Issue 122 – May 2015

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 122 – May 2015

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 2015 – 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 2015 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference will be held August 7 – 8, 2015 at the DoubleTree Hotel near Bradley International Airport Windsor Locks, CT
Internet conference information:  https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/

Ritual Abuse And Extreme Abuse Clinician’s Conference 2015
A one day conference preceding our regular conference will be open to licensed practitioners in related fields to discuss issues in working with clients suffering from ritual abuse and extreme abuse symptoms.
https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/ritual-abuse-and-extreme-abuse-clinicians-conference-2015/

This issue includes information on :   Rochdale child sex ring,  Cyril Smith child abuse probe,  Lord Janner child abuse investigation, Abused children in Norfolk,  Gordonstoun,  Westminster Child Abuse Cover-Up, Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), Operation Fairbank, Jimmy Savile, sex abuse claims against Tony Blair minister, Enoch Powell sex abuse probe satanic abuse claim,   John Downing, Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), suing Mormon officials allegedly enabling and concealing abuses,  Christopher Michael Jensen, Rotherham grooming scandal, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Priest James Fletcher, MI5 ‘hid’ child abuse at boys’ home,  possible paedophile ring, Kincora historic VIP paedophile ring, alleged VIP paedophile ring,  Dolphin Square, Oxford child sex ring,  Rotherham child abuse, Major Child Abuse Cover-Up in French Schools, claims French soldiers in the Central African Republic sexually abused children, Bill Cosby,  Clergy Sex Abuse Victims In Montana’s Diocese of Helena, Bishop Robert Finn, Father Charles Sylvestre, LDS Church, Michael Jackson,  Military Child Abuse Case, Mexican satanist ‘Black Mass’,  alleged satanic rape case, American Psychological Association and C.I.A. Torture Program, Alfio Granata, Going Clear, Scientology documentary, fraternities, hazing incident, sex-trafficked kids, human rights abuse, Bitcoin’s Blockchain and Child Abuse

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.

Rochdale child sex ring No officers to be charged over Rochdale child abuse failure, say police
Greater Manchester police examined the conduct of 13 officers between 2008 and 2010 but found only one warranted disciplinary action  Nigel Bunyan  Thursday 12 March 2015  No police officer will be disciplined over a force-wide failure to tackle the sexual abuse of teenage girls in Rochdale, according to a report by Greater Manchester police (GMP).
The force looked at the conduct of 13 officers between 2008 and 2010, but served notices of misconduct on only seven. Ultimately only one officer, an inspector, was found to have warranted disciplinary action but he was able to retire without any sanction being taken against him. The remaining six officers were given “words of advice” by superiors.
GMP took four years to complete the investigation under the supervision of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). The officer who retired had been in a supervisory role in 2008 when Girl A, the teenager at the heart of the landmark 2012 trial of nine paedophiles, made her allegations of abuse. He had been in the force for 30 years.
A second officer failed to serve an abduction notice on Shabir Ahmed, the leader of the gang who preyed on girls visiting two takeaways in Heywood. A third was criticised for yawning while interviewing Girl A about her allegations.
The assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester police, Dawn Copley, acknowledged “mistakes were made and victims let down”. She laid some of the blame at the force’s focus in 2008–10 on targeting such crimes as burglary.
There was also a widespread lack of understanding about the complexities of child sexual exploitation. But she insisted that lessons had been learned in the aftermath of the failings.
Nine men from Rochdale and Oldham were found guilty of offences that included rape and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. Eight were of Pakistani origin, the other from Afghanistan. The court heard the group had plied five victims with drink and drugs and “passed them around” for sex.
Girl A reacted with fury at the report. “I’m fuming,” she said. “It’s taken them four years and it reads like a whitewash. These policemen have done wrong and yet none of them has been named and the one they wanted to discipline has been able to retire. It just seems very, very convenient.”….
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/13/no-officers-charged-over-rochdale-child-abuse-failure-greater-manchester-police

Cyril Smith child abuse probe ‘scrapped after his arrest’  By Nick Hopkins and Jake Morris BBC Newsnight  16 March 2015   An undercover police operation that gathered evidence of child abuse by Cyril Smith and other public figures was scrapped shortly after the MP was arrested, BBC Newsnight has been told. The Liberal MP, who died in 2010, was held during a 1980s probe into alleged sex parties with teenage boys in south London, a source told the programme.  He was allegedly released within hours of being taken to a police station. The Met is looking into the handling of historical child sex abuse cases. The force would not comment on the details of the allegations about Smith put to them by Newsnight. A spokesman said it was “investigating allegations that police officers acted inappropriately in relation to non-recent child abuse investigations” however, and asked for anyone with information to come forward.
‘Secrets act’ warning
Information has been passed to Newsnight by a former officer, who is familiar with the original investigation and its closure.
The order to scrap the probe, made after Smith and others had been arrested, came from a senior officer whom the undercover team had never met before, according to the source.
Officers were then ordered to hand over all their evidence – including notebooks and video footage – and were warned to keep quiet about the investigation or face prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, it is claimed.
Newsnight has been told the intelligence-led operation is believed to have started in 1981.
It involved a team of undercover regional crime squad officers, including some from Yorkshire who were based in London for the secret inquiry….
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31908431

Undercover elite child sex abuse investigation ‘scrapped by police commanders’
BBC Newsnight has claimed that an undercover police operation in possession of evidence that a member of the security services and a prominent MP were involved in child abuse was scrapped by commanders shortly after investigating officers sought to make arrests
By Gregory Walton 16 Mar 2015
An undercover police operation that had evidence that a member of the security services and a prominent MP were involved in child abuse was scrapped by commanders shortly after investigating officers sought to make arrests, it has been claimed.
The BBC’s Newsnight programme claims to have received information that Liberal MP Cyril Smith was detained in connection with an inquiry into sex parties involving teenage boys but was quickly released.
A former officer familiar with the investigation claimed that detectives were ordered to hand over all of their evidence and subsequently threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act if they disclosed details of the episode, according to Newsnight.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan police declined to discuss the new claims but called on “anyone with information which they believe can assist such inquiries to pass it onto police for consideration”.
Newsnight says it was informed of operation, believed to have begun in 1981, involving a team of undercover regional crime squad officers.
The squad believed that boys from care homes were being provided for sex parties.
Newsnight has been told that during a three month secret inquiry, officers gathered a substantial amount of evidence of men abusing boys aged around 14 years.
Evidence included photographs and video taken from inside a flat with a hidden camera that had been installed with the help of a caretaker.
Smith was then seized at a property in Streatham where he had been taking part in a sex party
with teenage boys, according to an account given to the BBC.
It is understood he was taken to the former Canon Row police station, opposite the House of Commons, but was released that night.
A desk sergeant was allegedly reprimanded for seeking to keep Smith in custody….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11476231/Undercover-elite-child-sex-abuse-investigation-scrapped-by-police-commanders.html

Cyril Smith child abuse probe: Police officer threatened   19 March 2015
Claims a police officer was threatened with the Official Secrets Act over allegations of child sex abuse relating to Cyril Smith are to be investigated.
The Manchester Evening News has reported claims an officer was warned to keep quiet after he found the former Rochdale MP at a house with two boys.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said the unnamed former officer had not reported the claims to police.
But GMP said they would be examined as part of its alleged “cover-up” probe.
Twenty-three people have claimed they were abused by the Liberal MP, who died aged 82 in 2010…. Northamptonshire Police is also probing claims police released Smith after child pornography was found in the boot of his car on the M1 in the 1980s. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-31965044

Cyril Smith M1 arrest to be probed by Northamptonshire Police
By Sally Chidzoy BBC East home affairs correspondent 9 March 2015
A cold case unit is to investigate claims police released MP Cyril Smith after images of child abuse were found in the boot of his car.
It is understood the Liberal MP, who died in 2010, was stopped on the M1 in Northamptonshire during the 1980s.
But he was released from police custody after making a telephone call to an unidentified third party in London, it has been claimed.
Northamptonshire Police is probing the circumstances around the arrest….
Despite being taken into the police station, the material said to have been found in his boot disappeared, Mr Danczuk said….         http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-31964255

Lord Janner: Inquiry into ‘limited’ child abuse investigation   19 March 2015
Further inquiries are to be carried out into whether detectives were told to limit a child abuse investigation centred on the former MP Lord Janner.  A home belonging to the 86-year-old peer, who was a Labour MP in Leicester for 27 years, was searched in 2013. Last year it was reported that in 1989 a detective sergeant was told not to arrest Mr Janner or search his home. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has said more investigation is needed into the claims…. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-31961706

New Lord Greville Janner ‘child abuse’ victims come forward since no charge revelations 20 April 2015 By Tom Pettifor It comes after the decision to not prosecute the ex-Labour MP due to his poor health was branded “a disgrace” by one alleged victim.  A number of new alleged victims of Lord Greville Janner have come forward since it was announced he will not be charged with child sex offences, police have revealed. It comes after the decision to not prosecute the ex-Labour MP due to his poor health was branded “a disgrace” by one alleged victim, who claimed Janner was “being protected” due to his VIP status.
Leicestershire Police had already traced 25 potential victims during a two-year probe codenamed Operation Enamel….
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/new-lord-greville-janner-child-5556412

Lord Greville Janner child sex abuse file ‘lost’ by Home Office  23 April 2015    By Tom Pettifor  Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders – who ruled Labour peer Janner will not face trial because he has Alzheimer’s – denied having any role in it    A file on Lord Greville Janner is among 114 dossiers on child sex abuse that have gone missing from the Home Office.
Details of the 1986 Janner file are buried in the appendix to the Wanless report, which investigated the missing sex abuse dossiers. The report, published in Nov–ember, studied claims that the 114 files disappeared as part of an Establishment cover-up. And today Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders – who ruled Janner will not face trial because he has Alzheimer’s – denied having any role in it and refused to quit….
Ms Saunders has said that, had he been judged fit to stand trial, Janner, 86, would have been charged with 22 sex offences against nine children from 1969 to 1988.
She said it was not in the public interest to prosecute because of his ill health. But a House of Lords spokesman has confirmed Janner signed a letter requesting a leave of absence this month.
And last March, three months after his home was searched by police, he signed the property over to his three children, putting the £2million house out of reach of potential child abuse victims suing for compensation….
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lord-greville-janner-child-sex-5571744

Three chances to prosecute Labour peer Lord Janner for child abuse were missed: CPS admits mistakes were made but now it is too late because he has dementia
Lord Janner will not face prosecution despite facing credible evidence
Director of Public Prosecutions says decision comes with ‘deep regret’
Alison Saunders tells of botched investigations in 1991, 2002 and 2007
Former Labour MP allegedly preyed on boys in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s
By Chris Greenwood for the Daily Mail and Martin Robinson for MailOnline  16 April 2015
Lord Janner should have been charged with historic child sex offences on three occasions over 25 years and will now never be prosecuted because of the ‘severity’ of his dementia, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.
Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions, has expressed her ‘deep regret’ that the 86-year-old former Labour MP for Leicester West will not face trial because of botched investigations in 1991, 2002 and 2007.
The decision not to charge him with 22 alleged sex attacks on children has infuriated police and campaigners, who have called it ‘perverse’ and a ‘step backwards for justice’.
Leicestershire Police may appeal because they handed the CPS ‘credible evidence’, including videos, showing ‘this man carried out some of the most serious sexual crimes imaginable’….
More than a dozen people came forward to claim Lord Janner abused them during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the CPS said.
Today they admitted there is enough evidence to prosecute the peer for 16 indecent assaults and six counts of buggery, but he is no longer fit to stand trial….
Lord Janner attended the House of Lords 15 times in November 2013 and 12 times in December 2013. Police searched his home on December 20, 2013 and he has not attended Parliament since….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3041209/Labour-s-Janner-not-charged-alleged-child-abuse-Prosecutors-say-not-public-peer-86-trial-age-dementia.html

Child abuse inquiry judge to investigate Lord Janner allegations  Lowell Goddard has asked director of public prosecutions to hand over files, will talk to Labour peer’s alleged victims and could call on him to give evidence  Josh Halliday  Wednesday 29 April 2015
A high court judge is to investigate whether child sexual abuse allegations against Lord Janner were the subject of an establishment cover-up.  Justice Lowell Goddard, the chair of a major independent inquiry into child abuse ordered by the home secretary, Theresa May, will seek evidence from the Labour peer’s alleged victims and may even summon the 86-year-old to give evidence.
The New Zealand judge has also asked Britain’s top prosecutor, Alison Saunders, to hand over all the prosecution files against Janner as part of an “exhaustive and critical examination of the institutional decision-making processes” in the case. She said she would scrutinise three missed opportunities to prosecute Janner by the police or the CPS in 1991, 2002 and 2007 and “whether any inappropriate influence was brought to bear in any effort to shield Lord Janner from prosecution”.
The announcement came after Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, attracted widespread criticism earlier this month when she said there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Janner over 22 alleged sexual offences but that he would not be prosecuted because he has Alzheimer’s disease….
Janner, who has dementia, was accused of carrying out a catalogue of abuse against young boys, and more than a dozen people came forward to claim he abused them during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s….
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/29/child-abuse-inquiry-judge-lowell-goddard-investigate-lord-janner-allegations

Abused children in Norfolk were ‘sexual playthings’  By Julian Sturdy BBC Look East 27 April 2015  Six women and four men have gone on trial accused of abusing five young children and treating them as “sexual playthings”.  The 10, who face 38 charges, deny playing any part in the sexual abuse in Norfolk, Norwich Crown Court heard.  Prosecutor Angela Rafferty QC told the court the children were “sexually and physically abused and neglected… in the early parts of their lives”. Nine of the defendants are from Norwich and one is from Romford, London. Mrs Rafferty said the “dreadful truth” was these five children “became sexual playthings within that group.”…
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-32477868

Rape, child abuse and Prince Charles’s former school
One of Scotland’s leading schools is facing claims by former students that they were abused by paedophiles. Alex Renton reveals how the country’s archaic laws are failing to bring them justice
Alex Renton  Sunday 12 April 2015
…,Gordonstoun was a success, especially after Prince Philip of Greece, now the Duke of Edinburgh, arrived. Other royals followed: five of the Queen’s children and grandchildren went there, despite Charles’s complaints. By the 1970s it was touted as a place for spoilt or wealthy children who needed toughening up – Sean Connery and David Bowie’s sons went, and so did Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter. Physical punishment, strict discipline and cold showers were key to Hahn’s approach to keeping children in line.
….Mutual respect, resilience and trust were the cornerstones of Hahn’s notions of how to educate a child. His ideas have made Gordonstoun one of Britain’s most famous public schools. But a series of complaints sent to me covering 40 years reveal a dark alternative history. Not all of the stories can be detailed here. But, too often to be excused, Gordonstoun and its junior school appear to have let down the trust of parents and failed to respect the rights and needs of children. Predatory paedophiles are a part of the history of many celebrated schools in Britain. But Gordonstoun’s story is particularly urgent because Scotland’s archaic laws around proving sexual assault dissuade victims from coming forward. They can mean predators, who might be brought to trial, remain at large and free to offend.
….Such events and others, coupled with the stream of recent stories about sex scandals and cover-ups in celebrated public schools, sparked talk among Gordonstoun’s ex-pupils. In 2013 some of them began a private Facebook group, discussing things that had happened at the school, “that you don’t see in the brochures and the class photographs”, as one of them put it. Rapes, of boys and girls, were mentioned. Kate started to receive messages from girls she had known, apologising for the gossip and rumours, for the bullying, and for not having done more to help.
The group eventually involved more than 100 ex-pupils. Acting in concert, they presented the school with a list of demands: it should do more to address bullying and sexual abuse, issue an apology to past victims and fund help for them and, notably, promise in future to report any incidents to the police.
John briefly joined the group, but left it, thinking the chatter was futile: “It was mainly about bullying, old classroom rows.” But he had already decided that he had to act on Jones: “I had a duty to make sure this bastard was not still out there doing things to kids.” So in February 2014 he went to the police. Their subsequent investigation stretched as far as New Zealand. Eventually, John was told Derek Jones could not be brought to trial or offend again. He had died in a car crash in Kenya, five years earlier.
But if that was any consolation for John, it was spoilt by the shock of the other information the officer – who has declined to comment – then handed over. Despite Gordonstoun’s solemn assurances, Derek Jones had gone on to teach, and potentially abuse, elsewhere. He had been forced to leave a school in Essex and had then surfaced and taught in Kenya. It is unclear what happened in East Africa, but former colonies there have provided a home for several predatory paedophiles sacked from English private schools – some of whom have gone on to offend again. Scottish police have identified both the Essex and Kenya school where Jones taught, but have refused to name them to the Observer….
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/12/child-abuse-at-prince-charles-former-school-scotland
Trial to begin for last 3 defendants in FAMU hazing case By KYLE HIGHTOWER  April 20, 2015 s
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The manslaughter trial of the remaining three former band members charged in the hazing death of a Florida A&M drum major has begun. Before jury selection, Judge Renee Roche dismissed misdemeanor hazing charges faced by defendants Benjamin McNamee, Aaron Golson and Darryl Cearnel, who are being tried together. Each still faces 15 years on manslaughter and felony hazing counts for the November 2011 death of 26-year-old Robert Champion. Champion — from Decatur, Georgia — was beaten during a hazing ritual after a football game in November 2011.  Fifteen former band members were charged with manslaughter. Dante Martin, now 27, was convicted last year and is serving six years….
http://helenair.com/news/national/trial-to-begin-for-last-defendants-in-famu-hazing-case/article_ee08c5b9-4615-58e0-822c-8761c966db00.html

UK Police Watchdog to Investigate Westminster Child Abuse Cover-Up By Lucy Draper 3/16/15
The UK police watchdog has announced that it is investigating the Metropolitan Police following allegations that the force was involved in a cover-up over child abuse offenses alleged to have been carried out by members of the British establishment between 1970 and 2005.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has launched the investigation after the Met referred themselves over 16 separate allegations – 14 of which are to be investigated, while two referrals of a similar nature are still being assessed. The IPCC will look into claims of corruption within the force and whether they purposefully ignored evidence and halted investigations due to the involvement of MPs and other members of the establishment.
This most recent development comes as a result of Operation Fairbank, first launched by Scotland Yard in 2012, to probe suggestions that high profile figures were involved in historic Westminster paedophile rings. Since then detectives have also opened up inquiries into the murder of three boys who it’s alleged were killed by those involved in such rings, claims which the superintendent overseeing the inquiry called “credible and true”, and have resulted in the police calling for witnesses as they have been unable to identify the victims and no bodies have been found.
Investigations have focused both on the Dolphin Square estate in Pimlico where one victim claims he, along with other young boys, were abused by several high-profile individuals after attending ‘parties’ there, and also on Elm Guest House in Barnes which was reportedly used as a brothel where children were abused. It’s alleged that Liberal Democrat MP Cyril Smith visited frequently in the 1970s and 80s.
One of the 14 referrals for the IPCC says that “a proactive operation targeting young men in Dolphin Square was stopped because officers were too near prominent people”, while another is about “allegations that a politician had spoken with a senior Met Police officer and demanded no action was taken regarding a paedophile ring and boys being procured and supplied to prominent persons in Westminster in the 1970s”….
http://www.newsweek.com/uk-police-watchdog-investigate-westminster-child-abuse-cover-314002

Evidence mounts in Britain’s child abuse cover-up investigation  A dam of official silence around child abuse in Britain began to break after the 2011 death of entertainer Jimmy Savile. By Jill Lawless, Associated Press March 17, 2015
London — A toxic mix of misuse of power and official silence has become Britain’s shame as the country faces up to a growing web of evidence that the abuse of vulnerable children by powerful men was covered up for decades. Several lawmakers said Tuesday that former detectives and intelligence officers should be guaranteed protection from prosecution if they speak out about child abuse by senior police, politicians, and other prominent people. On Monday, the BBC’s “Newsnight” program reported that an ex-detective had told it that a lawmaker, Cyril Smith, was arrested in the early 1980s as part of an investigation into child-sex parties, but was released hours later.
He said officers were ordered to hand over notebooks and video footage from their undercover operation, and were told they would be violating the Official Secrets Act if they revealed what had happened.
The BBC did not identify the former detective because of the legal threat hanging over him.
After Smith died in 2010, prosecutors revealed that in 1970 eight men had accused the Liberal lawmaker of abusing them as teens. The prosecutors said Smith was never charged, but should have been…. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0317/Evidence-mounts-in-Britain-s-child-abuse-cover-up-investigation

Top cop in Britain questioned by his own detectives for role in alleged cover-up of sex abuse claims against Tony Blair minister  BY Jason Silverstein  NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Top British detectives are questioning an unlikely suspect in a high-stakes child abuse investigation: their boss. Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is getting grilled by his own detectives over an alleged police cover-up connected to former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration, according to the Mirror. Hogan-Howe was an Assistant Chief Constable for the Merseyside Police in 1998, when the department uncovered claims that one of Blair’s ministers was a suspected pedophile. Hogan-Howe now says he “does not recall details about the investigation” or any suspects, according to a statement from the Metropolitan Police Service.
But a source close to the investigation told the Mirror it is “inconceivable” that Hogan-Howe and his cohorts weren’t aware of the accusations.
“The senior investigating officer at the time would have been expected to have reported to his senior officers the fact a serving government minister had come under suspicion,” the source said….
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/top-uk-questioned-role-sex-abuse-coverup-article-1.2153329

Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe facing probe over child abuse ‘cover-up’
17 March 2015   By Tom Pettifor  Britain’s top cop was an Assistant Chief Constable at Merseyside in 1998 when the force uncovered claims one of Tony Blair’s ministers was a suspected paedophile Britain’s top police officer faces being quizzed by his own detectives over claims that police covered up child sex abuse by politicians. Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe was an Assistant Chief Constable at Merseyside in 1998 when the force uncovered claims one of Tony Blair’s ministers was a suspected paedophile. A source close to the Operation Care probe has confirmed the team were aware of allegations the minister was suspected of child abuse in Lambeth, South London.
It was “inconceivable” senior Merseyside officers were not aware the politician had come under suspicion, the source said. But Sir Bernard “does not recall details about the investigation, those suspected or any associated allegations made regarding politicians”, Scotland Yard said….
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/metropolitan-police-chief-sir-bernard-5353419

Enoch Powell is named by bishop in sex abuse probe: Scotland Yard to investigate satanic abuse claim – and demands to see filed held on serving MPs
Bishop of Durham Paul Butler names late Tory politician to Scotland Yard
Former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker, heard allegation in 1980s
Claim being examined by Operation Fenbridge – one of several such probes
Simon Heffer, Powell’s official biographer, branded allegations ‘nonsense’
By Glen Owen and Brendan Carlin for The Mail on Sunday
29 March 2015
The probe into an alleged paedophile network at the heart of the British Establishment took an explosive turn last night with the revelation that Enoch Powell’s name has been passed to police.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the late Tory MP, one of the most prominent and divisive politicians of the 20th Century, has been named to Scotland Yard by the Bishop of Durham. The claims relate to ‘ritual satanic abuse’.
And in a further development to the sex-ring investigations, police are to be given access to secret files held on MPs in the House of Commons archives as they hunt for evidence on suspected abusers, including former Liberal MP Cyril Smith….
Mr Walker is believed to have warned the Right Rev Butler that at the time he was told of the claims against Powell, unsubstantiated allegations of satanic rituals – often involving the abuse of children – were widespread….
Sources close to one of Scotland Yard’s sex-ring investigations say officers contacted Lawrence Ward, the Commons Serjeant at Arms – the Commons’ most senior security official – earlier this month to ask him to search the files kept on all MPs. It is understood that no information was uncovered implicating MPs in abuse, sparking fears at Scotland Yard that some of the evidence might have been shredded….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3016399/Enoch-Powell-named-bishop-sex-abuse-probe-Scotland-Yard-investigate-satanic-abuse-claim-demands-filed-held-serving-MPs.html

Police ‘covered up child sex abuse by actors and priests’  John Simpson March 29 2015
Actors, priests, judges and entertainers have been implicated in the latest allegations that Scotland Yard covered up establishment child sex abuse, the police watchdog has confirmed.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has begun three more investigations into claims of corruption in the Metropolitan Police’s investigations into alleged paedophile rings involving prominent figures spanning 35 years. The new investigations mean that there are now 17 inquiries into allegations that senior officers “hindered or halted” investigations and surveillance operations, suppressed evidence and ordered detectives to limit their inquiries when police officers, politicians or famous people were implicated.  http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article4395594.ece

British Child-Abuse Survivors Are Threatening Direct Action if They Don’t Get Justice from the Government April 9, 2015 By Ben Gelblum…
This weekend, demonstrators will take to the streets outside Parliament and around the UK to ask why, three months after John Mann MP handed police and parliament a dossier of 22 politicians named by victims and informants as child abusers, nothing appears to have moved on. Mann’s Labour colleague Simon Danczuk MP, who is compiling complaints of alleged pedophile rings, recently warned that if survivors who have come forward are denied justice, they would resort to direct action….
On Tuesday, Phil, Nigel, and other survivors, traveled to London to present a letter to Home Secretary Theresa May, calling on her to reverse the decision to exclude survivors from the national inquiry into child sex abuse.
The survivors’ letter, also signed by prominent human rights lawyers such as Michael Mansfield QC, and child protection experts, warns that the inquiry into historical child abuse in England and Wales lacks credibility amongst those it is supposed to be representing….
Phil Frampton spent his childhood in care homes, and at age 14, blew the whistle on the sexual and physical abuse he and others were subjected to in a Barnardo’s children’s home. “I wrote a letter on behalf of the children to Barnardo’s,” recalled Phil. “The abuse continued until the children staged a revolt like civil rights activist Rosa Parks, refusing to get off a bus until police were summoned. We told them what was going on. Barnardo’s had to sack the abusers. The kids had won!”
Forty-six years later, Phil’s fight for justice continues, and he thinks it should be a bigger part of the election debate. “Whoever gets elected in May they will have to deal with the fact that there has been an attempt to cover up the role of establishment figures that is still going on,” said Phil. “We should ask election candidates what they and their parties’ leaders have done to root out child abusers and those who cover for them.”….
The government recently voted against a Labour-supported amendment to protect child abuse whistleblowers from prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, legislation many say has been used to silence allegations against high-powered pedophiles. “There are many examples of police saying they were not able to speak out about abuse because they were threatened by the Official Secrets Act,” said Phil. “It raises serious questions about whether the Conservative and Lib-Dems are serious.”
The PM’s office told me, “Anyone worried about whether people will be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act for coming forward should be reassured by the assurances given by the Attorney-General and the Home Secretary. It is in everybody’s interest that we get to the bottom of what happened.”….
Phil argues that these assurances do not cover whistleblowers and officials talking to investigative journalists. “People are beginning to realize that this is not about ‘conspiracy theorists’ as David Cameron called us. This is about real cover-up and real politicians involved in the worst sort of crimes,” added Phil. “It’s now become quite clear the Cabinet Office—David Cameron and Nick Clegg attempted to suppress evidence about Margaret Thatcher’s role in covering up what Cyril Smith got up to. The Cabinet Office tried to block Freedom of Information requests on the subject on four occasions.”
A Cabinet Office Spokesperson told me that, “There is no cover up, nor was the Cabinet Office forced to release information by the Information Commissioner. This is a sensitive and complex case. It is right that we considered advice from a range of officials. After considering the advice, the Cabinet Office decided to disclose information.”
An Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation has now been launched into why police child sex abuse operations into figures of power including Brittan were stalled….
http://www.vice.com/read/child-abuse-survivors-inquiry-whitewash-923
    
Former Devon headmaster and organist jailed for “cruel and shocking” abuse regime on vulnerable school boys  By Exeter Express and Echo  4/12/15  A boarding school teacher has been jailed for 21 years after being found guilty of inflicting a reign of terror over vulnerable boys for two decades.
John Downing took advantage of the children by sexually abusing them after they were sent away to a boarding school in North Devon where he was a teacher and deputy headmaster. He preyed on boys by sexually abusing them in the classroom, wash rooms, on beach outings and during midnight feasts which he arranged for a select group who he called his ‘Good Boys’. Downing imposed a regime of fear in which he regularly beat boys with a slipper or wooden coat hanger.  He punished boys who talked after lights out by making them parade naked in the corridor outside their dormitory and encouraged boys on beach trips to walk around in the nude. Downing, now aged 74, was a teacher and deputy headmaster of Heanton School, near Braunton, North Devon, from its founding in 1968 to its closure in 1985.
The converted rectory was a privately run boarding school for boys aged six to 12, most of whom were sent there by local authorities because they had problems at home. This meant they had no-one to turn to when they were sexually and physically abused and their secrets remained hidden for years.
Two of them went to the police in the 1990s but officers decided there was not enough evidence. In the years that followed several got in touch over the internet and fresh complaints were investigated by police….
Downing has been the organist at Torrington church for 50 years during which his activities at the school have remained a secret. He went on to be a teacher at schools all over North and Mid Devon before he retired. Downing, of Warren Lane, Torrington, denied 39 charges of indecent assault or gross indecency against seven boys aged seven to 12 between 1970 and 1985.
He was jailed for 21 years by Judge Graham Cottle who told him that some of his assaults would now be classified as rape….
http://m.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Devon-headmaster-organist-jailed-cruel-shocking/story-26320051-detail/story.html

Charity steps up removal of child sex abuse images  4/13/15  A child abuse watchdog has said it helped identify and remove more than double the number of sexually explicit web pages depicting youngsters in 2014 than in the previous year. The UK-based Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said it assisted in the removal of 31,266 pages last year, compared with 13,182 in 2013. It said in many cases, each address contained more than one photo or video.
The figures do not necessarily indicate that illegal activity is increasing. Instead, they may simply reflect that the charity recently began taking a proactive approach, seeking out child abuse imagery rather than just acting on others’ reports. It was able to do this after the UK’s four biggest internet service providers committed an extra £1m over four years to fund its efforts. If the material is hosted overseas, the organisation notifies local authorities and then repeatedly chases up complaints until the material is removed….
The body’s annual report discloses that of the discovered material:     Fewer than 0.3% of the web pages detected were hosted in the UK      56% were hosted in North America      41% were hosted in Europe, including Russia  http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32288650

‘Vile and depraved’ UK gang raped and abused babies  22 April 2015
Members of a paedophile network whose crimes were described as the most “vile and depraved” police had seen have been convicted of arranging abuse. The UK-wide gang raped and abused babies and young children, streaming the attacks online to fellow members. John Denham, 49, and Matthew Stansfield, 34, had denied plotting sex crimes against the victims. They were found guilty after a trial at Bristol Crown Court. Five other members had earlier admitted various offences.  The group used the internet to plan and stream abuse and tried to groom pregnant women in order to find new victims, the trial heard. In one case, they groomed a mother and father before their child was born. Officers from the National Crime Agency, which led the investigation, said the crimes were the most “vile and depraved” it had ever investigated….
Prosecutor Robert Davies told the jury in the Denham and Stansfield trial: “This prosecution will take you into a world you wished did not exist. “The evidence exposes the shocking interest a group of men had in sexually abusing babies, toddlers or pre-school children. “A real baby was for certain abused and raped by some of those involved.”….  http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-32413502

David Clohessy: A test of justice for W.Va. child sex abuse victims  By David Clohessy  Tuesday, April 21, 2015  Justice comes rarely for victims of childhood sexual assault. When it does, it’s only after a painful legal process. This week in Charleston, an appeals court could make that already difficult process even harder for West Virginia victims who use civil courts to warn the public about predators….
A dozen children and their parents are suing Mormon officials for allegedly enabling and concealing the heinous abuses committed by a now ex-Mormon, Christopher Michael Jensen. There’s no doubt about Jensen’s guilt — he was convicted of assaulting youngsters in both Utah and West Virginia. But Mormon officials are fighting hard to defend themselves. In fact, they’ve convinced a judge to appoint a private lawyer to defend Jensen, a move that’s exceedingly rare in civil cases. Worse, they’ve persuaded that judge to force the victims to pay half of Jensen’s defense lawyers’ fees. In the United States, we have a long and honorable tradition of making sure that every accused person, no matter how egregious his or her purported crimes, has legal representation. But no one is guaranteed an attorney in a civil matter. And very few, in a civil court, ever have to pay to help the opposing side….  http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20150421/GZ04/150429951/1103

Child abuse survivors call for compensation April 10th, 2015 Janice Burns
SURVIVORS of historical child abuse in care homes, educational institutions, by religious orders and high-profile members of the Scottish establishment are calling for compensation to be granted as part of a forthcoming public inquiry.
At the end of this month, Education Secretary Angela Constance will announce the remit and timing of the inquiry after holding months of discussions with victims and those who ran the institutions where they were abused.
Survivors want interim payments, similar to those given to victims in Ireland, so they can seek the help they so desperately need while Scotland’s biggest child abuse inquiry is being held.
In Care Abuse Survivors (INCAS), which represents nearly 400 victims of institutional abuse, said that, over the past 17 years of campaigning for an inquiry, scores of victims have died of old age, ill-health and suicide while waiting for justice for the shocking abuse they suffered as children while in care….
Helen (Holland) said that, although many of the big institutions like Nazareth House, Quarriers and Smyllum Park have closed down, child abuse in care is still going on.
She added: “While they are still dealing with cases dating back 60 to 70 years, abuse in care is still happening now. We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again and the sooner this inquiry gets up and running the better. “Young people in care need to know that they will be taken seriously when they complain about what happened to them….  http://www.thenational.scot/news/child-abuse-survivors-call-for-compensation.1914

Victims and family reveal how lives were devastated by Rotherham grooming scandal Wednesday 01 April 2015  The way lives were devastated by the Rotherham grooming scandal has been laid bare in a new collection of first-hand accounts.
Child victims made pregnant by rapists, fathers racked with guilt and even families of convicted abusers have bravely shared their harrowing stories.
Liam Harron with the report co authored with Chrissy Meleady
The new compilation, called ‘Voices of Despair, Voices of Hope’, is designed to provide an outlet for those who have suffered directly as a result of the scandal….
The daughter of a man convicted of child abuse also shared her story for the report. She said their family have been condemned by their community, while she has been threatened with revenge rape attacks…. http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/news/local/victims-and-family-reveal-how-lives-were-devastated-by-rotherham-grooming-scandal-1-7186419
        
California court guts child abuse ruling against Jehovah’s Witnesses  By Trey Bundy April 14, 2015  Candace Conti drew worldwide attention in her fight against the Jehovah’s Witnesses when a jury awarded her $28 million in damages – the largest verdict for a single victim of child abuse against a religious organization in U.S. history.
The amount was later reduced to $15.6 million, including $8.6 million in punitive damages.
Now, three years later, an appeals court has eroded her courtroom victory even further by ruling that the leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses had no duty to warn congregants that a confessed child molester was one of their own. As a result, judges eliminated the punitive damages in the case. Conti still stands to receive $2.8 million.
The decision by the California Court of Appeal is the latest ruling in a rash of lawsuits aimed at Jehovah’s Witnesses policies directing elders to keep child abuse secret from their congregations and secular authorities.
Conti, who is no longer a Jehovah’s Witness, had sued her abuser, her former congregation in Fremont and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York – the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ parent corporation – in 2011. She claimed that Watchtower policies allowed a Witness named Jonathan Kendrick to molest her repeatedly when she was 9 and 10 years old.
Kendrick had admitted to North Fremont congregation elders that he had sexually abused his stepdaughter. The elders informed the Watchtower of Kendrick’s confession in 1993, but in accordance with Watchtower policy did not notify police or warn the congregation. Soon after, Conti says, Kendrick began abusing her.
In their ruling Monday, the judges said forcing the leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses to warn congregants about child abusers would be too burdensome….

California court guts child abuse ruling against Jehovah’s Witnesses

Australian Archbishop Charged With Concealing Child Abuse CANBERRA, Australia — Mar 17, 2015, By  ROD McGUIRK Associated Press A Roman Catholic archbishop in Australia was charged Tuesday with covering up for a pedophile priest during the 1970s. Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson said he was disappointed that New South Wales state police had decided to charge him with concealing a serious child sexual abuse offence. Wilson said he would fight the charge, which carries a potential two-year prison sentence.
The charge alleges the 64-year-old failed to report child sex abuse carried out by priest James Fletcher during the 1970s when they both served in the town of Maitland, north of Sydney.
Fletcher died in prison aged 65 in 2006, a year into an almost eight-year sentence for raping an altar boy between 1989 and 1991.
“The suggestion appears to be that I failed to bring to the attention of police a conversation I am alleged to have had in 1976, when I was a junior priest, that a now deceased priest had abused a child,” Wilson said in a statement.
“From the time this was first brought to my attention last year, I have completely denied the allegation,” he said….
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/australian-archbishop-charged-concealing-child-abuse-29686554

MI5 ‘hid’ child abuse at boys’ home: Former Army intelligence officer claims security chiefs told him to ‘stop digging’ when he reported possible paedophile ring
Brian Gemmell said spy chiefs ordered him to ‘stop digging’ at boys’ home
Former Army Intelligence officer claims MI5 covered up the sexual abuse
Staff jailed in 1980s for sexual abuse at notorious Kincora children’s home
By Ian Drury, Home Affairs Correspondent, for the Daily Mail 7 April 2015
MI5 covered up the sexual abuse of boys in the notorious Kincora home, a former Army Intelligence officer claimed last night.
Brian Gemmell, a former captain in the Intelligence Corps, said spy chiefs ordered him to ‘stop digging’ when he reported a possible paedophile ring at the Northern Ireland children’s’ home.
He spoke out during a meeting with victim Richard Kerr, who claimed he was one of three youngsters trafficked from the home before being molested by ‘very powerful’ figures in a Westminster paedophile gang….
He claimed he was sexually abused by politicians and other senior men at Dolphin Square apartment complex in Pimlico and Elm Guest House, in Barnes, west London, which are being investigated by Scotland Yard amid ‘credible’ claims a Tory MP murdered a young boy.
Campaigners claim Mr Kerr’s account provides a clear link between VIP paedophile rings in London and Belfast.
MI5 has faced long-standing allegations of covering up child abuse to enable it to gather intelligence on Loyalist politicians during the Troubles. But it has also been accused of not acting to protect leading Establishment figures involved in the crimes.
Mr Gemmell, who served in military intelligence in Belfast, presented a report on allegations of abuse at Kincora to a senior MI5 officer in 1975 but to his astonishment was told to quit his probe….
Boys – many in local authority care – are alleged to have been abused by figures including the late Liberal MP Cyril Smith, Cabinet ministers, clergymen, pop stars, spies, judges and members of the royal household.
MI5 has been accused of suppressing allegations of child abuse against the politician, who died in 2010, when they were made during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
The Kincora children’s home in east Belfast was run by William McGrath, the head of an extreme Protestant loyalist group called Tara and an alleged MI5 informant.
He and two other members of staff – William Semple and Joseph Mains – were jailed in 1981 for sexually assaulting boys in their care.
In February, lawyers for victims challenging the refusal to include Kincora in Justice Goddard’s wide-ranging inquiry told the High Court in Belfast that MI5 was aware of the abuse but allowed it to continue to protect those responsible from prosecution.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3029553/MI5-hid-child-abuse-boys-home-Former-Army-intelligence-officer-claims-security-chiefs-told-stop-digging-reported-possible-paedophile-ring.html

Kincora historic VIP paedophile ring – shock revelations  Tuesday 07 April 2015
A Kincora abuse victim from Northern Ireland has told Channel 4 News how he was also abused at London’s Elm Guest House and Dolphin Square at the hands of “very powerful people”….
Richard Kerr’s harrowing account of what happened to him as a boy links three of the most important alleged VIP paedophile ring locations for the first time – Dolphin Square, a luxury complex, popular with MPs and civil servants; Kincora Boy’s Home in Belfast, where boys were systematically abused and Elm Guest House, a former gay brothel where young children are also said to have been molested.
Last month Channel 4 News brought Mr Kerr to England from America, with his counsellor, to revisit his past. On being back in London for the first time, he tells reporter Cordelia Lynch he feels “very emotional, very painful. I’m scared.”
He was introduced to the world of Westminster as a teenager and has suffered for nearly 30 years in silence. His memories are vivid and distressing.
In an interview with Channel 4 News to be broadcast tonight at 7pm, Kerr insists a VIP paedophile ring did exist….
http://www.channel4.com/news/vip-paedophile-ring-westminster-abuse-elm-guest-dolphin
    
Child abuse was streamed live to gang, jury hears 10 April 2015
Paedophiles who raped and abused a baby and a young boy streamed attacks online for other members of an alleged child sex ring to watch, a court ha heard. Those involved – who preyed on young families – travelled long distances to carry out attacks together, Bristol Crown Court was told. Attacks were streamed live using hi-tech video software, prosecutors said. Matthew Stansfield, 34, from Hampshire, and John Denham, 49, from Wiltshire, both deny conspiring to rape a child. Prosecutor Robert Davies told the jury that the evidence in the case would “take you into a world you wish did not exist”. “The evidence exposes the shocking interest a group of men had in sexually abusing children and babies – particularly pre-school children and babies,” he said. “A real baby was for certain abused and raped by some of those involved.”….  They would connect to the internet using the “dark web” – hiding their online activity – the jury heard….  http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32255592

Child sex abuse inquiry: Rockhampton priest ‘raped me well over 100 times’, witness says
By William Rollo and Marlina Whop  Apirl 14, 2015 A witness at a child sex abuse inquiry says she was raped “well over 100 times” by a priest at St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage Rockhampton in central Queensland.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard the treatment of children at the orphanage was “vicious and sadistic”, while an earlier inquiry found hundreds of children were sexually abused, beaten and forced into hard labour there.
The inquiry has begun hearings into how the Sisters of Mercy, the Rockhampton diocese and the state government responded to complaints made by former residents of St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage.
The orphanage has already been the subject of several police and government investigations, and a 1999 inquiry led by former Queensland governor Leneen Forde.
After the so-called Forde Inquiry, the Queensland government at the time offered ex gratia payments of up to $40,000 to people as long as they dropped other legal action against the state.
Over the next two weeks, the royal commission will hear evidence from 18 witnesses, with 13 being former residents of the orphanage, who say they were abused by priests, workers, and nuns there from 1940 to 1975….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-14/child-sex-abuse-inquiry-neerkol-orphanage-rockhampton/6391002
Victims give evidence at Royal Commission into abuse at Queensland orphanage Michael Madigan, AAP  The Courier-Mail    April 15, 2015  ….A FORMER resident of an infamous central Queensland orphanage says she tried to blow the whistle on sexual abuse she suffered while in care but was ignored by authorities.
A royal commission sitting in Rockhampton has heard that sadistic punishments and sexual abuse were rife at St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage, which was run by the Sisters of Mercy from 1885 and 1978.
Former resident Diane Carpenter, 62, told the second day of a public hearing that while at Neerkol in Rockhampton she was sexually abused by a priest called Father Michael Hayes and by a member of a foster family who took her in during holidays….
A CATHOLIC priest is alleged to have hypnotised a 12-year-girl with a silver fob watch before raping her, while another forced his victim to “confess her sin of impurity” after each attack.
In some of the more sinister evidence to come before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, two women yesterday told of a widespread climate of paedophilia mixed with religious piety in the Rockhampton Catholic community in the 1960s and ’70s.
Public floggings with a horse whip of runaway boys and ritual humiliation of bed-wetters, forced to stand in the communal dining room with their wet sheets on their heads, were alleged to be part of an often-sadistic climate at the Neerkol Orphanage, presided over by the Sisters of Mercy.
A 67-year-old woman told of being raped and attacked up to 100 times by local priest Father Reg Durham, the attacks continuing even as she trained to be a nun….
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/victims-give-evidence-at-royal-commission-into-abuse-at-queensland-orphanage/story-fnihsrf2-1227304003352

Childhood abuse drove me to prostitution Carrickfergus man tells of the cruel treatment at Lisburn’s Lissue House which drove him to become a rent boy in London. By Lisa Smyth – 15 April 2015
A local man has told how he turned to booze and became a rent boy as a result of the horrendous abuse he suffered as a child. Carrickfergus man Chris Donnelly is a former resident of one of the facilities currently being examined by the Historical Abuse Inquiry….
“Lissue House was a hospital for children with mental problems but my only problem was that I had been bullied.”  Mr Donnelly said official records of his time at the hospital show he was living in constant fear of beatings by staff and other residents. “I was constantly looking over my shoulder and the records prove that,” he said. “There are so many examples of beatings, getting kicked or slapped just became a normal way of life…. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/childhood-abuse-drove-me-to-prostitution-31144906.html

The mother who never gave up on her child abused by the Oxford child sex ring
When Lara fell victim to the notorious Oxford child sex ring, her mother tried everything to save her. Now, the two tell Nick Harding how they’re trying to put the past behind them
Nick Harding  Monday 04 May 2015
….Lara was a victim of an infamous child sex trafficking ring based in Oxford. In 2013, seven members were jailed for a total of 95 years. She was one of six brave girls who gave evidence against their abusers. She was groomed from the age of 12 and for five years endured unimaginable physical, sexual and psychological abuse. Elizabeth frantically tried to save her and raise the authorities from an apathetic slumber, the type of which allowed similar gangs in Rochdale, Rotherham and other parts of the country to exploit young, vulnerable girls with impunity.
Lara was born to alcoholic parents. Her mother was a drug addict and a prostitute, her father was a sadistic alcoholic. Along with her four siblings, she was taken into care aged four. For the following six years, she tumbled through the care system, where she was sexually abused. Elizabeth adopted her when she was 10 and already deeply disturbed.
….As she progressed to secondary school, her behaviour worsened. She stayed out late, ran away from home and became violent. But instead of getting support and understanding, she was excluded from school. Elizabeth tried to get help and advice from Oxford social services.
“They refused and said it was not their problem as Lara did not come from Oxford,” she explains. “I was saying very early on that I felt she needed therapeutic support to process what had happened to her. But social services didn’t entertain it and felt she was just badly behaved. I was told she was a young person making choices, and although she was making the wrong sort of choices, she should be supported to make those choices regardless.”
At 12, Lara came to the attention of a local drug dealer, Mohammed Karrar. He ran a crack den in a run-down part of Oxford. Manipulative and well versed in child grooming, he befriended Lara and she began to spend increasing amounts of time with him and his associates in the Cowley Road area of the city.
….Karrar gave his victim with alcopops and cigarettes and encouraged her to run away from home. Eventually, he encouraged her to take crack cocaine and began feeding her drugs. Soon after, he forced her to have sex with two men, demanding the act as payment for the drugs he had plied her with. He continued to feed her addiction, sold her to men around the country, beat her and threatened her and her family if she didn’t do as he commanded.
In one incident when she was 14, Lara was imprisoned for eight hours in a guest house on a main road in Oxford and violently raped by Karrar’s brother Bassam. Police were called by another guest, who heard her screams through the walls. Despite having witnesses and DNA evidence, it was decided not to pursue a prosecution when Lara declined to testify after being coerced by the gang.
….Girl for Sale’ by Lara McDonnell (£6.99, Ebury Press) is out now
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/the-mother-who-never-gave-up-on-her-child-abused-by-the-oxford-child-sex-ring-10224225.html

South Yorkshire Police warned twice of Rotherham child abuse but did not act, as commissioner claims girls were seen as ‘willing’  Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith  Tuesday 05 May 2015  Senior members of South Yorkshire police were warned twice of the serious child abuse being carried out in Rotherham around a decade before it was discovered 1,400 children had been raped, trafficked and groomed over a period of 16 years – but no action was taken at the time.
The Sheffield Star has obtained reports from 2003 and 2006 detailing the organised child sexual exploitation being carried out in Rotherham and Sheffield.
Dr Angie Heal, the author of the reports, stated at the time it was “very evident” that “significant abuse” was taking place in Sheffield and Rotherham, in 2003, and in 2006 found that that the perpetrators of sexual abuse had been able to “carry on with impunity”.
The reports were sent to both South Yorkshire Police district commanders, chief superintendents and CID and community safety superintendents at the time, but no action was taken. The newspaper obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information request.
As the news of the warnings emerge, South Yorkshire’s current police and crime commissioner has claimed that  “it all went wrong” in Rotherham because police had not understood what grooming was, nor recognised the abuse, and had instead seen the girls as prostitutes….
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/south-yorkshire-police-warned-twice-of-rotherham-child-abuse-but-did-not-act-as-commissioner-claims-girls-were-seen-as-willing-10225840.html

National Scandal Over Major Child Abuse Cover-Up in French Schools  By Felicity Capon  April 8, 2015  Information passed to Newsweek has revealed that global horror over child abuse and its concealment by the Establishment, hitherto focused squarely on the UK, now needs to be widened to France as well.
Thousands of children in French schools have been sexually abused by paedophile teachers, an international NGO has claimed, accusing the French education authorities of a decades-long “cover-up”….
The French education system is set to become the focus of a national scandal after minister for education Najat Vallaud-Belkacem was forced to admit last week that 16 teachers were allowed to work in schools last year despite holding previous convictions for paedophilia….
Homayra Sellier, founder of Innocence en Danger, an NGO dedicated to child abuse victims, says: “The ministry of education has covered this up for years. The government has never been inclined to listen to these stories.”
Sellier says her NGO is now being “showered” with reports of abuse. In the past few days, she has received dozens of new cases. One case can include complaints from as many as 20 children, and Sellier forecasts thousands of cases will emerge, a concern echoed by another French NGO, Lueur d’Enfance, which works to support and defend the rights of children.
According to Grimaud, teachers who try to speak out about child abuse at the hands of other teachers are silenced by school directors and local officials, and even threatened with legal action – usually defamation. Others have lost their jobs. As for the teachers the children accuse, they usually stay at the same school, or are quietly transferred to another. “The taboo is extremely strong within the French national education system about the existence of paedophile acts committed against students,” she says….
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/10/national-scandal-break-france-over-decades-paedophile-cover-320218.html

France investigates claims of CAR child abuse by soldiers 4/29/15 A Parisian prosecutor says an investigation is under way into claims French soldiers in the Central African Republic sexually abused children. France sent an initial 1,600 troops to the country in December 2013 after violence flared following a coup. On Wednesday, the Guardian newspaper reported that a United Nations worker was suspended after leaking a report on abuses by French troops.  It says a UN report claimed children as young as nine were abused.     Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office, said an investigation had been under way since July 2014. The Guardian said that the alleged abuse took place between December 2013 and June 2014 at a centre for internally displaced people in the Central African Republic capital, Bangui.
Quoting an internal UN report, it says that in one case, a nine-year-old boy and his friend were forced to carry out a sex act by two French soldiers…. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32523294

UN aid worker suspended for leaking report on child abuse by French troops
Anders Kompass said to have passed confidential document to French authorities because of UN’s failure to stop abuse of children in Central African Republic     Sandra Laville  Wednesday 29 April 2015
A senior United Nations aid worker has been suspended for disclosing to prosecutors an internal report on the sexual abuse of children by French peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic.
Sources close to the case said Anders Kompass passed the document to the French authorities because of the UN’s failure to take action to stop the abuse. The report documented the sexual exploitation of children as young as nine by French troops stationed in the country as part of international peacekeeping efforts.
Kompass, who is based in Geneva, was suspended from his post as director of field operations last week and accused of leaking a confidential UN report and breaching protocols. He is under investigation by the UN office for internal oversight service (OIOS) amid warnings from a senior official that access to his case must be “severely restricted”. He faces dismissal….
Entitled Sexual Abuse on Children by International Armed Forces and stamped “confidential” on every page, the report details the rape and sodomy of starving and homeless young boys by French peacekeeping troops who were supposed to be protecting them at a centre for internally displaced people in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic.
Donovan said: “The regular sex abuse by peacekeeping personnel uncovered here and the United Nations’ appalling disregard for victims are stomach-turning, but the awful truth is that this isn’t uncommon. The UN’s instinctive response to sexual violence in its ranks – ignore, deny, cover up, dissemble – must be subjected to a truly independent commission of inquiry with total access, top to bottom, and full subpoena power.”
The UN has faced several scandals in the past relating to its failure to act over paedophile rings operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo and Bosnia. It has also faced allegations of sexual misconduct by its troops in Haiti, Burundi and Liberia….
The children described how they were sexually exploited in return for food and money. One 11-year-old boy said he was abused when he went out looking for food. A nine-year-old described being sexually abused with his friend by two French soldiers at the IDP camp when they went to a checkpoint to look for something to eat.
The child described how the soldiers forced him and his friend to carry out a sex act. The report describes how distressed the child was when disclosing the abuse and how he fled the camp in terror after the assault. Some of the children were able to give good descriptions of the soldiers involved.
In summer 2014, the report was passed to officials within the office of the high commissioner for human rights in Geneva. When nothing happened, Kompass sent the report to the French authorities and they visited Bangui and began an investigation….
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/29/un-aid-worker-suspended-leaking-report-child-abuse-french-troops-car

French Government Investigates Military For Alleged Child Abuse  May 01, 2015 Eleanor Beardsley  The French government has promised a full investigation into allegations that its soldiers sexually abused local children while serving on a peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
The French government is investigating allegations that its soldiers abused children while serving as peacekeepers in Africa last year. The case has caused outrage and revulsion in France which places high value on both its military and its relations with its former colonies. The incidents in the Central African Republic were revealed when a United Nations report was leaked this week. NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley has the story.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: The U.N. report gives detailed descriptions of how children were coerced or forced into sexual acts by some of the French soldiers sent to protect them. Some of the victims was young as 9. Many were orphaned boys. The report became public this week when it was leaked to aid groups who gave it to the press….
BEARDSLEY: The U.N. has launched its own investigation into the leaking of its human rights report about the abuse. The French government is still investigating reports of sexual abuse by its soldiers in Rwanda 21 years ago. General Dominique Trinquand is a former commander of French peacekeeping missions.
http://www.npr.org/2015/05/01/403597693/french-government-investigates-military-for-alleged-child-abuse

France launches criminal inquiry into alleged sex abuse by UN soldiers  Prosecutors announce investigation into claims French soldiers raped children on peacekeeping operation in Central African Republic  Kim Willsher in Paris and Sandra Laville in London Thursday 7 May 2015   French prosecutors have ordered a criminal investigation into allegations that French peacekeeping soldiers raped children and demanded sex for food in the Central African Republic.
The decision follows revelations in the Guardian more than a week ago that a senior United Nations official had been suspended for leaking details of the alleged abuse to the French government.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Thursday it had decided to launch criminal proceedings after receiving a reply to its request for information from the UN about the accusations of sexual abuse by French soldiers serving with the peacekeeping operation Sangaris.
It said the investigation concerned “the rape of minors under 15 years old by persons who had abused the authority conferred upon them by their roles, and complicity in this crime”….
Kompass, director of field operations, was suspended last month and faces an internal disciplinary disciplinary hearing for breaching UN protocols.
On Wednesday an appeal tribunal found that the suspension of Kompass was unlawful and ordered his reinstatement while an internal management review continues….
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/07/france-criminal-inquiry-alleged-sex-abuse-french-soldiers-un-central-african-republic

UN suspension of sexual abuse report whistleblower is unlawful, tribunal rules
Judge orders UN to lift suspension of Anders Kompass, who leaked internal UN report on alleged abuse of children by French troops in Central African Republic  Sandra Laville Wednesday 6 May 2015
An appeal tribunal has ordered the United Nations to immediately lift the suspension of a whistleblower who disclosed the alleged sexual abuse of children by peacekeeping troops in Africa to the French authorities.
A judge said on Wednesday the decision to suspend Anders Kompass, the director of field operations for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, was “prima facie unlawful”. He ordered his employers in the UN to lift his suspension immediately to prevent further damage to his reputation.
The decision is a blow to senior UN officials who have repeatedly defended their treatment of Kompass, claiming he breached strict protocols about the passing on of confidential information to outside authorities….
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/06/un-suspension-of-sexual-abuse-report-whistleblower-is-unlawful-tribunal-rules

Convicted French sex offender who became school head teacher ‘may have raped 55 pupils’
Some 55 pupils of a primary school in south-eastern France, or their parents on their behalf, have accused the school’s ex-head teacher of sexual abuse, prosecutor reveals  By Henry Samuel, Paris  04 May 2015
The former head teacher of a primary school in south-eastern France faces sex abuse charges against 55 pupils, the local prosecutor announced on Monday.
The case of the teacher from Villefontaine near Lyon, known only as Romain F, has shocked France and led to a government inquiry after it transpired he had been convicted of possessing child pornography in 2008 but that the justice ministry had failed to transmit his criminal record to the education ministry.
In March, he was placed under formal investigation for raping 11 pupils since last October, after confessing to having tricked blindfolded pupils into oral sex during a workshop on experiencing new tastes.
That prompted France’s education ministry to launch an internal investigation parallel to the legal inquiry to discover how the convicted offender was hired, and determine if any other victims were abused….  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11582189/Convicted-French-sex-offender-who-became-school-head-teacher-may-have-raped-55-pupils.html

Bill Cosby sexually assaulted me. I didn’t tell because I didn’t want to let black America down.
I let race trump rape.   By Jewel Allison March 6
Jewel Allison is a poet and author of “Stealing Peace: Let’s Talk About Racism.” She is a graduate of New York University, a public speaker and a music educator.
Like many of the women who say they were assaulted by Bill Cosby, it took me two decades to gain the courage to reveal it publicly. His accusers – mostly white, so far – have faced retaliation, humiliation and skepticism by coming forward. As an African American woman, I felt the stakes for me were even higher. Historic images of black men being vilified en masse as sexually violent sent chills through my body. Telling my story wouldn’t only help bring down Cosby; I feared it would undermine the entire African American community.
When I first heard Andrea Constand and Tamara Green publicly tell their stories about being drugged and assaulted by Cosby, I wasn’t relieved; I was terrified. I knew these women weren’t fabricating stories and conspiring to destroy America’s favorite dad, but I did not want to see yet another African American man vilified in the media. As I debated whether to come forward, I struggled with where my allegiances should lie – with the women who were sexually victimized or with black America, which had been systemically victimized….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/06/bill-cosby-sexually-assaulted-me-i-didnt-tell-because-i-didnt-want-to-let-black-america-down/

Clergy Sex Abuse Victims In Montana’s Diocese of Helena To Receive $20 Million In Payments
AP      By Matthew Brown 03/05/2015
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Hundreds of victims of clergy sex abuse that spanned decades in Montana stand to receive payments totaling about $20 million, after a federal judge on Wednesday confirmed the bankruptcy reorganization plan for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Terry Myers approved the plan during an hour-long court hearing in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in which representatives of both victims and the diocese voiced their support.
More than 360 abuse claims will now go through an adjudication process to determine final payment amounts. Each allowed claim will receive a minimum of $2,500, and attorneys involved in the case said only a handful of the claims are considered dubious.
A $920,000 trust will be established for victims who come forward in the future.
The diocese filed for bankruptcy last year to resolve abuse claims that prompted lawsuits in state court from two groups of victims in 2011.
The majority of abuse occurred at the hands of Jesuit priests at the Ursuline Academy and the St. Ignatius Mission, both in St. Ignatius, Montana. The abuse ranged from rape and fondling, to perpetrators taking sexual photographs of children. It began in the 1930s and continued through the 1970s, according to court documents.
The average age of the victims at the time of abuse was 10 years old….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/05/diocese-of-helena-bankruptcy-sex-abuse_n_6808486.html

Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Who Failed to Report Priest’s Suspected Child Abuse  By Taylor Wofford 4/21/15  Pope Francis on Tuesday accepted the resignation of Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, who in 2012 pleaded guilty in Clay County circuit court to a misdemeanor charge of failure to report suspected child abuse by one of the priests in his diocese. The announcement was given a single sentence in the Vatican Information Service’s emailed morning news bulletin, listed under “Other Pontifical Acts.”….
In December 2010, Finn failed to contact police when a computer technician informed him that he had discovered hundreds of lewd photographs of young girls on the laptop of Shawn Ratigan, a priest in Finn’s diocese, some of which were believed to have been taken by Ratigan. According to The New York Times,
Bishop Finn sent Father Ratigan to live in a convent and told him to avoid contact with minors. But until [the following] May the priest attended children’s parties, spent weekends in the homes of parish families, hosted an Easter egg hunt and presided, with the bishop’s permission, at a girl’s First Communion, according to interviews with parishioners and a civil lawsuit filed by a victim’s family.
Ratigan was arrested after the second-ranking officer in the diocese, Monsignor Robert Murphy, contacted the police about the material on Ratigan’s laptop in mid-May 2011.
Ratigan later pleaded guilty to five child pornography charges in 2012 and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Two weeks after Ratigan’s arrest, Finn removed another priest, Michael Tierney, from his parish after finding “recent reports of Father Tierney’s sexual abuse of minors in the early 1970s were credible,” according to a law firm asked by Finn to conduct an independent investigation into the diocese’s handling of the incident….
While Finn has resigned from his post in the diocese, he will remain a Catholic bishop with all attendant rights, including being allowed to practice Mass. “He’s still a bishop in good standing,” Smith said….
http://www.newsweek.com/pope-francis-accepts-resignation-kansas-city-bishop-who-failed-report-sexual-323941

Polish priest jailed for seven years over child sex abuse  WARSAW Wed Mar 25, 2015
(Reuters) – A Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing children in Poland and the Dominican Republic was sentenced to seven years in jail by a Polish court on Wednesday….
The priest, who under Polish law can only be identified as Wojciech G., was suspended by his religious order in the rural Dominican parish of Juncalito last year after local residents accused him of molesting altar boys, according to the church.
He was arrested after returning to his native Poland and was tried on 10 charges relating to child sex abuse and possessing pornographic images of children. The charges carried a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail.
Earlier in March, the priest offered to serve a seven-year jail term, under a part of Polish law that lets defendants file such motions without admitting guilt. Polish media have quoted the priest as saying he is not guilty….
The Vatican last year arrested a defrocked Polish archbishop, Jozef Wesolowski, former Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic, after he was accused of having sex with children during his posting. A church tribunal had previously ordered Wesolowski to be stripped of the priesthood.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/25/us-poland-priest-court-idUSKBN0ML1IK20150325

Father Charlie had curious hands   In an exclusive story for the Star, bestselling novelist Lori Lansens recalls her childhood in Chatham, Ont., and her early encounters with Father Charles Sylvestre, later convicted of abusing dozens of girls.
Author Lori Lansens, pictured at her home in California. “God and Father Charlie were inextricably bound for me then,” she writes, reflecting on her childhood in Chatham, Ont. “That confusing incident in the rectory stole them both, and made me question everything that I’d ever believed.”
By: Lori Lansens Special to the Star, Published on Fri Mar 20 2015….
To hundreds of children during his lengthy residence at St. Ursula’s Parish, the priest was Father Charlie. A charismatic leader with sympathetic eyes, he roamed the hallways of our school and often walked the yard at recess, ready with his warm embrace. Sometimes he came into our classrooms and the teachers would sneak off for a cigarette break — so many of them smoked back then. He’d sit in the teacher’s big chair, gathering us close as we competed for the spot on his lap. I prayed that Father Charlie would favour me, as he clearly seemed to favour certain little girls….
When I was around 10 years old, I began to notice that Father Charlie had curious hands. They wouldn’t rest on a young girl’s shoulder, but encircle her waist or creep up her back, or touch the hair around her collarbone or at the back of her neck. He gave a lot of shoulder massages too. Had he always done that? Had my perception of his touching changed as I’d matured? I felt guilty and ashamed for wondering. He was a priest after all, and so it followed, in my young mind, that he was innocent and naive.
I was in the hallway with one of my Grade 5 classmates when Father Charlie appeared one day, spreading his arms to embrace us as he’d done since we were small children. He complimented my friend, an early bloomer, on her shamrock-patterned T-shirt as I seethed with envy. Then the priest fixed his gaze on her budding breasts and raised his index finger to touch her nipple, slowly tracing a series of shamrock graphics there as I watched in silent horror…..
(Somewhere around Grade 7, rumours had begun to circulate about our beloved Father Charlie. Maybe there had always been rumours and we just hadn’t heard them. Some of the girls had nicknames for him — Father Feeler and Sylvestre the Molester. Lisa and I didn’t believe the talk, which was usually vague and improbable sounding. His awkward affections had just been misunderstood, we insisted.)….
Then we pulled open the closet door to see a hefty, barely concealed collection of Playboy magazines. Lisa and I clutched each other, screaming silently.
A priest with Playboy? We thought it was hilarious. At least that was our first reaction. Then unease set in. The alcohol and the magazines were nothing we hadn’t glimpsed before at the homes of friends with older brothers, but this was Father Charlie….
I stiffened when he stepped up behind me and cringed when he touched a ringlet at my nape. I didn’t dare catch Lisa’s eye. The priest asked us questions as he played with my curls and I pretended not to notice when he pressed his pelvis into my bony upper back, concerned with how embarrassed Father Charlie would be when he realized that his private parts were touching my spine. When he put his big hands on my shoulders and began a too-rough massage, I seized up. His breath reeked of whiskey and made me feel sick.
He told me to relax but I couldn’t let my shoulders down. His hands were digging below my collarbone into the flesh of my tender chest and it hurt. I tried to unclench and felt awful for disappointing him, even as I wondered if it was possible that he was bumping his genitals against my back intentionally…..
I was in my late 30s and living in Toronto when two brave women whose names I knew, one a classmate’s sister, stepped forward, charging that Charles Sylvestre had abused them when they were students at St. Ursula School. The lawsuit against the London Diocese made headline news. The floodgates opened and more victims came forward from St. Ursula, and other parishes too, in a serial abuse career spanning four decades and five parishes. Charles Sylvestre was charged with fondling, digital penetration and rape in cases involving dozens of little girls. In many instances the abuse began when girls were asked to come and fold bulletins at the rectory after school, or to count the collection, or help with a chore. Sometimes he assaulted the children during confession.
Sylvestre, like most predators, had been cunning. His public demonstrativeness cast doubt on anything he might be accused of doing behind closed doors, especially because he was such a powerful and beloved man. The priest pleaded guilty to 47 counts of sexual assault and died a few months into a three-year prison term. But there were many more victims, other women who have come forward and continue to launch lawsuits against the institutions responsible for keeping pedophiles like Charles Sylvestre in positions of power over children…..
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/03/20/father-charlie-had-curious-hands.html

LDS Church: No tolerance for sex abuse in scouting  By Scott Zamost and Kyra Phillips, CNN  Mon March 23, 2015  Former Boy Scout sues Mormon church for sexual abuse    (CNN)The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is the largest sponsor of Boy Scout troops in the United States, says the church has strong measures in place to prevent the sexual abuse of scouts, as claims have been made it hasn’t done enough.
In the first interview about allegations of abuse in Mormon church-sponsored scouting troops, Church Elder L. Whitney Clayton told CNN that the church is at the forefront for prevention of child abuse….
Over several months, CNN examined allegations of abuse that were detailed in at least five lawsuits filed against the church and the scouts.
But Clayton said the church today is proactive, even constructing its buildings “in such a way as to try to avoid any situation where child abuse could occur.”….
The scoutmaster, Vance Hein, had been forced in resign from scouting in the early 1990s after reports surfaced that he failed to report a fellow scoutmaster who was engaged in homosexual activities. That scoutmaster ended up going to prison for sexual assaults on minors.
Hein’s name was added to the Boy Scouts of America’s ineligible volunteer files, which are widely known as the “perversion files.” The documents, which were made public in 2012, are lists of scout leaders suspected of sexual abuse or homosexual activity.
However, three years after being kicked out of scouting, Hein was allowed to rejoin the scouts after getting letters of recommendation attesting to his character. One of those letters was from Hein’s influential Mormon Bishop Jack Moyer, who wrote that Hein was “highly respected and liked.”….
But in a deposition taken as part of the lawsuit last year, he acknowledged that he would not have written the letter knowing what he later found out about Hein.
The lawsuit charged that Hein “actively groomed young boys under his charge for later sexual molestation.” Hein eventually was convicted of molesting Novak. He is now in prison for violating probation in the Novak case…. http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/23/us/lds-church-boy-scouts/

Lawyers say Jacko paid $200M in hush money to ‘victims’  By Stacy Brown April 5, 2015  Wade Robson and James Safechuck may accomplish what countless prosecutors could not: prove in court that Michael Jackson was a serial child molester.
The purported victims must first overcome a major hurdle — both their legal claims were filed more than a year after the King of Pop’s 2009 death, missing the statutory deadline….
Lawyers say the King of Pop shelled out nearly $200 million to as many as 20 victims.
Safechuck first met Jacko in 1987, when James was 8 years old. Safechuck will testify that Jacko repeatedly molested him a year later during a tour and that Jacko wrote a check for more than $1 million to Safechuck’s father, a sanitation worker.
Safechuck’s attorney alleges that Jacko molested Safechuck more than 100 times.
Safechuck claims in court filings that Jacko held a secret wedding ceremony, with the young boy as his bride. He said the singer gave him a marriage certificate and a wedding band as keepsakes and confirmation of their “undying love.”
It was Safechuck and another alleged victim, Jordan Chandler, to whom Jacko’s sister LaToya -referred in a 1993 Tel Aviv press conference in which she vowed to “not be a silent collaborator in my brother’s crimes.”….
Safechuck’s attorney alleges that Jacko molested Safechuck more than 100 times….
The duo for the first time will be allowed to detail past, undisclosed settlements between Jacko and boys. Sources contend there were at least 20 young victims, who reaped — with their parents and attorneys — upward of $200?million cumulatively in hush money.  The Chandler lawsuit alone cost Jacko more than $40 million, sources said…. http://pagesix.com/2015/04/05/lawyers-say-jacko-paid-200m-in-hush-money-to-victims/
 
Michael Jackson allegedly paid millions to silence accusers  Apr 5th 2015  Two new civil cases have accused Michael Jackson of paying millions in hush money to sexual abuse accusers over the years.
Two men, claiming to have been abused by Jackson as children, are suing his estate for punitive damages. Because they are civil cases, lawyers will be able to use evidence excluded from the criminal proceedings.
The New York Post reports that Jackson paid out nearly $200 million to at least 20 alleged victims and their families over the years….
One of the men suing Jackson’s estate, James Safechuck, claims he was abused more than 100 times by the pop star, beginning when he was eight years old. The suit also claims that Jackson wrote a $1 million check to Safechuck’s father.
Both the cases were filed over a year after Jackson’s death, which misses the statutory deadline. A Los Angeles court judge will decide Thursday if the cases can proceed….
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/04/05/michael-jackson-allegedly-paid-millions-to-silence-accusers/21161504/

Michael Jackson Allegedly Paid $200 Million to 20 Child Sex Abuse Victims Monday, April 6, 2015 by Nina Ulloa  Why is it that Michael Jackson child sex cases always seemed to get pushed under the rug? It could be because Jackson allegedly paid $200 million to keep victims quiet. Lawyers for Wade Robson and James Safechuck say as many as 20 victims were paid off. Both Robson and Safechuck says Jackson sexually abused them when they were children. A judge is deciding whether they can bring this information to court for the first time.
Safechuck says the abuse happened when he was nine, and that Jackson paid his father $1 million. He also says Jackson held a secret wedding ceremony and he was the child bride.
Robson says he was seven when Jackson began molesting him. He also says he shared a bed with the pop star for a year….
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2015/04/06/michael-jackson-allegedly-paid-200-million-20-child-sex-abuse-victims

Chicago Evangelist Named in Sex Abuse Case  Attorney says Gordon McLean took advantage of his connections to gain access to his alleged victims  By Tammy Leitner and Lisa CapitaniniA prominent evangelist who built a following ministering to gang members in Chicago and around the United States, who had unprecedented access to inmates, and who is credited with helping hundreds, if not thousands of youths change their lives, also allegedly had a secret life in which he preyed upon some of the same youths he vowed to help. Tammy Leitner reports. (Published Thursday, Apr 30, 2015)
Holman and five others are part of a civil lawsuit against McLean filed in 2013 alleging the author of 18 books sexually abused them in exchange for money….
But in 2008 McLean was arrested in west-suburban River Forest, accused of soliciting sex from someone he had previously counseled through the ministry. The arrest was eventually expunged, but soon after he left Metro Chicago Youth for Christ. The circumstances under which he left are unclear.
McLean continued to work with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office for three more years. A spokesman said the office knew nothing about McLean’s arrest for solicitation until 2011. That’s when they finally revoked his access to inmates.
But McLean continues to work with Chicago kids today as part of a new group he formed called Friends With Youth….  http://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/gordon-mclean-301747331.html
Civil lawsuit against McLean filed in 2013 alleging the author of 18 books sexually abused them in exchange for money. http://media.nbcchicago.com/documents/McLeanComplaint.pdf

Navy aims to boost sex assault reporting, stop reprisals by Meghann Myers, Staff writer May 5, 2015  Instances of sexual assault are down and reporting is up in the Navy, but there are still some trouble spots on officials’ minds, especially male victims and retaliation against those who report abuse.
While progress has been made, according to the head of the 21st Century Sailor Office, reports of of retaliation and assaults against men are holding steady….
The 2012 Rand study found that 62 percent of those who reported unwanted sexual contact felt they had been retaliated against, and the number didn’t budge in 2014, Rear Adm. Rick Snyder told reporters in a Friday phone interview.
“I am concerned that a high percentage of victims perceive that negative things happen to them [after reporting an assault],” he said. “We’re worried about that number.”….
In terms of male assault victims, there’s a focus on hazing and initiation activities that cross into sexual assault territory.
Men made up half of the service members who had experienced unwanted sexual contact, according to the Rand study, reporting mostly that the incidents happened multiple times, with multiple perpetrators, without the involvement of alcohol, as some sort of hazing ritual.
The reporting rate for women has raised dramatically in the past few years, Snyder said, but reports are stagnant for men at a rate of about 8 percent.
One in three women report, on the other hand….
http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/crime/2015/05/05/navy-annual-sexual-assault-prevention-response-report/26705151/

Teen Son Testifies in New Jersey Military Child Abuse Case
NEWARK, N.J. — May 5, 2015 By DAVID PORTER Associated Press
The teenage son of a military couple charged with abusing their three foster children told a jury Tuesday that his parents used Bible passages to justify hitting the toddlers with a paddle, stick and other implements.
The “rod of correction” was one form of discipline meted out by Army Maj. John Jackson and wife Carolyn, John Jackson Jr. testified under direct questioning in U.S. District Court. The couple also forced the children, all of whom were under the age of 5, to drink hot sauce or eat hot pepper flakes as punishment, he said.
“With respect to the Bible, my parents believed that children needed to be trained in a certain way in order to behave,” he said. One passage he said they cited: “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child, but the rod of correction will drive it out.”
The trial is the second for the Jacksons. The first ended in a mistrial last fall when a prosecutor inadvertently referred to the fact that one of the children had died. The judge had previously ruled that the boy’s death could not be introduced during the trial since the defendants were not charged directly with his death.
A 15-count superseding indictment charges them with conspiracy, child endangerment and assault…. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/son-testifies-jersey-military-child-abuse-case-30820382

Ritual Abuse and Mind Control
    
‘The blood pumped from a still-beating heart is the purest form of energy’: Inside the horrific Mexican satanist ‘Black Mass’ with live sacrifices that shocked disgusted tourists       WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT      Tourists watched massacre of live animals including goats and chickens that horrified tourists seeking ‘spirituality’ American visitors said: ‘The next step would be human sacrifice’. Others questioned whether they’d done it already Twisted cult believe smearing blood of sacrificed animals can save lives and used it to pledge souls to Satan    By Alasdair Baverstock In Veracruz, Mexico For Mailonline 13 March 2015
Horrified tourists have told of their shock and disgust after attending a devil-worshipping ‘Black Mass’ in Mexico. They looked on as chicken and goats were sacrificed before their fresh blood was poured over participants who had pledged their souls to Satan. At the twisted cult’s annual ‘Black Mass’ in the Mexican state of Veracruz, people from across the world to seek change in their lives by taking part in devil worship.
Worshippers indulge in brutal animal sacrifice, dance before burning pentagrams and disappear into a subterranean cave where solemn oaths are sworn before a large statue of the devil and a committee of shamans….
In total, eight animals were sacrificed during the ritual.  Following the sacrifices, the shamans stood before a large burning pentagram and attempted to summon the devil through their chants, before descending with the new adherents of the black mass to an underground cave decorated with inverted crosses, animal carcasses and a large statue of Satan with an erect penis.
The eight shamans gathered round each individual penitent and swore oaths to the effect that their soul now belonged to Satan, and that if their promises to the devil were not upheld then their spirit would be forfeit.
The committee of shamans screamed ‘Hail Lucifer!’ following each new oath and prostrated themselves before the statue, over which the remaining blood from the sacrificial offerings had been poured….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2986101/The-blood-pumped-beating-heart-purest-form-energy-Inside-horrific-Mexican-satanist-Black-Mass-shocked-disgusted-tourists-witnessing-dark-deals-devil.html
True Detective season two: first trailer   Watch Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch in the new True Detective trailer   09 Apr 2015   The first teaser trailer for the hotly anticipated second season of HBO’s True Detective has been released.  Starring Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Taylor Kitsch and McAdams, the new season is set in Seventies California, and will tell the story of a mob boss (Vaughn) who joins with law enforcement officials to investigate a strange murder case….  The first season of the show, which was set in the Nineties, starred Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as partners investigating a Louisiana murder case: it’s storyline dealt with the disturbing topic of satanic child abuse. Writer Nic Pizzolatto has said the new season will continue these dark themes, exploring “the secret occult history of the United States transportation system”.
Season two of True Detective premieres on June 21…. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11526242/True-Detective-Season-Two-first-trailer.html

Porn focus in alleged satanic rape case March 26 2015 By Shain Germaner   Johannesburg – Police are scanning the electronic devices belonging to four people, including a church pastor, accused of raping a 9-year-old boy in an alleged satanic ritual. This is to determine if they contain any illegal pornography. This emerged in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, when the 9-year-old’s grandparents, uncle and pastor appeared on charges of the alleged rape. While a trial date was expected to be set, the court heard that the police needed time to download the data of all four accused’s cellphones and laptops to search for child porn and other evidence. The group were arrested last month. Police suspect they brought the then 7-year-old to the Full Gospel Church of God in Witfield, Boksburg, in 2013. At the venue, the four, clad in red robes and chanting, allegedly forced the boy to fondle their genitals before the uncle is said to have raped the boy….
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/porn-focus-in-alleged-satanic-rape-case-1.1837340#.VRTHr5M0OMI
Boy’s ‘satanic’ rape: case postponed March 19 2015  By Shain Germaner  Johannesburg – The case against a church pastor, two grandparents and an uncle of a 9-year-old boy who allegedly molested the child in a satanic ritual has been transferred to a regional court.
The child’s paternal grandparents, an uncle and the 54-year-old pastor were arrested last month after an SAPS Occult Related Crimes Unit investigation.
Police suspect the group brought the then 7-year-old to the Full Gospel Church of God in Witfield, Boksburg…. http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/boy-s-satanic-rape-case-postponed-1.1834279

American Psychological Association Bolstered C.I.A. Torture Program, Report Says  By JAMES RISENAPRIL 30, 2015 WASHINGTON — The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists.
The report is the first to examine the association’s role in the interrogation program. It contends, using newly disclosed emails, that the group’s actions to keep psychologists involved in the interrogation program coincided closely with efforts by senior Bush administration officials to salvage the program after the public disclosure in 2004 of graphic photos of prisoner abuse by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
“The A.P.A. secretly coordinated with officials from the C.I.A., White House and the Department of Defense to create an A.P.A. ethics policy on national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the C.I.A. torture program,” the report’s authors conclude….
The involvement of health professionals in the Bush-era interrogation program was significant because it enabled the Justice Department to argue in secret opinions that the program was legal and did not constitute torture, since the interrogations were being monitored by health professionals to make sure they were safe.
The interrogation program has since been shut down, and last year the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a detailed report that described the program as both ineffective and abusive.
Rhea Farberman, a spokeswoman for the American Psychological Association, denied that the group had coordinated its actions with the government. There “has never been any coordination between A.P.A. and the Bush administration on how A.P.A. responded to the controversies about the role of psychologists in the interrogations program,” she said….
In early June 2004, a senior official with the association, the nation’s largest professional organization for psychologists, issued an invitation to a carefully selected group of psychologists and behavioral scientists inside the government to a private meeting to discuss the crisis and the role of psychologists in the interrogation program.
Psychologists from the C.I.A. and other agencies met with association officials in July, and by the next year the association issued guidelines that reaffirmed that it was acceptable for its members to be involved in the interrogation program.
To emphasize their argument that the association grew too close to the interrogation program, the critics’ new report cites a 2003 email from a senior psychologist at the C.I.A. to a senior official at the psychological association. In the email, the C.I.A. psychologist appears to be confiding in the association official about the work of James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the private contractors who developed and helped run the enhanced interrogation program at the C.I.A.’s secret prisons around the world….

Long Island shopkeeper admits to sexually abusing employee  Tuesday, April 21, 2015
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — The owner of a Long Island religious supplies store pleaded guilty Tuesday to sexually abusing a teenage employee and then trying to hire someone to kill the victim so he couldn’t testify at trial. Daniel Miller, 47, admitted in court that he drugged the 17-year-old boy with lorazepam, an anti-anxiety medication, and then sexually abused him while the teen worked at his Santaria store in Inwood in January 2012. Prosecutors said the teen woke up at 4 a.m. the next day at Miller’s home. While he was in jail and awaiting trial on those charges, Miller allegedly offered to pay $15,000 to have the victim killed and make it look like a cellphone robbery to prevent him from testifying at trial, prosecutors said. Authorities said Miller also asked a relative to have someone make a Voodoo doll of the victim and stick it with pins and knives and use dirt from the teen’s house and his photo in a ritual that was intended to give the victim cancer.  Miller pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges that include sexual abuse, conspiracy and criminal solicitation and is expected to be sentenced to nine years in prison and 10 years of post-release supervision when he is sentenced in June….
http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Long-Island-shopkeeper-admits-to-sexually-abusing-6214772.php
Documentary reveals how Scientology ‘controls’ John Travolta and Tom Cruise March 31, 2015
Scientology exposed … HBO documentary Going Clear delivers some explosive details about
HEAVILY lawyered US network HBO aired its highly anticipated Scientology documentary overnight, and with it some startling allegations about the organisation and its two most famous members.
Directed by Academy Award winner Alex Gibney, the film, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, is based on a book-length expose by Lawrence Wright and shares the stories of those who escaped the religion, including high-ranking officials.
Detailing claims of psychological and physical abuse, former members share horrific and fascinating accounts of their time in the church — particularly about how its leader, David Miscavige, relies on stars like Tom Cruise and John Travolta to recruit and raise money, and how he keeps them on board.
The Church of Scientology is worth billions but, as it operates as a non-profit religious organisation, is exempt from taxation.
In the film, Wright says there are two ways the fast-growing organisation could be stopped; the first is a financial crackdown by the IRS, and the second is a high-profile backlash, which is even less likely….
According to the MailOnline’s review, the film claims Scientologists hold a “blackmail file” on Cruise and fellow Scientologist John Travolta, to stop them leaving the faith….
The claims have been disputed by the church, with Gibney outlining in the film their insistence that Scientology has no control over Cruise….
The organisation claims Gibney and Wright, and the network, intentionally covered up facts, and labelled the director a “propaganda filmmaker with an agenda”….
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/documentary-reveals-how-scientology-controls-john-travolta-and-tom-cruise/story-e6frfmvr-1227285768504

Influential Secret Society Blamed For Problems On Campus Dodges Transparency Push Tyler Kingkade 04/01/2015  The University of Alabama student government voted down a proposal last week to establish political parties, which could have forced a well-known secret society, blamed for many social ills on campus, to go public. In a 21-9 vote on March 26, the Student Government Association Senate shot down a resolution that called for allowing students to set up political parties for on-campus elections. Currently, UA rules forbid official political parties. However, an underground society called “The Machine” is widely known to pick and endorse candidates and allegedly intimidates and harasses its opponents.
According to the United Alabama Project, a student group that came up with the proposal, all but one of the senators who voted against the resolution were backed by the Machine. None of them spoke publicly in opposition to the resolution during the senate meetings….
The Machine has existed for roughly a century, and is comprised of members from select fraternities and sororities. The group directs its members, and by extension their fellow fraternity brothers and sorority sisters, to vote for candidates of their choosing. The Machine has even been known to influence local political elections, according to The New York Times.
Students have accused the Machine of being a major reason why UA sororities were still excluding black women from joining in 2013, as well as for acting as a roadblock in subsequent attempts by other SGA representatives to push the Greek system toward integration in 2014….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/01/machine-senators-alabama_n_6988690.html

Alfio Granata: Ice addiction led man to rape and beat Dutch tourist, court told  30 March 2015
A man’s ice addiction led him to violently rape and beat a Dutch tourist he had taken hostage during a six-week ordeal at a Melbourne hotel, a court hears. Alfio Granata has pleaded guilty to 14 charges over the incident at a Preston Hotel.  A man’s ice addiction led him to violently rape and beat a Dutch tourist he had taken hostage during a six-week ordeal at a Melbourne hotel, a court has been told. Alfio Granata, 47, has pleaded guilty to 14 charges, including multiple rapes, threats to kill, and intentionally causing serious injury.  The victim was left with 54 separate injuries after she was repeatedly beaten unconscious, violently raped and cut with a knife….
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers said Granata claimed he was possessed by the devil and the spirit of his dead grandfather. Dr Rogers told the court on one occasion Granata put the victim’s nail cuttings, hair and blood in an envelope as part of a supposed ritual to destroy her soul….
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2015-03-30/alfio-granata-ice-addiction-led-man-to-rape-and-beat-dutch-tourist-court-told/1431342

Going Clear is a ‘must-see’ Scientology documentary Owen Gleiberman  20 March 2015
….Working with rare footage, Gibney burrows into the enigma of Scientology’s founder, L Ron Hubbard, capturing glints of delusion and megalomania. Hubbard‘s rise began in the 1930s, and he quickly became an astoundingly prolific science-fiction writer. But then in 1950 he published Dianetics, the perpetual bestseller in which he helped invent the principles of the therapeutic ‘self-help’ books that grew hugely popular by the 1970s. In Scientology, he wrapped these ideas around a theological core of interplanetary gibberish that could have come straight out of one his pulp novels. Going Clear captures how Hubbard fused reality, fantasy and the pursuit of enlightenment in a way that, according to the film’s witnesses, expressed his own highly unstable and even violent nature – at one point Gibney shows how Hubbard even told his wife that one of their children had died, just to manipulate her. Hubbard wound up a sea-faring outlaw on the run from US tax officials, and in Going Clear he emerges as a broken dictator who founded a religion based on control because he was so desperate to control his own demons.
Hubbard constructed Scientology around a ritual known as the ‘audit’, which is like a conventional therapy session fused with a Catholic confession and a visit to Room 101 in Orwell’s 1984. A member sits down and digs into their secrets and private traumas, as the auditor asks questions and takes notes, recording the subject’s responses on an ‘E-meter’, a gadget invented by Hubbard. Haggis, a Scientologist for 35 years before his highly publicised break with the Church in 2009, tells us how incredibly good an audit session could make him feel, as if he’d purged himself of all his toxins. Gibney suggests Hubbard’s method of healing was really just a superficial take on Freudian therapy, a comparison that Hubbard scorned – though only after his techniques had been rejected as rubbish by legitimate psychiatrists. Going Clear, however, suggests a dramatic difference between auditing and traditional therapy: it claims that the Church of Scientology holds on to the notes from the sessions and uses them to blackmail its members into staying….
Gibney interviews a handful of high-level Scientology officers who left the Church and are now willing to denounce it. Marty Rathbun, who spent years as Miscavige’s right-hand man, was at the very centre of the citadel, and his testimony has an unsettling authority. He alleges that Miscavige, in actions worthy of the Khmer Rouge, subjected his loyal officials to rituals of abuse, making them ‘confess’ to imagined crimes and assaulting them if they didn’t comply. The astounding thing is that when the victims were given the chance to exit this torture program, none of them did. They thought they deserved to be punished….
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150320-a-scary-must-see-scientology-doc

Records: Terminated Chi Phi fraternity put pledge in casket  University of Wisconsin cut ties with chapter after hazing incident landed student in hospital  by Rachael Lallensack · Mar 23, 2015     Chi Phi’s once-secret initiation ceremony was the cause for the chapter’s termination, records show. A Chi Phi fraternity pledge who entered a “ritual casket” during their initiation ceremony went to the hospital after a member “curb stomped” the casket and broke through it, according to records obtained by The Badger Herald. The incident sparked a University of Wisconsin investigation that ultimately led to the fraternity’s March 18 termination.
Committee on Student Organizations unanimously approved Chi Phi’s termination due to hazing violations. CSO’s investigation began after the committee received a report on Jan. 20 with the allegations….
CSO found the fraternity had violated four of 12 items on the Registered Student Organization code of conduct list, three of which prohibit acts of violence, endangerment, sexual assault and substance abuse.
The decision is based off the January report and interviews that the Dean of Students’ office conducted….
The committee found Chi Phi caused “serious physical, psychological and emotional injuries” during its initiation. Among the activities that caused these injuries, CSO cited “food deprivation, stints of hooded isolation, loss of personal liberty, sleeping in a confined attic” and the ritual casket ceremony.
About 20 new members were “crammed” into space in the attic, Knueve said.
“The Committee, without hesitation, found that all aspects of the hazing to be egregious in nature, and unanimously believed that these actions demonstrated severe organizational misconduct,” CSO wrote in its decision. “The physical and emotional harm done to the new members of Chi Phi, whether they agreed to the hazing activities or not, is inexcusable by any standard, and has no place at the University of Wisconsin.”….

Records: Terminated Chi Phi fraternity put pledge in casket

Dartmouth ‘Animal House’ fraternity probed for branding rite By John Lauerman and Michael McDonald, Bloomberg News March 25, 2015  Dartmouth College is investigating its Alpha Delta fraternity, inspiration for the movie “Animal House,” for branding students’ flesh as part of an initiation ritual.
The accusations, if proven by the school, could result in probation, suspension or permanent loss of recognition for the fraternity. The alleged incident occurred in the fall, Dartmouth said in a statement. The school didn’t give further details.
Colleges across the U.S. have punished fraternities in recent weeks amid allegations of racism, hazing and offensive behavior toward women. Philip Hanlon, Dartmouth’s president since 2013 and a former Alpha Delta member, has defended fraternity life while condemning “extreme behavior” that he said hurts the Hanover, New Hampshire, college and its reputation.
Alpha Delta “has a significant three-year history of disciplinary violations, including hazing, underage service of alcohol and hosting unregistered events,” the college said in the statement….
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-news-bc-dartmouth-fraternity25-20150325-story.html

Fukuoka bans yakuza finger cutting    March 25, 2015   Members of the Dojin-kai are banned from coercing fellow gangsters into cutting off their fingers
FUKUOKA (TR) – Following recent incidents of abuse, the Fukuoka Prefectural Public Safety Commission on Tuesday announced a ban on a ritualistic form of atonement for one of the prefecture’s organized crime groups, reports the Nishi Nippon Shimbun (March 24).
In a meeting with a 41-year-old upper member of the Dojin-kai, whose headquarters is located in Kurume City, the commission said members of the gang would be prohibited from facilitating the removal of a finger of a fellow gangster.
Under the mandate, the act of coercion, whether in a meeting or through telephone or letter, and the provision of a cutting tool are banned acts.
The initiative, based on the Anti-Organized Crime Law enacted in 1991, is a nationwide first. The ban extends for a period of one year.
In the world of organized crime, the finger-cutting custom is a deep-rooted act to show responsibility for a transgression….

Fukuoka bans yakuza finger cutting

Child Abuse Information

U.S. jails sex-trafficked kids in human rights abuse, groups say  By Stella Dawson Mon Mar 16, 2015  WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The United States violates human rights by treating sex-trafficked children as criminals and throwing them into jail, rights groups told an international commission on Monday.
Federal and international law requires that children in the commercial sex trade are treated as victims of trafficking, not as prostitutes.
But most U.S. states and localities fail to apply the law, the groups said at a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which reviews human rights abuses in the region….
“When girls are incarcerated for the experience of being propertied and serially raped, their ability to return to family, community and school is less likely, which only serves to tighten the traffickers’ control,” they said in prepared remarks.
Approximately 300,000 American children are at risk for commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking each year, with 13 to 14 being the average age a child is first forced into sexual acts, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations…..
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/17/us-trafficking-us-children-idUSKBN0MD0AJ20150317

Bitcoin’s Blockchain Offers Safe Haven For Malware And Child Abuse, Warns Interpol
Thomas Fox-Brewster  Forbes Staff 3/27/2015
The blockchain, the public ledger of all Bitcoin transactions, has all kinds of good uses outside of providing stability for the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, from decentralised data storage to super-flexible email. But it can also be put to malicious use. According to Interpol’s Christian Karam, speaking from the Black Hat Asia conference, it could be abused to store malware control mechanisms or provide access to illicit content such as child abuse images that would be extremely difficult to take down….
http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/03/27/bitcoin-blockchain-pollution-a-criminal-opportunity/

Sierra Leone: Wife beating is still a common practice  28 March 2015   By Mariama Kandeh, Guest Writer, London, UK….  According to the Sierra Leone family support Unit, in 2012, the Western Area reported a total of 1,923 domestic violence cases while in 2013 the number rose to 2,073, the highest in the entire country and over 95% committed by husbands against their wives.
This excludes the provincial areas of the country that hosts the majority of the population. Meanwhile in 2014, a total of 11, 358 cases of child sexual abuse, domestic violence and rape against women and girls were recorded. Considering the fact that a good number of domestic violence cases is unreported, it displays a worrisome situation for Sierra Leone’s women….
http://www.thepatrioticvanguard.com/sierra-leone-wife-beating-is-still-a-common-practice-8231

Measuring child abuse’s legacy Emily Underwood  Science 27 March 2015:  Vol. 347 no. 6229 p. 1408 DOI: 10.1126/science.347.6229.1408  The notion that victims of physical abuse as kids are more likely to abuse their own children, often described as the “cycle of violence,” is widely held but sparsely documented. Now, the first large, longitudinal study to track how victims of child abuse treat their own children has found little evidence of a cycle of violence, but suggests that sexual abuse and neglect may indeed be passed down the generations. The study, published this week in Science, also makes a controversial claim: that heightened surveillance of families with a history of abuse may have biased some studies taken as evidence for the cycle of violence.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6229/1408.summary

Abused Kids Not Destined to Be Abusive Parents, Study Finds  By Amy Norton  HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, March 26, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Conventional wisdom says that abused children often grow up to be abusive parents, but a 30-year study of American families suggests it’s more complicated than that.
In one striking finding, researchers uncovered little evidence that physical abuse is passed from one generation to the next.
“That was extremely surprising,” said lead researcher Cathy Spatz Widom, a professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in New York City. “The theory has been that children of parents who were abused are at increased risk of physical abuse.”
That theory has been supported by past research. But, Widom explained, those studies have been hampered by limitations, such as working “backward” — starting with parents accused of abuse, and asking them if they’d been mistreated as kids.
“The problem there is, you miss the parents who were abused but did not go on to have these issues,” Widom explained.
Her study, published in the March 27 issue of Science, followed two generations of families, including over 1,100 parents and their kids. More than half of the parents had been abused or neglected as children, back in the 1960s and 1970s; the rest had no history of abuse, but were from similar backgrounds.
To see whether the children of abused parents were at risk, Widom’s team used three sources: Records from child protective services (CPS); interviews with parents; and interviews with their children once they were young adults.
Overall, the researchers found, children of abused parents were at no greater risk of physical abuse. And that was true whether the information came from parents’ or children’s reports, or CPS records.
Based on CPS reports, for example, almost 7 percent of kids born to abused parents suffered physical abuse, versus just over 5 percent of the comparison group — a difference that was not statistically significant.
In contrast, children of abused parents were at higher risk of sexual abuse or neglect, the finding showed.
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2015/03/26/abused-kids-not-destined-to-be-abusive-parents-study-finds

Utah Attorney General speaks on sex trafficking sting operation Wednesday, April 8, 2015 By Kevin Opsahl   ….(Attorney General) Reyes and Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) — a nonprofit organization that rescues kidnapped children from slavery — conducted the sting in cooperation with local government and U.S. law enforcement, saving 54 children as young as 9 years old from future abuse.  ….Reyes said human trafficking is “the second most lucrative business behind drug dealing,” eclipsing counterfeiting, which was in the No. 2 spot about 5 to 10 years ago.
“I think normal folks just find it hard to believe that this could happen in modern times, but in our community, it does,” Reyes said.
The U.S. Department of Justice and State Department say that 25 to 35 million people are enslaved worldwide — more than “all of the slaves in the transatlantic slave trade over generations cumulatively,” Reyes said….  http://news.hjnews.com/allaccess/utah-attorney-general-speaks-on-sex-trafficking-sting-operation/article_d7ecb842-de58-11e4-85b9-1becbc2589e5.html

AAP: Peds Serve as Primary Prevention for Child Abuse
Early recognition of child abuse by clinicians can be life-saving.
04.27.2015 by Molly Walker     Contributing Writer     Physical abuse of children and infants, while often difficult to diagnose, can lead to lifelong physical and mental health disorders.
The most common signs of physical abuse are skin injuries, skeletal injuries, thoracoabdominal injuries, and head injuries. Physical abuse of children and infants is often difficult to diagnose, but can lead to lifelong physical and mental health disorders, according to a new clinical report from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The most common signs of physical abuse are skin injuries, skeletal injuries, thoracoabdominal injuries, and head injuries, reported Cindy W. Christian, MD, chairperson of the 2013-2014 AAP Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect.
Because 80% of deaths in child abuse and neglect cases occur in children under 4-years-old, infants and toddlers are at the highest risk for severe and fatal abuse, they wrote in Pediatrics.
The authors acknowledged the difficulty for clinicians to identify physical abuse, because most injuries to children are not due to abuse, and “unusual accidental events happen to children.”
They also said that because so much of a child’s history is reliant on a parent’s report, physicians may not be likely to be critical or skeptical of the information provided….
The authors point out that child abuse and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) can have lifelong effects into adulthood. These events effect how the brain, neuroendocrine stress response, and immune system function, they wrote, and start as early as adolescence. Abused adolescents are more likely to have depression, conduct disorder, drug abuse, and cigarette smoking….
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/PreventiveCare/51212

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