the theft….
He was arrested and charged later that evening, telling police, “It was Satan telling him to do it”. As Dean stood up in court and softly said “guilty” to the 11 counts of murder, his victims’ families wept and one woman left court sobbing loudly….
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/05/27/11/55/dean-pleads-guilty-to-nursing-home-murders

describes crimes
Fear grips residents of Ahanta West over suspected ritual murder  Regional News of Monday, 27 May 2013 Source: GNA Fear has gripped residents of Ahanta West District in the Western Region over suspected ritual murders of four innocent citizens in the area. The victims were gruesomely murdered with parts of their body removed, and their corpses badly mutilated in what looks like a ritual murder. The District Chief Executive (DCE) for the area, Mr. Joseph Dofoyenah, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that the strange deaths had occurred within a period of three months. http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/regional/artikel.php?ID=275146

Forensic evidence brought for ritual murder case 14 November 2012 Estelle Ellis
IN evidence that could have been straight from an episode of CSI, a top forensic analyst told the judge yesterday that neither of the two statements ritual murder accused Samantha Mitchell made to the police nor what she told ambulance personnel could be the truth.
The blood, lieutenant-colonel Johannes Marthinus Kock said, tells a different story. Kock reconstructed the crime scene – using photographs of Grace Tommy’s body and the flat on the night of the murder…. http://www.peherald.com/news/article/10010

Devils in the Heartland: The ritualistic killing of Arlis Perry
By Kristen Grace  June 25, 2012
Nearly four decades have passed since a young woman from Bismarck was murdered in a satanic ritual inside a church in Palo Alto, Calif. The brutal killing of Arlis Perry even today remains unsolved, but the secret of the cult that many people believe was responsible for her death, The Process Church, lives on. And so do the rumors.
The horrific murder of the 19-year-old newlywed made headlines across the nation after Perry’s mutilated, nearly nude body was found Oct. 13, 1974, on the floor of the Stanford University Memorial Church in Palo Alto.
Perry’s murder was investigated by detectives from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department who suspected the killer or killers lived in the neighborhoods surrounding the university. But in Bismarck, other rumors were circulating.
Arlis Perry’s in-laws, Duncan and Donna Perry, were shaken when told that she had attempted to convert members of a satanic cult in Mandan to Christianity. It would take a best-selling book from an investigative journalist from New York City to uncover that Perry’s murderers may have been from her hometown….
In August 1977, a 24-year-old postal clerk named David Berkowitz was arrested as the Son of Sam and promptly confessed to acting alone in the shootings. Terry believed that important parts of Berkowitz’s confession sounded scripted or contradictory. The New York City police closed the case, but Terry continued his own investigation.
Eventually, the Queens (N.Y.) district attorney and the Yonkers Police Department concurred with Terry’s determination that Berkowitz did not act alone. Five .44-caliber shootings had occurred in Queens, and Yonkers was the suburban city where Berkowitz lived during the year of the Son of Sam attacks.
Berkowitz himself also subsequently confirmed Terry’s investigation, admitting he actually did two of the Son of Sam attacks (killing three people) while fellow members of a satanic cult he belonged to did the others.
Following his 10-year pursuit of the Son of Sam investigation, Terry wrote “The Ultimate Evil.” Surprisingly, the book begins with the Perry murder in the Stanford University Chapel. During his enduring investigation, Terry became convinced that Perry’s murder at Stanford was connected to the Son of Sam murders via a nationwide satanic cult called the Process Church of the Final Judgment.
The Process Church was formed in England in the 1960s after Robert and Mary Ann De Grimston couldn’t resolve issues with the Church of Scientology. They developed their own church and soon were labeled Satanists because they worshiped both Christ and Satan. The couple believed that at the end of the world, Satan and Christ would collaborate; Christ would judge the living and dead, and Satan would execute the judgments.
Berkowitz, Charles Manson and William Mentzer, the convicted killer of Hollywood producer Roy Radin, were all believed to be members of the Process Church or one of its related spinoff cults….
http://www.greatplainsexaminer.com/2012/06/25/the-killing-of-arlis-perry/

‘I have known about Jersey paedophiles for 15 years,’ says award-winning journalist By EILEEN FAIRWEATHER 02 March 2008  The award-winning journalist who exposed terrible abuse in Islington children’s homes now reveals horrifying links to sinister discoveries at Jersey’s Haut de la Garenne. I met the frightened policeman at an isolated country restaurant, many miles from his home and station. Detective Constable Peter Cook had finally despaired, and decided to blow the whistle to a reporter.
He was risking his career, so made me scribble my notes into a tiny pad beneath the tablecloth.
He had uncovered a vicious child sex ring, with victims in both Britain and the Channel Islands, and he wanted me to get his information to police abuse specialists in London.
Incredibly, he claimed that his superiors had barred him from alerting them.
He feared a cover-up: many ring members were powerful and wealthy. But I did not think him paranoid: I specialised in exposing child abuse scandals and knew, from separate sources, of men apparently linked to this ring. They included an aristocrat, clerics and a social services chief. Their friends included senior police officers. Repeatedly, inquiries by junior detectives were closed down, so I, a journalist, was asked to convey confidential information from one police officer to others. It seemed surreal.
I duly met trusted contacts at the National Criminal-Intelligence Squad. That was more than 12 years ago, and little happened – until now. Last weekend, a child’s remains were found at a former children’s home on Jersey amid claims of a paedophile ring. More than 200 children who lived at Haut de la Garenne have described horrific sexual and physical torture dating back to the Sixties.
When I heard the news, my eyes filled with tears. I felt heartbroken, not least at my own powerlessness. I have known for more than 15 years about Channel Islands paedophiles victimising children in the British care system….
Disturbing allegations about the murder of children in care have characterised other scandals I investigated in Britain, but today I can reveal for the first time the links between the abuse I uncovered at care homes in Islington, North London, and the horrifying discoveries on Jersey.
I have never before written that 14-year-old Jason Swift, killed in 1985 by a paedophile gang, is believed to have lived in Islington council’s Conewood Street home.
Two sources claimed this when I investigated Islington’s 12 care homes for The Mail on Sunday’s sister paper, the London Evening Standard, in the early Nineties.
But hundreds of children’s files mysteriously disappeared in Islington and, without documentation, this was not evidence enough….
We did, however, prove that every home included staff who were paedophiles, child pornographers or pimps. Concerned police secretly confirmed that several Islington workers were believed “networkers”, major operators in the supply of children for abuse and pornography.
Some of these were from the Channel Islands or regularly took Islington children there on unofficial visits. In light of the grisly discoveries at Haut de la Garenne, the link now seems significant, but at the time we were so overwhelmed by abuse allegations nearer home that this connection never emerged.
What we did report prompted the sort of vehement official denials that have come to characterise child abuse claims. Margaret Hodge, then council leader, denounced us as Right-wing “gutter journalists” who supposedly bribed children to lie.
Our findings were eventually vindicated by Government-ordered inquiries, and two British Press Awards….
Now Jersey police under deputy chief Lenny Harper – a ‘new broom’ outsider – have been secretly investigating a paedophile ring linked to the island’s care homes for months, I have been struck by common factors with the British abuse scandals: innocent-sounding sailing trips, where children can be isolated and abused, away from prying eyes, then delivered to other abusers; the familiar smearing of whistle-blowers; and the suppression of damning reports.
Jersey social worker Simon Bellwood was sacked early last year after speaking out, and popular health minister Stuart Syvret, 42, was fired in November after publicising the suppressed Sharp Report into abuse allegations….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-523706/I-known-Jersey-paedophiles-15-years-says-award-winning-journalist.html

Harvard And the CIA Continued NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED  February 11, 1978
ANOTHER FACET OF Harvard’s relationship, past and present, with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) emerged last week as Dr. Martin T. Orne ’48, the director of a Medical School hypnosis research project in the early ’60s, outlined how his group unwittingly received $30,000 from the CIA. Last week’s disclosure of Orne as the “unidentified researcher” mentioned in a University statement on CIA funding of Harvard projects raises several questions, centering not so much on the hypnosis research–which does not seem to be controversial–as on the University’s decision to honor Orne’s request to remain unidentified….
The University’s attitude toward releasing information on CIA-funded projects is particularly distressing in light of the fact that last week’s disclosure of the CIA’s interest in Orne’s work will certainly not be the last word on the agency’s involvement with Harvard. Other researchers with more to hide than Orne may also ask to remain unidentified, but the University should pursue a strict policy of disclosing all information it receives from the CIA. And the first step in accordance with this policy should be the release of documents relating to Harvard’s involvement in the CIA MK-ULTRA projects. Daniel Steiner ’54, general counsel to the University, said in October that he would release these documents. Now that Orne has been identified as one of the researchers who received CIA funds, the University no longer has an argument for withholding the documents. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1978/2/11/harvard-and-the-cia-continued-pbabnother/

Ritual Abuse-Torture Within Families/Groups  Authors: Jeanne Sarson a; Linda MacDonald b  Affiliations:
a Independent Scholar, Nova Scotia  b Nova Scotia Department of Health, Truvo, Nova Scotia, Canada  DOI: 10.1080/10926770801926146  Publication Frequency: 8 issues per year Published in:  Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, Volume 16, Issue 4 July 2008 , pages 419 – 438
Abstract
Case studies provide insights into identifying 10 violent thematic issues as components of a pattern of family/group ritual abuse-torture (RAT) victimization. Narratives from victimized women suggest that victimization generally begins in infancy or soon thereafter. A visual model of RAT displays the organization of the co-culture. Examples of the family/group gatherings known as “rituals and ceremonies” provide insights into how these gatherings are used to normalize pedophilic violence. Global activism afforded the first effort ever to track RAT and human trafficking. Recognizing RAT as an emerging form of non-state actor torture, discontinuing the use of language that sexualizes adult-child relationships, and promoting human rights education are suggested social solutions….
INTRODUCTION
Insights into the reality of ritual abuse-torture (RAT) victimization began for the authors in 1993 with a phone call from a woman who planned to commit suicide in 4 days. Sara (not her real name) said this was “the last time [I’m] ever going to reach out for help.” Unraveling the chaos of Sara’s world to find meaning in her contextualized expressions of life was essential to providing her with effective interventions. Sara reported being born and remaining actively captive in a RAT family/group for over 30 years. Efforts undertaken to develop a framework that organized Sara’s victimization led to the identification of 10 violent thematic issues/behaviors constituting relational norms within RAT family/groups (Sarson & MacDonald, 2007): (a) neglect and abuse of many forms (e.g., verbal, emotional, physical, sexual, financial); (b) being terrorized by acts of violence, such as the killing of a pet and being threatened with death if she disclosed the violence and abuse; (c) human-animal violence, including bestiality and/or being “trained” to harm animals; (d) torture (e.g., physical, sexual, and mind-spirit); (e) rampageous pedophilia; (f) necrophilic and pseudonecrophilic acts, such as drugging or choking her into unconsciousness and raping her dead-like body; (g) forced self-harming behaviors; (h) enduring horrifying acts, such as being forced to watch another child tortured and gang raped; (i) human trafficking victimization and exploitation (e.g., pedophilic and adult pornography; being used as a drug carrier); and (j) forced participation in violent organized pedophilic family/group gatherings coded as “rituals and ceremonies.” Using such a framework to comprehend Sara’s family/group system was successful in guiding Sara’s gradual exit and ongoing healing processes. It also prompted the following questions: (a) Would this framework define the RAT victimization of others? (b) If so, would it be representative of this specific population? (c) If so, could their experiential narratives then be considered a collective perspective of life within RAT families and like-minded groups?….
CONCLUSION
Just who are ritual abuse-torturers? Babiak and Hare (2006) wrote that psychopathy is found in 1% of the general population and “that about 20 to 25% of men who persistently abuse and batter their partners are psychopaths” (p. 286); maybe the answer lies in this reality. Psychopaths can be parents. Of the four case studies presented, three spoke of their father’s violence against their mothers, often compounded by alcoholic rage. Two of these three mothers were considered not to be involved in RAT. Sara stated that alcohol was not present in her household. Although her mother actively participated in inflicting RAT victimization, she was still subjected to misogynistic and physical violence. Could it be that ritual abuse-torturers have remained so invisible that they have yet to be considered a specific psychopathic group within society? When exposed, might they fall into the category of being sadistic human predators? http://www.wunrn.com/news/2008/12_08/12_15_08/121508_ritual.htm

Child abuse response conference draws experts from around country  A day-long examination of the way our institutions deal with child abuse drew more than 175 people to the Mitchell campus February 22.  The conference, “Failure to Protect: Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse,” organized by Professor Phebe Haugen, featured experts from diverse institutions and organizations, who explored the successes and failures of churches, schools, residential settings, and social institutions when it comes to dealing with child abuse. The conference was sponsored by the National Child Protection Training Center and William Mitchell College of Law …. http://web.wmitchell.edu/news/2013/02/child-abuse-response-conference-draws-experts-from-around-country

The following article describes graphic crimes.
Three busted for suspected ritual murder  April 8, 2013 in Africa, News, Southern Africa
PRETORIA — An Indian couple and an associate were arrested at Eltivillas in Makhado for a suspected ritual murder on Saturday morning. “Shoppers at an Indian shop in Makhado were shocked when a man stormed into a shop, reached for a freezer where he took out a human arm,” the Limpopo South African Police Services (SAPS) said in a statement. The police were then notified and the man was arrested on the spot. The man then told the police that he went to the owner of the shop to demand his share of R70 000 and a VW Golf vehicle which he was promised for his role in the commission of the murder. The 38-year-old man from Thengwe village then led the police to a nearby mountainous area where the mutilated body of a woman was found…. The man also confessed that the woman, who is believed to be a Pakistani resident, was killed on Wednesday last week after she was made to believe that she was going to be prayed for in the mountains,” the SAPS said. http://www.newsday.co.zw/2013/04/08/three-busted-for-suspected-ritual-murder/

Gabon girl’s death sparks fears of ritual killings  By Celia Lebur (AFP) – 4/19/13
LIBREVILLE — The discovery of a young girl’s body on a Libreville beach last month shocked the city and reignited the debate over ritual killings in Gabon, sparking outrage on social media sites and forcing President Ali Bongo Ondimba to react. The young girl disappeared after going swimming. Her battered body was discovered the next day, several hundred metres away. Her body was badly mutilated, and while there’s no proof she was the victim of a ritual killing, the fear of such crimes here has led to her case being widely publicised. Ritual crimes are practised by secret sects involved in witchcraft. They usually involve taking a victim’s blood and certain parts of their body — eyes, eyelashes, ears, genitalia, tongue, lips, pieces of skin, the brain — which are supposed to bring health, riches, success and power.
“It’s getting worse. We’ve already counted 19 cases since the start of the year”, including 10 children, says Jean-Elvis Ebang Ondo, the president and founder of the Association against Ritual Crime (ALCR). His own 12-year-old son was kidnapped, killed and mutilated in 2005….
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5idLIfMjqkKbfkiN3YwcpoVDMT5IQ?docId=CNG.6ca3e19d64153addcf857afda2778c06.341

10-Year-Old Indian Girl Held Behind Bars After Trying To Report Rape  The Huffington Post  By Meredith Bennett-Smith 04/10/2013   A 10-year-old girl who said she was raped was kept behind bars for several hours after trying to report the crime, according to multiple news outlets.
The incident occurred Monday in the Indian city of Bulandshahr, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI). The young girl and her mother approached a women’s police station to report a rape, but the child was promptly put in a cell for several hours, the outlet notes.
CNN-IBN reports that at least two female officers at the station have already been suspended. An investigation is ongoing.
“The child is a minor,” Senior Superintendent of Police Gulab Singh said in a press conference. “You can neither keep her behind bars nor can you hold her back as a victim in the station. This is wrong. If the lady constable has done this then we will definitely take appropriate action.”
Local politician Rita Bahuguna Joshi told CNN-IBN that the incident was indicative of a bigger problem in Indian law enforcement.
“Instead of arresting the accused the police is arresting the girl,” she said. “We have been saying this from one long time. No one is doing anything. I congratulate media for covering all these issues. We want strict actions to be taken against the guilty. UP government has failed to do anything. Insensitivity of police and UP government is shown here.”….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/10-year-old-rape-victim-india-girl_n_3046820.html

Uttar Pradesh: Uproar as minor rape survivor is locked up in women’s police station
Shreya Dhoundial, CNN-IBN Apr 09, 2013
Bulandshahr: A ten-year-old rape survivor was put behind bars by the Bulandshahr police in Uttar Pradesh when she approached them for help. The child and her mother had gone to a women’s police station to file the complaint of the rape.
The child and her mother, who spent several hours behind the bars, were freed only after locals created an uproar. Two women constables have been suspended while two sub-inspectors, including the station-in-charge, have been sent to police lines following the incident.
“The child is a minor. You can neither keep her behind bars nor can you hold her back as a victim in the station. This is wrong. If the lady constable has done this then we will definitely take appropriate action,” SSP Gulab Singh said.
A local goon accused of raping the minor is absconding. The minor from Meerpur village was found lying unconscious in a field by her parents on Sunday night where she had been dumped after being allegedly raped….
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/up-uproar-as-minor-rape-survivor-is-locked-up-in-police-station/384100-3-242.html

10-year-old rape victim put behind bars Apr 8, 2013 BULANDSHAHR (UP): The callous response of police came to fore when a 10-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped, was put behind bars by women cops after she approached them to file a complaint along with her mother.
Two women constables have been suspended while two sub-inspectors including the station-in-charge have been sent to police lines following the incident, SSP Gulab Singh said.
The victim spent several hours behind the bars after her mother brought her to a women’s police station to lodge a complaint against a local goon for allegedly raping her. She was rescued only after locals protested over the matter….
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-04-08/lucknow/38372374_1_police-station-women-cops-police-lines

The following article describes graphic crimes.
Nigeria: Woman Found Dead Without Eyes, Tongue
9 April 2013  Jos — Ritual killers on Monday struck in Jos, killing and removing the eyes and tongue of a young lady in Twanchit Village at Tudun Wada in the Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau. The police in Jos confirmed the incident but said they had no details yet. Residents who woke up to the ugly sight, said that the crime took place around 1:00 a.m. and that the victim could not be identified…. A resident, Rev. Joseph Bot of the Plateau Peace Movement International, said that the incident took the residents by surprise. He said that the nature of the killing indicated that it was for ritual purposes but said that other factors could be involved…. http://allafrica.com/stories/201304090433.html

The following article describes graphic crimes.
Girl (9) butchered 18 March 2013    The police, local traditional leader and community structures have called for calmness, following a volatile situation at Tshilungoma outside Thohoyandou the past week. The situation at the village came about after the discovery of a dead child at a nearby rivulet. Some of her body parts were allegedly missing.
Mutshidzi Ramanyimi (9) went missing on 1 March 2013 while playing with other children at a neighbour’s house. An intensive search involving the police, the local community and the dog unit of the SAPS yielded no results until Friday, when a passerby spotted the body in some bushes….
http://www.limpopomirror.co.za/details/18-03-2013/girl_9_butchered/18072

describes crimes
Chile hunts sect members accused of burning baby Friday Apr 26, 2013 The Associated Press
Chile hunts for more sect leaders accused of burning baby they claimed was the antichrist
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chilean police are searching for three people accused of burning a baby alive in a doomsday ritual. Police began searching for the suspects on Friday in the southern region of Araucania. Officials say the 3-day-old baby was thrown onto a bonfire in November because the leader of the sect believed that the child was the antichrist. Http://www.newsdaily.com/article/cf74951b8bdfc85119511920e74dde31/chile-arrests-4-accused-of-burning-baby-in-rite

Baby burned to death in satanic ritual after Chilean cult leader says infant is the Antichrist  
Cops say sect leader Ramon Gustavo Castillo Gaete, who is still at large, is responsible for the grisly murder, which occurred in Colliguay, Chile.
By Lee Moran / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, April 26, 2013
A tiny baby was burned to death on a bonfire after a cult leader declared the child to be the Antichrist, police said. The baby, just 3 days old, was strapped naked to a board and tossed onto the blaze because “the end of the world was near.” The horrific ritual allegedly happened in a house in Colliguay, near the Chilean coastal resort of Valparaiso, last Nov. 12. The baby’s mom, 25-year-old Natalia Guerra, allegedly gave permission for the brutal murder to go ahead.
Cops have arrested four people — from a 12-member sect led by Ramon Gustavo Castillo Gaete — in connection with the death. The Police Investigative Unit’s Miguel Ampuero said Gaete, 36, formed the cult — which consisted of professionals including a filmmaker, a veterinarian and a flight attendant — in 2005….
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/baby-burned-death-satanic-ritual-article-1.1328050

Cult leader on the run over baby’s ritual bonfire killing in Chile as four appear in court including the child’s mother      Mother, 25, told police she is ‘devastated’ but sect members said it ‘had to be’ because it was ‘her karma’     Three-day-old infant placed on board with her mouth taped and thrown into the flames      Ringleader last seen heading for Peru to buy hallucinogenic drug By Daily Mail Reporter 27 April 2013
A cult leader was being hunted today over the horrific ritual killing of his three-week-old baby as four of his followers appeared in court – including the child’s mother. Natalie Guerra, 25, hid her face in a coat as she attended a hearing into the killing of her daughter who was burned alive on a  bonfire. She put a hand over her mouth as she sat alongside sect members Carla Franchy, Maria del Pilar Alvarez and David Pastene during the tribunal in Quilpe, 70 miles west of Santiago.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2315754/Cult-leader-run-babys-ritual-bonfire-killing-Chile-appear-court-including-childs-mother.html

Ritual killing accused found hanged   02 May 2013     The body of a Chilean man accused in the ritual killing of a three-day-old boy has been found hanged in an abandoned house in Peru. Ramon Castillo, 36, was found hanging from a beam on the second floor of the house in the highlands city of Cuzco. He was wearing jeans, a gray jacket, a cap, shoes and a backpack, General Javier Avalos, the regional police chief, said. He said the body was identified through fingerprints that Chile sent via Interpol. He said it was too early to say whether Castillo’s death was suicide….
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/ritual-killing-accused-found-hanged-29237361.html

Chile ‘Devil Baby’ Murder: Cult Leader Who Sacrificed Three-Day-Old Child Found Dead in Peru by Drishya Nair May 3, 2013 A Chilean man accused of “sacrificing” a three-day-old baby girl has been found hanged in an abandoned house in Peru. Ramon Gustavo Castillo Gaete, 36, is believed to have been the leader of a 12-member cult that declared the baby girl the anti-Christ and killed her by burning her alive. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/464177/20130503/chile-baby-thrown-bonfire-cult-leader-dead.htm

Movie Review    How Commune Became Cult   ‘The Source Family,’ a Documentary on Father Yod
Jim Baker, also known as Father Yod, center, used his Hollywood health food restaurant to recruit members for what became the Source Family.  By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS   April 30, 2013
For anyone looking to teach a master class in brainwashing techniques, “The Source Family” might be an excellent place to start. Documenting the hippy-dippy lifestyle and hedonistic principles of Hollywood’s favorite 1970s cult — led by the self-professed guru and suspected bank robber Jim Baker, a k a Father Yod — Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille’s disturbing film is an object lesson in psychological manipulation. Working a powerful combo of personal magnetism and easy-to-digest philosophies — what young person doesn’t want to hear that marijuana-enhanced sex is the purest route to enlightenment? — Mr. Baker became the “superrich father” to a band of gorgeous devotees (not a few of them underage girls)….  http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/movies/the-source-family-a-documentary-on-father-yod.html

The following article describes graphic crimes.
Police offer R250 000 reward for information on Limpopo ritual murder Monday 8 April 2013 Shibu Mamokgere   Limpopo police are offering a R250 000 reward to anyone who will come forward with information about the brutal murder of a nine year old girl at Tshiulungoma village outside Thohoyandou three weeks ago. The girl’s mutilated body was found inside a stream in the village a week after she had gone missing….
The family says they are disappointed that no arrests have been made even though the suspects are allegedly known….
http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/d0184d804f304cc2a81fab1e5d06aea0/Police-offer-R250-000-reward-for-information-on-Limpopo-ritual-murder–20130408

Theologo murder trial underway  Govan Whittles  4/17/13 JOHANNESBURG – The trial of three men and a woman accused of dousing a Gauteng teenager with petrol and setting her alight in an apparent satanic ritual will resume in the Palm Ridge Magistrate Court on Wednesday.  Kirsty Theologo was attacked behind the Linmeyer Swimming Pool south of Johannesburg in October 2011.  The four people charged with the crime are believed to have been her friends at the time.  They’ve spent the past two years in custody…. http://ewn.co.za/2013/04/17/Kirsty-Theologo-murder-trial-gets-underway

Satanic attack survivor to testify April 18 2013 By SAPA
Johannesburg – The girl who survived an apparent satanic ritual in which she and her friend were set alight was expected to testify in the High Court sitting at the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court on Thursday. The girl, who was 14-years-old when she and Kirsty Theologo were doused with petrol and set alight in 2011, would testify in the trial against four young men implicated in the attack.
Lindon Wagner, Robin Harwood, Harvey Isha, and Courtney Daniels have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, and assault to cause grievous bodily harm.
In October 2011, Theologo was doused with petrol and set alight on a hill behind the Linmeyer swimming pool south of Johannesburg. She died a week later in Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital while her friend who was also burnt survived….
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/satanic-attack-survivor-to-testify-1.1502564

‘Satanic ritual was badly planned’  April 30 2013 By SAPA   Johannesburg – An apparent satanic ritual after which a teenage girl died was badly planned, the High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court heard on Tuesday. Lester Moody, who has admitted to his role in the killing, said the group failed to discuss in detail what each individual would do during the ritual. Having Kirsty Theologo, the intended murder victim, at the meeting was another blunder. Moody was testifying against four people accused of setting alight Theologo and her 14-year-old friend in an alleged satanic ritual on October 21, 2011. He and Jeremy King have pleaded guilty to the crime and were sentenced to 17 years in jail, five of them suspended, under a plea bargain with the State. The four Harvey Isha, Robin Harwood, Lindon Wagner, and Courtney Daniels have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, and assault to cause grievous bodily harm….
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/satanic-ritual-was-badly-planned-1.1508755

Game used to pick satanic ritual victim April 23 2013 By Sandy Moeketsi Johannesburg – A game using toilet paper and matchsticks indicated who should be sacrificed in an apparent satanic ritual killing, a Johannesburg court heard on Tuesday.
This was the testimony of Lester Moody, 19, who is serving a prison sentence under a plea bargain reached after he confessed to being part of the killing in October 2011.
“We asked the game if Kirsty should be the prostitute and it said yes,” he told the High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court.
Kirsty Theologo, 18, was doused with petrol and set alight on a hill behind the Linmeyer swimming pool in Julius Street, Johannesburg, in October 2011. She died a week later at the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital….
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/game-used-to-pick-satanic-ritual-victim-1.1505165

Court hears details of satanic ritual April 24 2013  By Sandy Moeketsi
Johannesburg – Phrases were chanted before Kirsty Theologo and her friend were set alight, the High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court heard on Wednesday. Her alleged murderers stood at the points of a satanic star, where candles burnt. In the middle of the star was a burning Bible, where blood would be shed, Lester Moody told the court. Moody was testifying against four people accused of setting Theologo and her friend alight in an apparent satanic ritual on October 21, 2011….
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/court-hears-details-of-satanic-ritual-1.1505823

Girl’s satanic horror April 24 2013 By SUSAN DU Johannesburg – Kirsty Theologo thought that she was going to a party with friends she trusted on the night of October 21, 2011.
She brought another girl along.  She had a drink.  She trusted her friends when they told her they needed to stop by a petrol station to get sweets, then again when they said there had been a change of plans and that they would be going into the “mountains of Linmeyer” instead.
The “party” turned out to be a satanic ritual in which Kirsty was drugged, bound, drenched in petrol and burnt so severely that she died later in hospital.  Her friend, now 16, survived. She can’t be named due to her age….
Kirsty and her friend – the only two people not dressed entirely in black – lost consciousness due to the brake fluid that had been secretly added to their drinks.  The two victims were then bound and left to one side while the accused created a “satanic star” in the ground and lit candles at each of its five points, Moody testified….   http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/girl-s-satanic-horror-1.1505350

‘I wanted to sell victim’s phone’ April 24 2013 By Sandy Moeketsi  Johannesburg – A man who took part in an apparent satanic ritual killing wanted to return to the scene to get a cellphone, a Johannesburg court heard on Wednesday. “I was going to sell it for drugs,” Lester Moody told the High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court. He said the cellphone belonged to one of the girls who had been set alight in the ritual….http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/i-wanted-to-sell-victim-s-phone-1.1505867#.UXh6iMWIBXs

Ritual killing deviated from Bible verse 2013-04-25  Johannesburg – The “plan” to kill Kirsty Theologo came from a Bible verse, but deviated from it when satanic elements were added, the South Gauteng High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court heard on Thursday.
“Originally, you were going to do what was in the Bible and satanic elements were added later?” Judge Geraldine Borchers asked Lester Moody. “Yes,” he said.
Moody was testifying in the trial of four people accused of setting alight Theologo and a 14-year-old friend of hers in an apparent satanic ritual on 21 October 2011….
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Ritual-killing-deviated-from-bible-verse-20130425

describes crimes  Mohlakeng residents march against Satanism Sunday 21 April 2013  SABC
The community of Mohlakeng on the west rand of Johannesburg has marched against Satanism.  Community members joined church leaders to denounce the practice in the area. It follows the murder of a grade 10 pupil there last month.
Lukhanyo Secondary School leaner Keamogetswe Sefularo was believed to have been killed in a Satanic attack.
Sefularo died after she was lured into the veld….
The march also comes amid the trial of three men and a girl accused of killing a teenager by setting her alight in a alleged Satanic ritual.
Harvey Isha, Robin Harwood, Lindon Wagner and Courtney Daniels, who was a minor at the time, pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Kirsty Theologo was doused with petrol and set alight on a hill behind the Linmeyer swimming pool in southern Johannesburg. She died later at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.
http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/206365804f570c1f9fb49f1e5d06aea0/Mohlakeng-residents-march-against-Satanism-20132104

Satanic killing – victim was ‘braaivleis’  South Africa Friday 26 April 2013  Teenager Kirsty Theologo was referred to as “braaivleis” when her murder in an apparent satanic ritual was being planned, a Johannesburg court heard on Friday. Theologo was present when this happened, testified Lester Moody, who has confessed to his role in the killing. He told the High Court, sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court, that the code name was used at a meeting on the Thursday before the fatal ritual on October 21, 2011. The meeting was held to plan the details of her murder. Moody, who has entered into a plea bargain with the State, was testifying against Lindon Wagner, Robin Harwood, Harvey Isha and Courtney Daniels. He has been sentenced to 17 years in jail for his role in the murder, five years of which were suspended. The four accused have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder and assault to cause grievous bodily harm….
http://www.enca.com/south-africa/satan-killing-victim-was-braaivleis

Satanic murder accused tells of beating  May 17 2013 by Meggan Saville
Johannesburg – The case against four people accused of killing teenager Kirsty Theologo in an alleged satanic ritual was postponed by the High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court on Friday. Judge Geraldine Borchers postponed the matter until Monday, when one of the accused, Harvey Isha, would testify. Kirsty Theologo, 18, and her friend, who was 14-years-old at the time, were tied up, doused with petrol, and set alight on a hill in Linmeyer, south of Johannesburg, on October 21, 2011. Theologo died in hospital, but her friend survived.
Jeremy King and Lester Moody admitted to the crime and were both sentenced to 17 years in jail, five of which were suspended.
The other four accused – Isha, Robin Harwood, Lindon Wagner, and Courtney Daniels – have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. On Friday, Lydia van Niekerk, for Wagner, cross-examined State witness King about the killing. The court heard that Wagner admitted hitting Theologo with a rock on the hill where the ritual took place…. http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/satanic-murder-accused-tells-of-beating-1.1517745

Witness not warned of satanic killing May 17 2013 by SAPA   Johannesburg – A youth present when a teenager was set alight in an apparent satanic ritual was not warned he would witness a killing, a State witness said on Friday. Jeremy King, 20, told the High Court sitting at the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court the youth was only told King and his friends would perform a “soul-selling” ritual.
Kirsty Theologo, 18, and her friend, who was 14-years-old at the time, were tied up, doused with petrol, and set alight on a hill in Linmeyer, south of Johannesburg, on October 21, 2011. Theologo died in hospital, but her friend survived.
King and Lester Moody confessed to the crime and were both sentenced to 17 years in jail, five of which were suspended. The other four accused – Harvey Isha, Robin Harwood, Lindon Wagner, and Courtney Daniels – have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, and assault to cause grievous bodily harm…. http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/witness-not-warned-of-satanic-killing-1.1517657

DRC refugee meant to take blame for ‘satanic’ murder South Africa Tuesday 21 May 2013
Johannesburg – The Kirsty Theologo murder case will continue at the high court sitting in Palm Ridge, south of Johannesburg. Isha Harvey, a 24-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, says he was meant to take the fall for Theologo’s murder by fleeing to his home country.
However, lawyers claim Harvey played no part in the planning or execution of the alleged satanic ritual that led to the death of his friend….
Harvey, one of four young people on trial, also told the court on Monday that money lent to co-accused Lindon Wagner by the deceased, had paid for the petrol used in her murder….
http://www.enca.com/south-africa/drc-refugee-meant-take-blame-satanic-murder

Satanic ritual trial continues South Africa Thursday 16 May 2013
JOHANNESBURG – The trial of three men and a girl accused of killing teenager Kirsty Theologo by setting her alight in an apparent satanic ritual was expected to continue in the High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.
On May 2, Jeremy King, 20, gave evidence against four other youths accused of participating in the ritual. He told the court his version of events leading up to the incident.
Theologo, 18, and her friend were tied up, doused with petrol and set alight on a hill in southern Johannesburg on October 21, 2011….
http://www.enca.com/world-sport-rugby/satanic-trial-continues

Child rapist’s jail term appeal fails  Saturday, May 18, 2013 By Court staff
A child rapist who posed as a holy man to subject three victims to “satanic” sex abuse has failed to convince judges his 18-year prison sentence is too long.
The man claimed he had black magic powers and told the children, who were as young as 10, that if they did not submit to “religious massage”, evil spirits would remain in their bodies and their mothers would die. The man was jailed at Leicester Crown Court after he was convicted in November 2011 of three counts of rape, one of another serious sexual offence and four counts of sexual activity with a child.
Three senior judges at London’s Court of Appeal this week rejected his challenge against his sentence, saying he had committed the crimes “under the cloak of religion” and deserved the sentence imposed. The man had denied all the offences but was found guilty by a jury, with the sentencing judge saying he had “deliberately frightened the children” so he could carry out “satanic abuse”….
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Child-rapist-s-jail-term-appeal-fails/story-19020011-detail/story.html

Court hears of dagga, vodka in satanic killing May 21 2013 By SAPA  Johannesburg – The effect of using dagga and vodka in succession was graphically explained to a Johannesburg court on Tuesday by murder-accused Harvey Isha….
Isha, 24, is on trial with Harwood, Lindon Wagner, and Courtney Daniels for the murder of Kirsty Theologo, attempted murder of her friend, and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. They have all pleaded not guilty. Two other accused, Jeremy King and Lester Moody, confessed to the crime and were each sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment, five of them suspended. Theologo, 18, and her friend, who was 14 at the time, were tied up, doused with petrol, and set alight on a hill in Linmeyer, south of Johannesburg, on October 21, 2011. Theologo died in hospital but her friend survived.
Isha testified that he had no idea about the plan to “sacrifice” Theologo and her friend in an apparent satanic ritual on the hill that day….   http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/court-hears-of-dagga-vodka-in-satanic-killing-1.1519352

describes crimes
Witch doctor sentenced to death for beheading 11-year-old boy  By Michelle Duffy Apr 22, 2013
An Indian witch doctor is facing execution for beheading a 11-year-old boy in a sacrificial ritual to a goddess, to ‘improve his fortunes’
The 11 year old child, named Praveen, was beheaded in a sacrificial ritual carried out by the witch doctor in Chhattisgarh, India, who conducted the act, in the belief that it would ‘improve his fortunes.’….
It is a densely religious area of India where black magic is performed for those who wish for such things like greater health and wealth, where money is in short supply, as well as food, sanitation and future prospects for their young. It is common practice in these areas by ‘black magic practitioners’ for human sacrifices to be carried out.
He was confirmed he had been ‘practising witchcraft’ and, according to a police official,
“…was convicted on charges of murder, hiding evidence and giving false information to conceal the offence.” ….In the same area of India, in 2010, two more possible child sacrifices had been suspected of taking place involving and two-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl. Their bodies were found in the same state of Chhattisgarh. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/348561

Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland, and Abroad: An Eyewitness Comes Forward and Names her Torturers  (ZWOLLE, Holland) – A survivor of a high-level ring involving child sacrifice, torture and trafficking went public today in an exclusive disclosure and interview with Freedom Central’s Mel Ve and ITCCS Field Secretary Kevin Annett. May-08-2013
Toos Nijenhuis, a fifty four year old physiotherapist and mother of five from Holland, was tortured, raped and used experimentally from the age of four years old by wealthy and powerful men around the world, including top officials of churches and governments.
And, Nijenhuis claims, these crimes are continuing today, including the ritual sacrifice of children in rural Holland. On May 7, Ms. Nijenhuis accompanied Kevin Annett, Mel Ve and other investigators to a forested site near to Zwolle where such child murders took place as recently as November, 2010, according to Ms. Nijenhuis….
These assaults occurred in Holland, Scotland, and a military experimental base in Melbourne, Australia, where Toos was subjected to what appears to be pain threshold and behaviour modification experiments. She also witnessed the torture and murder of other children.
Key excerpts from the interview and statement of Toos Nijenhuis are found in this link: http://www.youtube.com/   watch?v=PyrPEu7nk1Q
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may082013/holland-child-ring.php

describes alleged crimes
Alleged Galilee cult leader suspected of abusing children for decade
Munib Farhat, 56, suspected of imposing strict disciplinary code on 11 adults, 25 children • Cult leader allegedly forced parents to beat their children, withhold food….
Daniel Siryoti  Newsletter Wednesday May 22, 2013
The details of a shocking child abuse scandal began to emerge on Tuesday in the Galilee town of Majd al-Krum when a Nazareth court lifted the gag order on the affair, which apparently has been going on for ten years.
Munib Farhat, a 56-year-old resident of Majd al-Krum, is suspected of heading a cult and enforcing his will on six families in his community, including dozens of children. The police suspect Farhat of forcing the members of his cult to beat their children, humiliate them, withhold food, lock them in bathrooms….The cult leader is also suspected of abusing the women in the cult, committing sexual assault and sodomizing them….
Farhat denied the allegations and argued that the complainant was seeking revenge against him for being kicked out of the compound.
The chief investigator, Superintendent Eyal Harari, said that the cult did not share a house, but instead lived in houses scattered across the town. “His method was to cozy up to weak, poor families and strike a relationship based on support and fear, to the point of complete dependence and a real fear of leaving the cult,” Harari explained.
The police said further that the suspect habitually locked women up when he was not satisfied with their cleaning duties….  http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=9447

Tony Alamo Properties In Fort Smith Sought For Restitution By Jeff Arnold  Times Record May 16, 2013   Two men with a $30 million judgment against Tony Alamo and federal prosecutors are both seeking Fort Smith properties owned by the evangelist, who is serving a 175-year prison sentence.
Seth Calagna and Spencer Ondrisek won the judgment in a federal lawsuit in June 2011 when a jury found Alamo ordered them beaten while they were children and members of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.
In July 2009, a federal jury in Texarkana, Ark., found Alamo guilty on 10 counts of transporting minor females in interstate commerce for the purpose of criminal sexual activity. In November 2009, Alamo was sentenced to 175 years in prison and is at a U.S. penitentiary in Marion, Ill.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s office filed motion in U.S. District Court in Fort Smith and Texarkana, seeking the seizure of six Alamo properties, including two in Fort Smith — a home at 1405 Meadow Lane and a “mechanics shop” at 503 Division.
In an affidavit accompanying the motion, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Timmy Akins detailed how the properties were used to facilitate the sexual abuse of the girls Alamo was convicted of transporting across state lines for sexual activity.
If federal authorities are allowed to take ownership, the money from the sale of those properties would go toward $2.5 million in restitution — $500,000 for each victim — U.S. District Court Judge Harry Barnes ordered following Alamo’s 2009 conviction….
http://swtimes.com/sections/news/tony-alamo-properties-fort-smith-sought-restitution.html

Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland: An Eyewitness speaks out (Introduction) https://www.youtube.com     /watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PyrPEu7nk1Q very graphic video

describes crimes
Ritual Murder in Makeni
The criminal Investigation department of Rogbaneh Police station are investigating the mysterious death of one Mabinty Koroma, a student of the Makeni Comprehensive Academy (MCA) which took place on Friday 19th April, while selling locally-made soap along the Teko Sander and Teko Barracks area…..Now she has been brutally murdered and some of her parts have been removed. This is complete wickedness and we will not forgive the perpetrators for this,” Isatu Koroma, the eldest sister of the deceased said, as she burst into tears, while explaining to Awoko.
The police at Rogbaneh Police station did confirm the report on Monday 22nd April 2013 from the village chief of Pate Bana, Kapr Fallah, in the Bombali district….By Mohamed Kabba
http://awoko.org/2013/04/23/ritual-murder-in-makeni/

Teacher suspended after Googling students discover he is a former ‘sex-cult leader’ tied to investigation into his wife’s murder     Tyler Deaton moved from Missouri to Texas and was hired teaching pre-calculus in Lancaster High School      Deaton’s wife, Bethany Ann, 27, was murdered last October in an alleged cover-up of a sex cult    Micah More, 23, has been charged with the murder and had initially implicated Tyler Deaton   By Daily Mail Reporter  16 April 2013
A Texas math teacher has been suspended from classes after his students came across disturbing news reports online tying him to an investigation into his wife’s sex-cult murder.
Tyler Deaton moved from Missouri to Texas and was hired by Lancaster High School Dallas in February to teach pre-calculus.
Since he has never been charged in connection to the 2012 killing of his wife, 27-year-old Bethany Ann Deaton, he passed a formal background check by the Department of Public Safety and an FBI database without raising any red flags.
However, his troubles started last week when some of his students decided to look up their fresh-faced teacher online, only to discover a string of news stories about Deaton’s alleged role as a leader of a sex cult who may have played a role in a cover-up linked to his wife’s death, Kansas City Star reported.
Micah Moore, 23, who was a member in Deaton’s religious sect and lived with him and his wife in Grandview, Missouri, has been charged with killing Bethany last fall and making it look like a suicide.
Moore initially accused Deaton of giving him the order to kill his wife for fear that she might tell her therapist about being the victim of several sexual assaults, according to court documents. But Moore later recanted his confession….
It was claimed in December 2012 that Tyler Deaton was involved in sexual affairs with at least three other men who lived at the religious community he led.
The charismatic Christian was in charge of a group whose members came to Kansas City from Texas to be part of the International House of Prayer.
After the arrest of Moore, several men who lived in the house told detectives they had been involved in ‘secret’ sexual relations with Deaton.
Court records have redacted these men’s names but, one witness told police that Deaton mentioned having dreamed that ‘he had killed his wife by suffocating her,’ a week after her death….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2310164/Bethany-Deaton-Teacher-suspended-Googling-students-discover-sex-cult-leader-tied-investigation-wifes-murder.html

describes severe abuse
Teen dies after being ‘beaten’ at camp that ‘makes men out of boys’  A 15-year-old South African boy died after he was kept chained to his bed, beaten with planks and hoses at a training camp that boasted of “making men” out of its young recruits, a court has heard.  By Aislinn Laing, Johannesburg  24 Apr 2013 Raymond Buys, who had learning difficulties, was admitted to hospital and put on life support two months into a three-month training course run by Alex de Koker’s Echo Wild Game Rangers in the bush an hour south of Johannesburg.
He was severely emaciated and dehydrated, had brain damage, a broken arm and bruises, and cigarette burns all over his body. His mother was told that the chances of him surviving were “virtually zero”. He died two weeks later.
“I sent my son on this course to make him a better man, to give him a better future,” Wilma Buys told The Daily Telegraph. “I trusted Alex de Koker with his life.”
Mr de Koker, 49, and employee Michael Erasmus, 20, are currently on trial for charges of murder, child abuse and neglect, along with two cases of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm in relation to Mr Buys’ death.
His death is alleged to have been the third among the mainly Afrikaans children who attended the R22,000 (£1,500) courses run by Mr de Koker, who was reportedly a member of murdered white supremacist Eugene Terreblanche’s Iron Guards movement.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/10015978/Teen-dies-after-being-beaten-at-camp-that-makes-men-out-of-boys.html

Kevin Annett video
http://www.youtube.com/  watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C7g111Ih-pU#!

Trauma and Child Abuse Information

Sex abuse cases: ‘I have a personal stake in this’ (Video) Mar 28, 2013  Jeff Blumenthal     Reporter- Philadelphia Business Journal       Last week, I interviewed Marci Hamilton, a lawyer representing victims in the Sandusky and Philadelphia Archdiocese child abuse scandals, as part of our Inside the Reporters Notebook series….
Hamilton’s pointed response explained what she says is a personal reason for her involvement. She is a professor at Cardozo School of Law and not a litigator by trade. But she said she was incensed on February 10, 2011, when a Philadelphia Grand Jury released a report following an investigation into allegations that two priests and a teacher sexually abused a 10-year-old boy at St. Jerome Parish in Philadelphia, and that another priest assigned to St. Jerome sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy.
It was that report, Hamilton said, that caused her to contact her co-counsel Jeff Anderson, and say she wanted to participate in the litigation. “I have a personal stake in this,” Hamilton said. “My children are Catholic. My daughter was baptized by a pedophile priest. I have family pictures with a pedophile at one of the most important ceremonies of a child’s life. So I am in it, yes, in Philadelphia. Because its the only way to make this Archdiocese to do the right thing.” http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blog/jeff-blumenthal/2013/03/sex-abuse-cases-i-have-a-personal.html

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR  The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Volume 201, Number 4, April 2013 www.jonmd.com p. 353 – 358  Growing Not Dwindling: Worldwide Phenomenon of Dissociative Disorders
To the Editor:
In the December 2012 issue of the Journal, Joel Paris, MD, wrote an article about the current status of dissociative identity disorder (DID) and the dissociative disorder field in general. He suggests that DID is merely a ‘‘fad’’ and that there is no credible evidence to connect traumatic experiences with the development of DID. We refute several of the claims made by Dr Paris.
Our biggest concern as non-North American researchers is that Dr Paris does not reference a single international study related to dissociative disorders and DID, despite the considerable and increasing empirical literature from around the world. His speculation that DID is not diagnosed outside clinics that specialize in treating dissociation is not consistent with current data. DID and dissociative disorders have been reliably found in general psychiatric hospitals; psychiatric emergency departments; and private practices in countries including England, the Netherlands, Turkey, Puerto Rico, Northern Ireland, Germany, Finland, China, and Australia, among many others (e.g., Dorahy et al., 2006; Leonard et al., 2005; Lewis-Fernandez et al., 2007; Lipsanen et al., 2004; Martinez-Taboas, 2005; Martinez-Taboas et al., 1995, 2006; Middleton and Butler, 1998; Rodewald et al., 2011; Sar, 2006; Sar et al., 2007b, 1996; Tutkun et al., 1998).
Much of the international research, using sophisticated epidemiological and clinical research methods, has replicated dozens of times the finding that dissociative processes and disorders (including DID) can be reliably detected in a wide spectrum of different societies. Epidemiological general population studies indicate that 1.1% to 1.5% meet diagnostic criteria for DID; and 8.6% to 18.3%, for any DSM-IV dissociative disorder  (Johnson et al., 2006; Sar et al., 2007a). The international literature on DID and dissociative disorders has been widely published in mainstream journals of psychiatry and psychopathology and is inconsistent with Dr Paris’s conclusions….
Dr Paris also opines that there is only a ‘‘weak link’’ between child abuse and psychopathology, quoting an article published 17 years ago. Current research illustrates a very different picture. Persons with early abusive experiences demonstrate increased illnesses (Green and Kimerling, 2004), impaired work functioning (Lee and Tolman, 2006), serious interpersonal difficulties (Van der Kolk and d’Andrea, 2010), and a high risk for traumatic revictimization (Rich et al., 2004). The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, an American epidemiological study, has provided retrospective and prospective data from more than 17,000 individuals on the effects of traumatic experiences during the first 18 years of life.
This large study demonstrated the enduring, strongly proportionate, and frequently profound relationship between adverse childhood experiences and emotional states, health risks, disease burdens, sexual behavior, disability, and health care costs, even decades later (Felitti and Anda, 2010). Specifically, child sexual abuse (CSA) has been related in various epidemiological studies to the subsequent onset of a variety of psychiatric disorders….
In conclusion, Dr Paris’s assessment of the supposedly dwindling fad of DID and dissociative disorders is not in keeping with current peer-reviewed international research. The dissociative disorder field has been producing solid and consistent evidence that provides guidance to clinicians and researchers about the epidemiology, phenomenology, diagnosis, and treatment of DID (and closely related conditions).
Alfonso Martinez-Taboas, PhD Department of Psychology Carlos Albizu University San Juan, Puerto Rico Martin Dorahy, PhD Department of Psychology University of Canterbury Christchurch, New Zealand Vedat Sar, MD Department of Psychiatry Istanbul University Istanbul, Turkey Warwick Middleton, MD Department of Psychiatry University of Queensland St Lucia, Australia Christa Kruger, MD Department of Psychiatry University of Pretoria  Pretoria, South Africa  Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease: April 2013 – Volume 201 – Issue 4 – p 353–354 doi: 10.1097/NMD.0b013e318288d27f Letters to the Editor
http://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Citation/2013/04000/Growing_Not_Dwindling__International_Research_on.15.aspx

Disinformation About Dissociation Dr Joel Paris’s Notions About Dissociative Identity Disorder

To the Editor:
We write to record our objections to both the form and the content of Dr Joel Paris’s recent article entitled The Rise and Fall of Dissociative Identity Disorder (Paris, 2012). His claim that dissociative identity disorder
(DID) is a ‘‘medical fad’’ is simply wrong, and he provides no substantive evidence to support his claim. From the mistaken identification of Pierre Janet as a psychiatrist in the first line (Janet was the most famous psychologist of his day), it is replete with errors, false claims, and lack of scholarship and just
plainly ignores the published literature. Dr Paris provided a highly biased article that is based on opinion rather than on science. His review of the literature is extremely selective. Of 48 references, Dr Paris cites exactly 7 peer-reviewed articles published from 2000 onward (7/48 references equals 14%) and only 8 peer-reviewed, data-driven articles from before 2000 (8/48 equals 16%). Rather than relying on the recent peer-reviewed, scientific literature, Paris relied almost entirely on the non-peer-reviewed books, including a popular press book written by a journalist whose methods and conclusions have been strongly challenged.
He claims that interest and research in DID have waned, yet he fails to cite the multitude of studies that have been conducted about it. In fact, Dalenberg et al. (2007) documented evidence of the exact opposite pattern described by Paris: ‘‘A search of the PILOTS database offered by the National Center for Posttraumatic
Stress Disorder for articles on dissociation reveals 64 studies in 1985Y1989, 236 published in 1990Y1994, 426 published in 1995Y1999 and 477 in the last 5-year block (2000Y2004)’’ (p. 401)….
In addition, he fails to cite a variety of neurobiological and psychophysiological studies of DID documenting similar brain morphology abnormalities in patients with DID to those of other traumatized patients (Reinders
et al., 2006; Vermetten et al., 2006). Despite failing to review this and other relevant research, Dr Paris made the claim that ‘‘Neither the theory behind the diagnosis nor the methods of treatment are consistent
with the current preference for biological theories’’ (p. 1078). Furthermore, he fails to cite any research that has been done by researchers outside North America. For example, Vedat Sar, MD, in Turkey has published more than 70 articles and chapters on dissociative disorders and trauma (http://vedatsar.com/ index_2.htm), but Dr Paris failed to mention a single one….
A recent review in Psychological Bulletin by 2012) found strong support for the etiological relationship of trauma and dissociation. These included several large meta-analyses, some of which focused on patients with DID.
Dalenberg et al. (2012) found an effect size of r = 0.52 and 0.54 for the relationship between childhood physical abuse and sexual abuse, respectively, in studies that compared individuals with dissociative disorders with those without dissociative disorders. In addition, Dalenberg et al. (2012) tested eight different predictions of the trauma versus the fantasy (sociocognitive/iatrogenic) model of dissociation. On each, careful of reviews of the literature, including meta-analyses, on memory, suggestibility, and neurobiology, among others,
Dalenberg et al. (2012) foundminimal scientific evidence to support the fantasy model. Further, reviews have shown that there are no research studies in the literature in any population studied to support the iatrogenic/sociocognitive etiology of DID promulgated by Dr Paris (Brown et al., 1999; Loewenstein, 2007)….
In summary, disagreement is healthy for our field. However, Dr Paris’s article does not provide scholarly criticism based upon peerreviewed research, scientific data, or accurate discussion of the history of psychiatry. His point of view is incorrect and outmoded. It is the so-called false-memory, iatrogenesis model    of the dissociative disorders that is the fallen fad, buried under the weight of rigorous data that contradict it. Dissociative disorders have not risen and fallen. These existed before the fields of psychiatry and psychology did. These are, alas, here to stay but are amenable to better understanding and improved treatments.
Bethany Brand, PhD  Department of Psychology Towson University, MD
Richard J. Loewenstein, MD The Trauma Disorders Program Sheppard Pratt Health System
Baltimore, MD Department of Psychiatry University of Maryland School of Medicine Baltimore
David Spiegel, MD Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Stanford University School of Medicine CA
Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease: April 2013 – Volume 201 – Issue 4 – p 354–356
doi: 10.1097/NMD.0b013e318288d2ee Letters to the Editor
http://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Citation/2013/04000/Disinformation_About_Dissociation__Dr_Joel_Paris_s.16.aspx

Behind the Cover Story: Emily Bazelon on Pornography and Punishment  By James R. Marsh on April 5, 2013   Emily Bazelon discusses her New York Times Magazine cover story, The Price of a Stolen Childhood, about the Marsh Law Firm’s groundbreaking work representing victims of child pornography.
New York Times  Emily Bazelon
Behind the Cover Story: Emily Bazelon on Pornography and Punishment
“It’s a common refrain in child pornography cases to say that it is a victimless crime. The person who downloaded the image was quote unquote just looking. Restitution helps force them to see that they are part of a market that depends on hurting real children.”
http://www.childlaw.us/2013/04/emily-bazelon-discusses-her-ne.html

Behind the Cover Story: Emily Bazelon on Pornography and Punishment   By RACHEL NOLAN January 28, 2013   Emily Bazelon wrote this week’s cover article about the legal efforts by abuse victims who have appeared in child pornography to gain restitution from people convicted of looking at images of them. Bazelon, a staff writer at Slate and fellow at Yale Law School, last wrote for the magazine about an anti-abortion activist named Charmaine Yoest. Bazelon’s book on bullying, “Sticks and Stones,” will come out this February.
Without revealing any details of their identities, how did you first hear about or get in touch with these two women, whom you refer to as Amy and Nicole?
I was reading a blog by Douglas Berman, a law professor who is obsessed with sentencing issues in a really useful way. He linked to a short news article about restitution cases. I knew Paul G. Cassell, the lawyer who was arguing the case, a little bit, so I called him. And that’s how I started reporting this story. He put me in touch with James Marsh and Carol Hepburn, who are the main lawyers bringing these restitution suits. There are a couple of other cases under way, but the story really rose and fell on whether Amy and Nicole felt like they wanted to talk. The whole point would be to tell the story from their perspective. At first, through her lawyer, Amy said yes. Nicole wasn’t sure how she felt about it. The tricky part for her, I think, was telling the story without becoming retraumatized. Eventually she decided she was in a place where she could tell her story, and wanted to, and we all hope it won’t set her back….

The Price of a Stolen Childhood  When Nicole was a child, her father took pornographic pictures of her that still circulate on the internet.  By EMILY BAZELON  January 24, 2013
The detective spread out the photographs on the kitchen table, in front of Nicole, on a December morning in 2006. She was 17, but in the pictures, she saw the face of her 10-year-old self, a half-grown girl wearing make-up. The bodies in the images were broken up by pixelation, but Nicole could see the outline of her father, forcing himself on her. Her mother, sitting next to her, burst into sobs.
The detective spoke gently, but he had brutal news: the pictures had been downloaded onto thousands of computers via file-sharing services around the world. They were among the most widely circulated child pornography on the Internet. Also online were video clips, similarly notorious, in which Nicole spoke words her father had scripted for her, sometimes at the behest of other men. For years, investigators in the United States, Canada and Europe had been trying to identify the girl in the images…. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/magazine/how-much-can-restitution-help-victims-of-child-pornography.html

Marsh Law Firm is one of the nation’s premier law firms representing sexually abused victims of child pornography. We are among the few law firms in the country using innovative federal law approaches to help abused and exploited child crime victims obtain civil justice.
The intersection of criminal law, federal civil statutory remedies, copyright and criminal restitution makes this a challenging and unique area of the law requiring skilled litigators and creative thinkers. The lawyers at Marsh Law Firm have the experience and skills necessary to help victims of child sex abuse, child pornography, and online child exploitation rebuild their lives with dignity and respect. http://www.marshlaw.us/

Spare the rod, please Apr 3rd 2013 by C.S.-M.  BEIJING  ….In 2005 the All-China Women’s Federation, a state-controlled body, issued a report on child abuse that was sponsored by UNICEF. It found that almost half of current university students had suffered physical abuse as children, from a sample of 3,500 who were surveyed. The violence they had suffered often took place in schools, where teachers were the principal perpetrators. There are no reliable nationwide statistics on the frequency child abuse in China. But the number of reports that appear in the state press—and are disseminated widely by social media—demonstrates a growing awareness of the practice. And with the awareness, a new intolerance for it; attitudes towards corporal punishment are changing. The practice now looks to many like a real problem.
The spread of “black” or unregistered kindergartens is partly to blame. China’s preschool capacity has been stretched thin and reputable kindergartens have become unaffordable for many families. (The teacher pictured above is working as a volunteer, with the children of migrant workers who cannot afford private tuitions.) Many schools cut costs by hiring untrained and unlicensed teachers….
Despite their being condemned by public opinion, even serial wrongdoers often walk free. The police detained Ms Yan but then she was released without charge. Critics say China’s laws for protecting children are flawed in that they refer only to abuse by the family, not by teachers or anyone else for that matter. Prosecutors must also prove that physical harm has been done—which means that any and all abusive acts that cause no lasting, visible damage go unpunished. To fix this, the Shanghai Women’s Federation has proposed that China’s legislative body, the National People’s Congress, introduce a definition of child abuse into the criminal code. In the uproar that followed Ms Yan’s release more than 20,000 “netizens” participated in a straw poll in order to vote in favour of a prohibition on child abuse…. http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2013/04/child-abuse

National Child Abuse Prevention Month – Obama
By Daniel S Friedlander, Friedlander Communications, Ltd., Community Contributor April 8, 2013
Proclamation by United States President Barack Obama and statement by Terri Zenner Greenberg, executive director of CASA Lake County (Court Appointed Special Advocates) on April being National Child Abuse Prevention Month.
Proclamation by President Barack Obama, President of the United States:
America is a country where all of us should be able to pursue our own measure of happiness and live free from fear. But for the millions of children who have experienced abuse or neglect, it is a promise that goes tragically unfulfilled. National Child Abuse Prevention Month is a time to make their struggle our own and reaffirm a simple truth: that no matter the challenges we face, caring for our children must always be our first task.
Realizing that truth in our society means ensuring children know they are never alone — that they always have a place to go and there are always people on their side. Parents and caregivers play an essential part in giving their children that stability. But we also know that keeping our children safe is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors and the broader community. All of us bear a responsibility to look after them, whether by lifting children toward their full potential or lending a hand to a family in need.
Our Government shares in that obligation, which is why my Administration has made addressing child abuse a priority. Since I took office, we have advocated for responsible parenting and invested in programs that can give our sons and daughters a strong start in life. I was also proud to sign measures into law that equip State and local governments with the tools to take on abuse, like the CAPTA Reauthorization Act and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act….
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/northbrook/community/chi-ugc-article-national-child-abuse-prevention-month-obama-3-2013-04-08,0,4813927.story

The Ricki Lake Show – Stolen Childhoods  Victims of child abuse overcome a turbulent childhood.
April 10 – As a Hollywood actress and filmmaker, Angela Shelton was living a charmed life, but also hiding a dark secret. Starting at age three, Angela endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of her father and stepmother. In an effort to find healing and regain pieces of her stolen childhood, she set-off cross country to make a rather unusual documentary which became “Finding Angela Shelton.” As her process of healing continued, she teamed up with the Baby Einstein Team to create safety videos for children. http://therickilakeshow.com/episodes-clips/2013/4/Stolen-Childhoods
https://www.youtube.com/     watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oqAEEPM39e8

Blind to Betrayal The Book By Jennifer Freyd and Pamela Birrell
Betrayal is fundamental to the human condition.  Betrayal is everywhere and yet because of betrayal blindness often not seen. Drawing on empirical research, clinical thought, and real stories, we will explore with the reader central questions about betrayal and betrayal blindness: What is betrayal? What is its scope? Why are we often blind to it? What are the mental mechanisms that underlie betrayal blindness? What are the effects of betrayal blindness? How should we overcome the effects of betrayal and our blindness to it? How do we become aware of it and heal from its effects? We can create a better world together by facing betrayal and learning to trust ourselves and each other.   https://sites.google.com/site/betrayalbook/the-book

Blind to Betrayal Preface
….Betrayal violates us. It can destroy relationships and the very trust we need to be intimate in our relationships. It can and does damage the social fabric that creates the bonds for a healthy society. In the case of children, the effects can last a lifetime. Betrayed children may grow into adults who fail to trust the trustworthy or who too readily trust people who further betray them. Whether being too willing or too unwilling to trust, difficulty with trust not only interferes with relationships, but also eats away at a strong sense of self. Those who were betrayed as children often suffer severe self esteem problems, as well as depression, anxiety, and even psychosis.       http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/blindtobetrayalpreface.pdf

Blind to Betrayal – Chapter 1 ….betrayal occurs in many domains besides infidelity. People can be betrayed at work, in the family, and in society. Betrayal can occur at the individual and at the societal level. Betrayal can be the act of a terrorist or the act of a friend. Parents can betray by abandoning or abusing their children. Treason is betrayal. Social injustice and oppression often entail betrayal and betrayal blindness, as will be illustrated in the next chapter by the case of Kevin, who remained blind to being a victim of racial discrimination for so many years. Although not all betrayal involves blindness, ongoing or repeated betrayal is intrinsically linked with unawareness. Ongoing betrayal can occur only when there is some deception that is not fully detected. http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/09/04706044/0470604409-124.pdf

Speaking Our Truth – Chapter 13 Discusses Jennifer Freyd’s presentation at a professional conference “Personal and Theoretical Perspectives on the Delayed Memory Debate.”  She discusses her personal relationship with her parents, their false memory organization and her accounts of privacy violations and inappropriate relationships.

Blind to Betrayal  March 11th, 2013  Professor Jennifer Freyd has a new book with Pamela Birrell called Blind to Betrayal. The book, officially published today, explores various case studies involving betrayal, its effects and how victims come to grips with it.  Most relevant to the Recovered Memory Project is the chapter about the False Memory Syndrome…. http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2013/03/11/blind-to-betrayal/

Recidivism: How often do Child Molesters go on to Reoffend?
Some people claim that child abusers can’t be cured and invariably reoffend. Others suggest that recidivism rates are low and that sex offenders are less likely to reoffend than those who commit other types of crimes. What is the truth? Overall, follow-up studies typically find sexual recidivism rates of 10%-15% after five years, 20% after 10 years, and 30%-40% after 20 years (see, Hanson, Morton, & Harris, 2003). However, these numbers are conservative because not all offences are detected….
The vast majority of sex offenses are never reported. For instance, the National Women’s Study surveyed a representative sample of over 4,000 adult women in the United States . Three hundred forty-one (8.5%) of these women were victims of at least one rape prior to the age of 18; however, only 11.9% of these women reported the rape to authorities (Hanson et al., 1990). And it must be remembered, of the few offenses reported, an even smaller number result in convictions.  http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/rcd.html

Miss America Reveals Personal Child Abuse Story  Mallory Hagan, Miss America 2013 takes on child abuse cause. 4/15/2013 ….Aside from being a national ambassador for — — on our hospitals our house a champion for child sexual abuse it’s my pop — called stop it now child sexual abuse until. How we’ve teamed up with murder and child abuse America for the — garden that’s happening tomorrow morning in Times Square and and it’s really excited to be back in New York City to bring awareness to a cause it’s so important to me and why is it important he would not support me because many of the women in my family — sexually abuse and although that didn’t happen to me….
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/video/miss-america-reveals-personal-child-abuse-story-18964378
Restitution Returns to the United States Supreme Court (again) By James R. Marsh on April 24, 2013 Today, James R. Marsh of the Marsh Law Firm and Paul G. Cassell of the University of Utah College of Law Appellate Legal Clinic, filed a brief in the United States Supreme Court in their latest effort to convince the Court to consider the critical issue of criminal restitution for victims of child pornography.
The case, Doyle Randall Paroline v. Amy Unknown, arises out of a long-fought extensively litigated restitution action which started almost four years ago before Judge Leonard Davis in the Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division. In January, the defendant filed a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari in the Supreme Court seeking review of last year’s landmark Fifth Circuit en banc decision which significantly expanded the rights of child pornography  victims to receive criminal restitution. http://www.childlaw.us/2013/04/restitution-returns-to-the-uni.html

Science News  Psychopaths Are Not Neurally Equipped to Have Concern for Others Apr. 24, 2013 — Prisoners who are psychopaths lack the basic neurophysiological “hardwiring” that enables them to care for others, according to a new study by neuroscientists at the University of Chicago and the University of New Mexico.
“A marked lack of empathy is a hallmark characteristic of individuals with psychopathy,” said the lead author of the study, Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor in Psychology and Psychiatry at UChicago. Psychopathy affects approximately 1 percent of the United States general population and 20 percent to 30 percent of the male and female U.S. prison population. Relative to non-psychopathic criminals, psychopaths are responsible for a disproportionate amount of repetitive crime and violence in society.
“This is the first time that neural processes associated with empathic processing have been directly examined in individuals with psychopathy, especially in response to the perception of other people in pain or distress,” he added.
The results of the study, which could help clinical psychologists design better treatment programs for psychopaths, are published in the article, “Brain Responses to Empathy-Eliciting Scenarios Involving Pain in Incarcerated Individuals with Psychopathy,” which appears online April 24 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry….
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130424161108.htm

What Was Left Out? A Critique of “Capturing the Friedmans”
See how Friedman’s own attorney describes the movie as “containing interviews, cut and spliced, and taken out of context.” http://www.youtube.com/     watch?v=qjYWOZgMbHQ

Women Abused in Childhood at Higher Odds of Having Child With Autism: Study    Researchers speculate that effect on immune system, stress response might explain why WEDNESDAY, March 20, 2013 (HealthDay News) — Women who were physically, emotionally or sexually abused as children are more likely to have a child with autism, a new study suggests.
For women who suffered the most severe abuse, the risk more than tripled, the researchers found.
“This is a completely new risk factor for autism,” said lead investigator Andrea Roberts, a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health.
“Child abuse has a horrible effect on individuals who experience it, but the effects might reach across generations,” she said. “The more abuse a woman had been exposed to in her own childhood, the more likely she was to have a child with autism.” Even women who experienced moderate levels of abuse were 60 percent more likely to have a child with autism, she added. Although this increased risk seems high, the absolute risk of autism associated with a mother’s exposure to abuse in childhood is very low, Roberts said. In women who were not abused as children, fewer than one in 100 of those children had autism. Among women exposed to the highest level of abuse, two in 100 of their children had autism. “So, most of their kids don’t have autism,” she said…. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_135120.html

The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault by Rebecca Campbell, Ph.D. – National Institute of Justice
“So now let’s loop in the rape victim advocate perspective: “It’s hard trying to stop what police do to victims. They don’t believe them and they treat them so bad that the victims give up. It happens over and over again.” (slide 7) “So what do we get from these three simple quotes? What these three quotes show us right off the bat is that sexual assault case attrition happens very early on in the criminal justice system. It’s happening in the first interactions between the victims and law enforcement. Indeed, if we take these qualitative data and look at them from a quantitative perspective, we see very similar findings.” (slide 9)

“This is the row that you want to pay attention to. This is the very first step in the criminal justice system. On average, 86 percent of the reported sexual assaults never went any further than the police. The vast majority of these cases were never referred by the police on to the prosecutors.” (slide 11) “Now the psychological impact of that on victims is quite devastating. As a result of their contact with the legal system, most victims say they leave that interaction feeling blamed, depressed, anxious, and 80 percent say that they feel reluctant to seek further help after that interaction.” (slide 14) “If the information coming into the brain, into the body, is emotionally charged, fearful, the amygdala is actually the structure that’s going to pick that up first. It’s a very old structure, old in an evolutionary sense. Part of the limbic system sort of vibrating — and they’re much more difficult for the brain to process because they’re laden with fear, they’re laden with terror. So the amygdala and the hippocampus have to kind of work together for the encoding of that information and then the consolidating of that information.” (slide 39) http://nij.gov/multimedia/presenter/presenter-campbell/

A Child Without Dreams Marian Wright Edelman  President, Children’s Defense Fund 04/26/2013  Every day four children in America are killed by abuse or neglect.  More than 750,000 children are abused or neglected each year.  Even when children survive or after physical scars heal, the emotional damage left by child abuse and neglect can last a lifetime just as the post traumatic stress left by gun violence leaves deep scars in countless children.
Joseph Miles has essentially been on his own since he was 13 years old — the year his mother tried to kill him.  Until then, he would say, he cried for love.  After that he gave up on hoping ever to find it.  Today Joseph is in his forties and has been incarcerated since he was 28.  When he came to prison he couldn’t read or write. It was only recently that Joseph realized he missed out on something crucial besides love in early childhood:  he didn’t even know he should have had dreams until it was much too late….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marian-wright-edelman/a-child-without-dreams_b_3165763.html

Why Christie Blatchford Is Wrong About My Daughter Rehtaeh – Father of Rehtaeh Parsons Glen Canning 04/26/2013  This morning I woke up and read an article in the National Post about Rehtaeh’s case. I’m not upset or mad. A little disappointed maybe. The writer, Christie Blatchford, makes a few statements I would like to address…. “What they had was a complainant whose evidence was all over the map…” Rehtaeh was intoxicated at the time and she has always stated she couldn’t remember much of what happened.

What she did say was all over the map and that is exactly what one should expect it to be from a 15-year-old girl who remembers very little but is being swamped at school and online with slut stories about what took place.  “…independent evidence that supported the notion that any sex was consensual, and no evidence that Rehtaeh was so drunk that she couldn’t consent:” The two boys involved in taking and posing for the photograph stated Rehtaeh was throwing up when they had sex with her. That is not called consensual sex. That is called rape. They also stated they had to get her dressed when they were finished. She was passed out. That is the story they told to anyone at Rehtaeh’s school who would listen. That is their account of what happened. There are numerous people who heard that and shared that. No evidence she was so drunk that she couldn’t consent? How drunk does someone have to be? Drunk enough to get sick or drunk enough to not remember?…. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/glen-canning/rehtaeh-parsons-christie-blatchford_b_3164434.html

The Post’s View   Conference shines light on plight of battered mothers seeking custody
By Editorial Board, May 10, 2013
THE BATTLES over child custody that unfold in courtrooms across the United States don’t get much attention. If a celebrity is involved, there might be headlines, but publicity is generally shunned out of the not-unreasonable urge to protect the privacy of children. Unfortunately, though, that has tended to shroud problems in how these critical decisions are made. That’s why a conference focusing attention this week on systemic issues in family court is so important.
The Battered Mothers Custody Conference started Friday at George Washington University Law School and concludes Sunday with a vigil at the White House. It brings together victims of domestic abuse, advocates and experts in an effort to reform a system they say doesn’t do enough to protect children. Too often, said organizers of the event, which is now in its 10th year, custody or access in contested cases where domestic violence has been alleged is given to abusive fathers because of a misguided emphasis on parental rights that discounts or disbelieves the concerns of women who have been battered. Victimized parents, often suffering from trauma caused by the abuse, are bankrupted and punished for fighting for their children.
“Cascading disasters and shattered lives are predictable and inevitable,” said Eileen King, executive director of Child Justice in the District and a speaker at the conference. She pointed to the case of 15-month-old Prince McLeod Rams, allegedly drowned by his father after his mother unsuccessfully tried to block unsupervised visits, and the infamous deaths in 2008 of Amy Castillo’s young children by a father she warned was dangerous….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/conference-shines-light-on-plight-of-battered-mothers-seeking-custody/2013/05/10/8a2830fc-b8f1-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html

Inpatient Treatment for Early Sexually Abused Adults: A Naturalistic 12-Month Follow-Up Study.
Jepsen, Ellen K. K.; Langeland, Willie; Sexton, Hal; Heir, Trond    Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, May 6 , 2013 doi: 10.1037/a0031646
Abstract
To date, most of the inpatient outcome studies among early traumatized individuals lack data on dissociative disorders. More research is needed to evaluate whether severely dissociative patients can improve following specialized inpatient treatment for chronic childhood abuse. The objectives of this study were to investigate symptomatic change in patients attending a 3-month specialized inpatient treatment program for adults with a history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and mixed trauma-related disorders. In particular, symptomatic changes in those with and without a complex dissociative disorder I + II (CDD) were contrasted. Fifty-six patients with CSA and trauma-related disorders (including 23 patients with CDD) completed the treatment program and a test battery at precare evaluation, admission, discharge, and at 1-year follow-up. There was an overall symptom reduction in dimensional measures maintained at the 1-year follow-up.

Patients with CDD consistently had significantly higher symptom levels than the patients without these disorders. Both patient subgroups showed parallel improvement from admission to follow-up, although those high in dissociation (CDD patients) needed more time to show improvement and were still clinically worse at the end of treatment and at follow-up. The findings were matched by clinically significant changes. The results suggest that adults with reported childhood sexual abuse and mixed trauma-related disorders can improve in symptom severity following a trauma-based 3-month inpatient program regardless of CDD status. The high distress level in CDD patients indicates that patients with CDD need treatment that is in part different from the more general treatment of polysymptomatic CSA survivors, addressing the pathological aspects of dissociation more vigorously.  http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2013-15549-001/

Japanese mayor: Wartime sex slaves were necessary By MALCOLM FOSTER Associated Press 5/14/13
TOKYO (AP) — An outspoken nationalist mayor said the Japanese military’s forced prostitution of Asian women before and during World War II was necessary to “maintain discipline” in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risked their lives in battle.
The comments made Monday are already raising ire in neighboring countries that bore the brunt of Japan’s wartime aggression and have long complained that Japan has failed to fully atone for wartime atrocities.
Toru Hashimoto, the young, brash mayor of Osaka who is co-leader of an emerging conservative political party, also said that U.S. troops currently based in southern Japan should patronize the local sex industry more to help reduce rapes and other assaults.
Hashimoto told reporters on Monday that there wasn’t clear evidence that the Japanese military had coerced women to become what are euphemistically called “comfort women” before and during World War II….
Historians say up to 200,000 women, mainly from the Korean Peninsula and China, were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers in military brothels.
China’s Foreign Ministry criticized the mayor’s comments and saw them as further evidence of a rightward drift in Japanese politics under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“We are appalled and indignant about the Japanese politician’s comments boldly challenging humanity and historical justice,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily media briefing. “The way they treat the past will determine the way Japan walks toward the future. On what choice Japan will make, the Asian neighbors and the international community will wait and see.”
Asked about a photo of Abe posing in a fighter jet with the number 731 — the number of a notorious, secret Japanese unit that performed chemical and biological experiments on Chinese in World War II — Hong again urged Japan not to whitewash history so as to improve relations with countries that suffered under Japanese occupation.
“There is a mountain of definitive iron-hard evidence for the crimes they committed in the Second World War. We hope Japan will face and contemplate their history of aggression and treat it correctly,” Hong said.
Abe posed, thumbs up, in the aircraft during a weekend visit to northeastern Japan.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry expressed disappointment over what it called a senior Japanese official’s serious lack of historical understanding and respect for women’s rights. It asked Japan’s leaders to reflect on their country’s imperial past, including grave human rights violations, and correct anachronistic historical views…. http://news.yahoo.com/japanese-mayor-wartime-sex-slaves-were-necessary-042050746.html

We the People    James Haven  Honorary Senior Advisor on Global Issues at Harvard; Founder, CoreCause Foundation 05/10/2013
….66% percent of adults in treatment for drug abuse reported being abused as children.
80% of young adults who suffered child abuse or neglect, met criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder by age 21, including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.
42% percent of children who are molested are suicidal by their teens.
Abused and neglected children are 11 times more likely to engage in criminal behavior as an adult.
Sentencing in crimes against children typically carries 25 percent of the sentencing if the same crime was committed against an adult.
Child abuse and neglect in America is growing at a very high rate. And the most vulnerable is 0-6 in age. Thousands are being exploited and millions are in poverty and living on our streets across the nation.
124 billion is the minimum annual cost to the U.S. directly related to child abuse… Healthcare for mental illnesses and substance abuse… Child welfare and protection… Law enforcement and court systems to handle juvenile and adult criminal cases.
Those are very sobering statistics. But they also prove the most important statistic of all. That as Fredrick Douglas once said, “It is easier to build strong children than it is to fix broken men.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-haven/we-the-people_4_b_3254727.html

Plan to stop child sex tourism May 15 2013 By BARBARA COLE
Durban – South African hotels are signing up to help protect children from sex tourism and are on the lookout for suspicious guests who try to check in with underage companions.
South Africa has the right combination of factors, such as poverty and violence against women, which put children at risk of exploitation.
In a move to stop South Africa becoming a child-sex tourism or trafficking destination, there were certain factors that created an environment for the exploitation of children, said Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa, a non-profit organisation and the local representative of the Tourism Child Protection Code of Conduct. The code is based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Some of these realities are explained as follows: “The inflow of tourists, the ease with which people can cross (the) borders, societal beliefs that tolerate violence against women, high levels of poverty, and growing inequality since 1994 suggest that tens of thousands of children are at risk of sexual and other forms of exploitation. http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/plan-to-stop-child-sex-tourism-1.1516301

Maltreated children show same pattern of brain activity as combat soldiers 5 December 2011
Brain Scan Children exposed to family violence show the same pattern of activity in their brains as soldiers exposed to combat, new research has shown.
In the first functional MRI brain scan study to investigate the impact of physical abuse and domestic violence on children, scientists at UCL in collaboration with the Anna Freud Centre, found that exposure to family violence was associated with increased brain activity in two specific brain areas (the anterior insula and the amygdala) when children viewed pictures of angry faces.
Previous fMRI studies that scanned the brains of soldiers exposed to violent combat situations have shown the same pattern of heightened activation in these two areas of the brain, which are associated with threat detection. The authors suggest that both maltreated children and soldiers may have adapted to be ‘hyper-aware’ of danger in their environment.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1112/111205-maltreated-children-fMRI-study

describes violent crimes
Why ever more fathers are killing their children: Top criminologist reveals her research into this sickening trend By Elizabeth Yardley  22 May 2013
….As a criminologist specialising in murder, I have just completed research into the phenomenon of parents killing their children.
And my discoveries left me wondering not how it could happen — but just how soon it would be before another case of parental murder would hit the headlines.
Perhaps the most terrifying thing I have learned from my research is that the incidence of parents murdering their children is becomingly increasingly common. There have been 71 cases since 1980 – and the numbers are speeding up alarmingly.
In the Eighties, fewer than one child a year was murdered by a parent. Over the past decade, numbers have risen to two or three a year – a rate that is increasing steadily. Though mothers are also capable of murdering their children, the vast majority of murders – 59 of the 71 – are committed by men. I call them Family Annihilators because they cold-bloodedly plot their family’s destruction….
I examined all of the cases of murders by parents of their children since 1980, looking at everything from the fathers’ jobs to the day of the week they committed the murder — and uncovered some quite extraordinary patterns.
In seven out of ten cases, the children have been at the centre of a bitter family break-up.
Of course, I wouldn’t for a minute suggest that divorce inevitably leads to murder….
But they all seem to have one thing in common. They feel that their masculinity is being threatened. In getting divorced, they believe they are losing the one thing that makes them feel like successful men: their families. In murdering their children, they are, in some twisted way, wresting back control not just of their children, but often of their wives, too….
often the trigger is that the spouse is with a new partner or is pregnant. He may have been dreaming of a reconciliation: now he has to face the reality of losing his wife for ever.
In half of all cases of Family Annihilator, the murderer kills his former wife, too….
these men seem to want to inflict maximum damage on their children as a way of proving just how powerful they are — and as a means to inflict the maximum pain on their wives….Fewer than 10 per cent of Family Annihilators have a record of domestic violence. Even more frightening, perhaps, most have no record of mental illness. They have simply slipped beneath the radar….
And there is no way of predicting which men are going to carry on being loving fathers — and which are going to act on these feelings and turn into Family Annihilators.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2328784/Why-fathers-killing-children-Top-criminologist-reveals-research-sickening-trend.html

FBI — Human Trafficking  It’s sad but true: here in this country, people are being bought, sold, and smuggled like modern-day slaves.
They are trapped in lives of misery—often beaten, starved, and forced to work as prostitutes or to take grueling jobs as migrant, domestic, restaurant, or factory workers with little or no pay. We’re working hard to stop human trafficking—not only because of the personal and psychological toll it takes on society, but also because it facilitates the illegal movement of immigrants across borders and provides a ready source of income for organized crime groups and even terrorists.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/human_trafficking

Sex Trafficking in the Metro By Meghan Matthews May. 22, 2013
Omaha, NE – Imagine being trapped in a nightmare. “It felt like weeks, I was exhausted I was terrified.”
That’s how Monica describes two days of hell; trapped and forced into prostitution.
“Every time you sell yourself, you sell your soul and you know you’re not the same person that you used to be.”

Monica isn’t her real name, we are protecting her identity. She tells me five days before her 20th birthday an old friend lured her into a car, with a pimp.
“They looked over my body and then pretty much immediately posted a post on Craigslist. By the time I got to the hotel, they actually had it up and running.” They took her to a Council Bluffs motel and forced her to have sex with clients.
“He took my phone, he took my wallet. He took everything.” For two days, someone else controlled her life.
You might not believe it. You might not see it, but the signs of sex trafficking are out there. Kids, teens even adults are stolen off the streets and roped into prostitution rings every day….
http://www.kmtv.com//208592751.html

Greater Manchester police deny failing child sexual exploitation victims  Police force rejects criticism that ‘sexual abusers are walking the streets’ and that officers do not have skills to win trust of victims     Mark Smith         guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 March 2013
Greater Manchester police have angrily dismissed reports they are failing alleged victims of child sexual exploitation in Rochdale by ruling them out of the inquiry set up after nine men were convicted last May of being part of a grooming ring that preyed on teenage girls.
An investigation by the Sunday Times (paywall) reported that 34 potential victims or witnesses were deemed to be “outside the scope of the inquiry” and had instead been referred to social services. The paper cited a source who claimed that officers had not yet even approached the vast majority of these potential complainants.
But the Guardian understands that local NHS crisis intervention teams (CITs) passed these 34 names to Greater Manchester police (GMP) only in the last week, and that they “remain very much part of the investigation”. These potential victims or witnesses are in addition to the 42 people approached by police in the first wave of Operation Doublet, though there may be some duplication of names in the file the CITs passed to police.
Of the initial 42 alleged victims approached by GMP, only six girls have been given “core” status and continue to work with the police toward potential prosecutions, prompting criticisms of the way the force is handling the complex and delicate nature of the inquiry….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/05/police-deny-child-sexual-exploitation-victims

May 13, 2013 D.C. Circuit Weighs Child Pornography Restitution Case  The thorny question of how to calculate restitution to victims of child pornography came back before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last week, with the U.S. Department of Justice defending a proposed formula.
Friday’s arguments marked the second time the court considered the case of Michael Monzel. Monzel pleaded guilty to one count each of distribution and possession of child pornography. A trial judge ordered Monzel to pay $5,000 to a victim known by the pseudonym “Amy,” but on remand from the D.C. Circuit reduced the award to zero, finding the government didn’t produce evidence on how much of Amy’s losses he caused.
The government appealed, arguing U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler was wrong to reduce the award and that its proposed formula – dividing a victim’s total losses by the number of individuals found criminally responsible and then adjusting based on certain factors – represented a fair solution. Monzel’s lawyer, Federal Public Defender A.J. Kramer, said the formula was arbitrary and that Kessler was right to reduce the award after the government presented no evidence linking his client to specific losses. http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/05/dc-circuit-weighs-child-pornography-restitution-case.html

D.C. Circuit Weighs Child Pornography Restitution Case By James R. Marsh on May 13, 2013
http://www.childlaw.us/2013/05/dc-circuit-weighs-child-pornog.html

Failure to Protect: The Crisis in America’s Family Courts May 6, 2010 When a mother’s bitter custody battle ends with the death of her child, something has gone terribly wrong with the system.
Wyatt Garcia was born in April 2009. Nine months later, he was shot and killed by his father, who then turned the gun on himself.
It might have turned out differently—if a family court judge had listened to Wyatt’s mother….
Lawyers, judges, psychologists and representatives of women’s groups interviewed by The Crime Report describe a broken family court system that is already burdened with a heavy caseload and too few judges—many of whom are forced to rotate between cases—and in which serious criminal allegations of domestic or sexual abuse are routinely ignored. The crushing financial costs of pursuing long custody battles is an additional burden on indigent mothers, who get little or no legal support. The odds are particularly stacked against children at risk when the court battle revolves over “he said, she said” arguments.
The system has particularly failed parents – usually mothers – whose efforts to protect their children collide with an approach to custody issues that is based on narrow legal concepts of balance and fair treatment rather than psychological or medical evidence. “Courts assume mothers are orchestrating misinformation, instead of trying to protect their children,” said Kathleen Russell, director of the Center for Judicial Excellence…. http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-justice/failure-to-protect-the-crisis-in-americae28099s-family-courts

NEW ENGLAND LAW|BOSTON, JD/PHD PROJECT DAUBERT FRYE CRITIQUE #1: LOST IN THE MALL, BY LOFTUS, ET. AL. By: Wendy Murphy, JD; Megan Mitchell, JD (expected 2013); Alexa Sardina, PhD (expected 2014)
Study Name and citation:
Loftus, E. & Pickrell, J. E. (1995). The Formation of False Memories. Psychiatric Annals, 25(12), 720-725. (Commonly known as the “Lost in the Mall” study).
Theory Advanced by the Study:
False childhood memories can be implanted into adults by repeatedly stating the false memory as true. Conclusion: The study’s theory and methodology are not reliable under either Frye or Daubert standards. Overarching Observation: Irrespective of scientific reliability, no study should be admitted as evidence in a court of law, whether directly or via the testimony of an expert relying on that study, unless it is relevant to an issue legitimately in dispute in a particular legal controversy. Relevancy standards applicable to scientific and “specialized” testimony and evidence refer to this as the “fitness” factor, which means the proposed evidence “fits” the facts because it will help to elucidate the truth on a disputed issue.

For example, any attempt to use the Lost in the Mall  study to prove or disprove that a person is telling the truth about sexual abuse should be unsuccessful simply because memories about getting lost in a mall have nothing to do with memories of being sexually or physically violated. Put another way, the capacity to make a person falsely believe they were once lost in a mall does not “fit” and bears no relevance in a dispute over whether a person can be made to falsely believe they were sexually abused as a child. This argument should be made first, before addressing more complicated scientific arguments about how the “Lost in the Mall” study was designed and conducted. It should be made clear to the judge that if a particular study, or proposed expert testimony relying on that study, is not relevant because it does not “fit” with the facts in dispute, there is no need to undertake a burdensome analysis of whether scientific standards were satisfied during the research process. Simply put, if it isn’t relevant, it doesn’t matter that a study is scientifically unreliable.  http://wendymurphylaw.com/LOSTINTHEMALL.pdf

• Please use caution while reading all of these papers. Some of the information may be very heavy for survivors. If in doubt, download the page and wait to read it until you are with your therapist or a trusted support person.

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