Posts Tagged ‘Paedophile ring’

Ritual Crimes, Ritual Murder, Son of Sam – Process, Jersey’s Haut de la Garenne, Ritual Abuse-Torture

- Man admits trying to sacrifice son at cemetery
- The case of a vodou curse, drugs and rape heads to trial
- Lover given 15 years for ‘ritual’ killing
- Forensic evidence brought for ritual murder case
- Devils in the Heartland: The ritualistic killing of Arlis Perry  “Terry became convinced that Perry’s murder at Stanford was connected to the Son of Sam murders via a nationwide satanic cult called the Process Church of the Final Judgment.”
- ‘I have known about Jersey paedophiles for 15 years,’ says award-winning journalist – Jersey’s Haut de la Garenne
- Ritual Abuse-Torture Within Families/Groups

Man admits trying to sacrifice son at cemetery
4/5/13  SAN DIEGO — A man who tried to sacrifice his 8-year-old son at Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego pleaded guilty Friday to attempted murder, leaving it up to a judge to decide if he was insane at the time of the offense.

Joseph Adalberto Ramirez, 32, also admitted allegations that he inflicted great bodily injury on the victim and used a piece of broken glass to injure him. Ramirez faces 13 years in prison if he’s found sane. If a judge finds he was insane when he committed the crime, he would be sent to a state mental hospital….

Paredes testified that Ramirez started acting strangely after being baptized at a Christian church….  Once at the cemetery, Ramirez had the family drink sangria and eat energy bars, calling it `The Last Supper,” according to Paredes.

After he was arrested, witnesses said Ramirez said something about his grandmother being evil, according to court testimony.
http://fox5sandiego.com/2013/04/05/man-admits-trying-to-sacrifice-son-at-cemetery/

The case of a vodou curse, drugs and rape heads to trial 

Saturday, 04.06.13
By DAVID OVALLE

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

Lover given 15 years for ‘ritual’ killing
Published in: Legalbrief Today  Date: Wed 03 April 2013  Category: In Court Issue No: 3245
Keeping satanic symbols, speaking in tongues and performing weird rituals were the things Grace Tommy (37) was exposed to while she was in a relationship with her killer, Samantha Mitchell (38), who was sentenced yesterday to 15 years’ imprisonment, says a report in The Herald.

Tommy’s sister welcomed the sentence, handed down in the Eastern Cape High Court (Port Elizabeth), and detailed the bizarre life of the couple before it ended in the death. Mitchell was convicted of killing Tommy in their flat in December 2009….In handing down sentence, the judge said Mitchell had deprived the court of vital information about the motive behind Tommy’s death. ‘The accused has not been honest to the court, especially regarding the manner in which the deceased got the injuries that led to her death.’
http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=20130403082938269

Forensic evidence brought for ritual murder case 14 November 2012 Estelle Ellis

IN evidence that could have been straight from an episode of CSI, a top forensic analyst told the judge yesterday that neither of the two statements ritual murder accused Samantha Mitchell made to the police nor what she told ambulance personnel could be the truth.

The blood, lieutenant-colonel Johannes Marthinus Kock said, tells a different story. Kock reconstructed the crime scene – using photographs of Grace Tommy’s body and the flat on the night of the murder….
http://www.peherald.com/news/article/10010

Devils in the Heartland: The ritualistic killing of Arlis Perry
By Kristen Grace  June 25, 2012

Nearly four decades have passed since a young woman from Bismarck was murdered in a satanic ritual inside a church in Palo Alto, Calif. The brutal killing of Arlis Perry even today remains unsolved, but the secret of the cult that many people believe was responsible for her death, The Process Church, lives on. And so do the rumors.

The horrific murder of the 19-year-old newlywed made headlines across the nation after Perry’s mutilated, nearly nude body was found Oct. 13, 1974, on the floor of the Stanford University Memorial Church in Palo Alto.

Perry’s murder was investigated by detectives from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department who suspected the killer or killers lived in the neighborhoods surrounding the university. But in Bismarck, other rumors were circulating.

Arlis Perry’s in-laws, Duncan and Donna Perry, were shaken when told that she had attempted to convert members of a satanic cult in Mandan to Christianity. It would take a best-selling book from an investigative journalist from New York City to uncover that Perry’s murderers may have been from her hometown….

In August 1977, a 24-year-old postal clerk named David Berkowitz was arrested as the Son of Sam and promptly confessed to acting alone in the shootings. Terry believed that important parts of Berkowitz’s confession sounded scripted or contradictory. The New York City police closed the case, but Terry continued his own investigation.

Eventually, the Queens (N.Y.) district attorney and the Yonkers Police Department concurred with Terry’s determination that Berkowitz did not act alone. Five .44-caliber shootings had occurred in Queens, and Yonkers was the suburban city where Berkowitz lived during the year of the Son of Sam attacks.

Berkowitz himself also subsequently confirmed Terry’s investigation, admitting he actually did two of the Son of Sam attacks (killing three people) while fellow members of a satanic cult he belonged to did the others.

Following his 10-year pursuit of the Son of Sam investigation, Terry wrote “The Ultimate Evil.” Surprisingly, the book begins with the Perry murder in the Stanford University Chapel. During his enduring investigation, Terry became convinced that Perry’s murder at Stanford was connected to the Son of Sam murders via a nationwide satanic cult called the Process Church of the Final Judgment.

The Process Church was formed in England in the 1960s after Robert and Mary Ann De Grimston couldn’t resolve issues with the Church of Scientology. They developed their own church and soon were labeled Satanists because they worshiped both Christ and Satan. The couple believed that at the end of the world, Satan and Christ would collaborate; Christ would judge the living and dead, and Satan would execute the judgments.

Berkowitz, Charles Manson and William Mentzer, the convicted killer of Hollywood producer Roy Radin, were all believed to be members of the Process Church or one of its related spinoff cults….
http://www.greatplainsexaminer.com/2012/06/25/the-killing-of-arlis-perry/


‘I have known about Jersey paedophiles for 15 years,’ says award-winning journalist

By EILEEN FAIRWEATHER 02 March 2008
The award-winning journalist who exposed terrible abuse in Islington children’s homes now reveals horrifying links to sinister discoveries at Jersey’s Haut de la Garenne.
I met the frightened policeman at an isolated country restaurant, many miles from his home and station. Detective Constable Peter Cook had finally despaired, and decided to blow the whistle to a reporter.

He was risking his career, so made me scribble my notes into a tiny pad beneath the tablecloth. He had uncovered a vicious child sex ring, with victims in both Britain and the Channel Islands, and he wanted me to get his information to police abuse specialists in London. Incredibly, he claimed that his superiors had barred him from alerting them.

He feared a cover-up: many ring members were powerful and wealthy. But I did not think him paranoid: I specialised in exposing child abuse scandals and knew, from separate sources, of men apparently linked to this ring.

They included an aristocrat, clerics and a social services chief. Their friends included senior police officers.

Repeatedly, inquiries by junior detectives were closed down, so I, a journalist, was asked to convey confidential information from one police officer to others. It seemed surreal. I duly met trusted contacts at the National Criminal-Intelligence Squad. That was more than 12 years ago, and little happened – until now.

Last weekend, a child’s remains were found at a former children’s home on Jersey amid claims of a paedophile ring. More than 200 children who lived at Haut de la Garenne have described horrific sexual and physical torture dating back to the Sixties.

When I heard the news, my eyes filled with tears. I felt heartbroken, not least at my own powerlessness. I have known for more than 15 years about Channel Islands paedophiles victimising children in the British care system….

Disturbing allegations about the murder of children in care have characterised other scandals I investigated in Britain, but today I can reveal for the first time the links between the abuse I uncovered at care homes in Islington, North London, and the horrifying discoveries on Jersey.

I have never before written that 14-year-old Jason Swift, killed in 1985 by a paedophile gang, is believed to have lived in Islington council’s Conewood Street home. Two sources claimed this when I investigated Islington’s 12 care homes for The Mail on Sunday’s sister paper, the London Evening Standard, in the early Nineties.

But hundreds of children’s files mysteriously disappeared in Islington and, without documentation, this was not evidence enough….

We did, however, prove that every home included staff who were paedophiles, child pornographers or pimps. Concerned police secretly confirmed that several Islington workers were believed “networkers”, major operators in the supply of children for abuse and pornography.

Some of these were from the Channel Islands or regularly took Islington children there on unofficial visits. In light of the grisly discoveries at Haut de la Garenne, the link now seems significant, but at the time we were so overwhelmed by abuse allegations nearer home that this connection never emerged.

What we did report prompted the sort of vehement official denials that have come to characterise child abuse claims. Margaret Hodge, then council leader, denounced us as Right-wing “gutter journalists” who supposedly bribed children to lie.

Our findings were eventually vindicated by Government-ordered inquiries, and two British Press Awards….

Now Jersey police under deputy chief Lenny Harper – a ‘new broom’ outsider – have been secretly investigating a paedophile ring linked to the island’s care homes for months, I have been struck by common factors with the British abuse scandals: innocent-sounding sailing trips, where children can be isolated and abused, away from prying eyes, then delivered to other abusers; the familiar smearing of whistle-blowers; and the suppression of damning reports.

Jersey social worker Simon Bellwood was sacked early last year after speaking out, and popular health minister Stuart Syvret, 42, was fired in November after publicising the suppressed Sharp Report into abuse allegations….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-523706/I-known-Jersey-paedophiles-15-years-says-award-winning-journalist.html

Ritual Abuse-Torture Within Families/Groups
Authors: Jeanne Sarson a; Linda MacDonald b
Affiliations:
a Independent Scholar, Nova Scotia
b Nova Scotia Department of Health, Truvo, Nova Scotia, Canada
DOI: 10.1080/10926770801926146
Publication Frequency: 8 issues per year
Published in:  Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, Volume 16, Issue 4 July 2008 , pages 419 – 438

Abstract
Case studies provide insights into identifying 10 violent thematic issues as components of a pattern of family/group ritual abuse-torture (RAT) victimization. Narratives from victimized women suggest that victimization generally begins in infancy or soon thereafter. A visual model of RAT displays the organization of the co-culture. Examples of the family/group gatherings known as “rituals and ceremonies” provide insights into how these gatherings are used to normalize pedophilic violence. Global activism afforded the first effort ever to track RAT and human trafficking. Recognizing RAT as an emerging form of non-state actor torture, discontinuing the use of language that sexualizes adult-child relationships, and promoting human rights education are suggested social solutions.

INTRODUCTION
Insights into the reality of ritual abuse-torture (RAT) victimization began for the authors in 1993 with a phone call from a woman who planned to commit suicide in 4 days. Sara (not her real name) said this was “the last time [I'm] ever going to reach out for help.” Unraveling the chaos of Sara’s world to find meaning in her contextualized expressions of life was essential to providing her with effective interventions. Sara reported being born and remaining actively captive in a RAT family/group for over 30 years. Efforts undertaken to develop a framework that organized Sara’s victimization led to the identification of 10 violent thematic issues/behaviors constituting relational norms within RAT family/groups (Sarson & MacDonald, 2007): (a) neglect and abuse of many forms (e.g., verbal, emotional, physical, sexual, financial); (b) being terrorized by acts of violence, such as the killing of a pet and being threatened with death if she disclosed the violence and abuse; (c) human-animal violence, including bestiality and/or being “trained” to harm animals; (d) torture (e.g., physical, sexual, and mind-spirit); (e) rampageous pedophilia; (f) necrophilic and pseudonecrophilic acts, such as drugging or choking her into unconsciousness and raping her dead-like body; (g) forced self-harming behaviors; (h) enduring horrifying acts, such as being forced to watch another child tortured and gang raped; (i) human trafficking victimization and exploitation (e.g., pedophilic and adult pornography; being used as a drug carrier); and (j) forced participation in violent organized pedophilic family/group gatherings coded as “rituals and ceremonies.” Using such a framework to comprehend Sara’s family/group system was successful in guiding Sara’s gradual exit and ongoing healing processes. It also prompted the following questions: (a) Would this framework define the RAT victimization of others? (b) If so, would it be representative of this specific population? (c) If so, could their experiential narratives then be considered a collective perspective of life within RAT families and like-minded groups?….

CONCLUSION
Just who are ritual abuse-torturers? Babiak and Hare (2006) wrote that psychopathy is found in 1% of the general population and “that about 20 to 25% of men who persistently abuse and batter their partners are psychopaths” (p. 286); maybe the answer lies in this reality. Psychopaths can be parents. Of the four case studies presented, three spoke of their father’s violence against their mothers, often compounded by alcoholic rage. Two of these three mothers were considered not to be involved in RAT. Sara stated that alcohol was not present in her household. Although her mother actively participated in inflicting RAT victimization, she was still subjected to misogynistic and physical violence. Could it be that ritual abuse-torturers have remained so invisible that they have yet to be considered a specific psychopathic group within society? When exposed, might they fall into the category of being sadistic human predators?
http://www.wunrn.com/news/2008/12_08/12_15_08/121508_ritual.htm

Teenage sex slave raped 90 times in one weekend, Report suggested that Savile could have been stopped decades ago

- Teenage sex slave raped 90 times in one weekend despite authorities saying she wasn’t at risk
-  UK Police Had Jimmy Savile Abuse Records In 1960s: Report
- Jimmy Savile police ‘reluctant to investigate because of celebrity status’
- Jimmy Savile investigator offers to help round up 1980s paedophile ring

Teenage sex slave raped 90 times in one weekend despite authorities saying she wasn’t at risk
Girl gave evidence to committee despite still being ‘deeply traumatised’
CSJ report claims efforts to tackle slavery in a state of crisis
More than 1,000 adults and children trafficked into or within UK in 2011/12

By James Rush

10 March 2013

A teenage girl was raped 90 times in one weekend it has been revealed, in a shocking report into modern-day slavery in the UK.

The report, due to be published tomorrow by the Centre for Social Justice, contains evidence from the girl, who was 16 at the time she was taken into slavery and raped by 90 men.

The girl, who gave evidence to the committee despite still being ‘deeply traumatised’ by the attacks, did not come from a background which put her at risk, but became enslaved after befriending girls vulnerable to abuse, it has been reported….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2291037/Centre-Social-Justice-Teenage-sex-slave-raped-90-times-weekend-despite-authorities-saying-wasnt-risk.html

UK Police Had Jimmy Savile Abuse Records In 1960s: Report
03/11/13
LONDON — An independent report into how British police handled allegations against disgraced late BBC entertainer Jimmy Savile said Tuesday that police held records that connected him to sexual abuse as early as 1964, but failed to carry out an investigation.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, an independent police oversight group, found that police recorded five allegations and two pieces of intelligence against Savile during his lifetime.

Once one of Britain’s most popular entertainers, Savile’s reputation took a dive after his death in 2011 at age 84, when hundreds of witnesses and victims came forward accusing him of sexual abuse. Police have since described the television and radio presenter as a serial sexual predator who used his fame to target young victims across Britain.

Tuesday’s report suggested that Savile could have been stopped decades ago.

The earliest found intelligence record held by the pedophile unit at Scotland Yard dates from about 1964, but was only uncovered last year, the report said. The record, which just contained brief notes, referred to Savile as a “well known disc jockey” and to sexual abuse involving students at a children’s home. No investigation was carried out as a result of that intelligence, the report said.

“Its existence suggests that, by 1964, Savile was known to (police) officers investigating sexual offences against children,” the report said. “On the basis of what we know now, there appears to have been, at the very least, an opportunity to investigate his behavior then.”

The second intelligence record was an anonymous letter sent to police in 1998. It urged Scotland Yard to stop Savile’s activities, but police marked it as “sensitive” because of his celebrity status. It was never investigated and not shared with other police forces….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/12/jimmy-savile-sex-abuse-uk-police-records_n_2860530.html

Jimmy Savile police ‘reluctant to investigate because of celebrity status’

Watchdog highlights failures in information sharing between forces and reveals DJ could have been stopped in 1964

Josh Halliday and Haroon Siddique
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 March 2013
Jimmy Savile’s celebrity status contributed to the police’s failure to prevent him sexually abusing hundreds of young people over five decades when they could have stopped him in the 1960s, the compiler of a highly critical report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) has said.

The watchdog’s inquiry into the police’s handling of Savile revealed that the disgraced DJ, who died in October 2011, could have been stopped as early as 1964 but police mishandled evidence and dismissed victims.

Drusilla Sharpling, from HMIC, said police appeared to be reluctant to investigate Savile because of his high public profile….

The inspectorate described a “cultural mistrust” of evidence from children, warning that procedures adopted by various agencies over many years had left vulnerable young people unprotected by the criminal justice system….

In 1963, a Cheshire man was told by a police officer to “forget about it” and “move on” when he reported an allegation of rape by Savile, according to HMIC.

Another man who tried to report an assault his girlfriend had suffered at a recording of Top of the Pops was told by police he “could be arrested for making such allegations” and dismissed….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/mar/12/jimmy-savile-police-celebrity-status

Jimmy Savile investigator offers to help round up 1980s paedophile ring

MARTIN HICKMAN
Tuesday 12 March 2013

Mark Williams-Thomas, the child protection expert who exposed Jimmy Savile, has offered to help catch an alleged establishment paedophile ring that used its connections to escape justice decades ago.

The former police officer – who researched and presented ITV’s documentary on the dark side of the BBC star – said that victims reluctant to report the abuse they experienced at Elm Guest House in London could contact him directly. Mr Williams-Thomas said he would consider making a documentary about the case if a new police inquiry, Operation Fernbridge, turned out to be unsuccessful.

He stressed that he had “100 per cent faith” in the inquiry into claims that children in care were abused at the property in Rocks Lane, Barnes, in the early 1980s by powerful figures from across public life.

But he urged anyone who felt able to report their experiences to come forward, saying it was crucial for Scotland Yard to collect more evidence before making any further arrests.

He also divulged that he had already passed evidence to the police about the case, adding that the stories he was hearing about it were “horrendous”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/jimmy-savile-investigator-offers-to-help-round-up-1980s-paedophile-ring-8531705.html

Files Show Church Missteps, Evasions With Priests, Josh Powell’s in-laws want law to protect kids, Abuse victims ‘trafficked abroad’

Files Show Church Missteps, Evasions With Priests
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 2, 2013

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Archdiocese of Los Angeles released 12,000 pages of personnel files on sexually abusive priests that Archbishop Jose Gomez described as “brutal and painful reading.” While many of the names of the abusers and accusations against them were known, the files reveal previously undisclosed details of how the church transferred priests out of state, sent them to therapists who wouldn’t report crimes and suppressed information from reaching the public. Lawyers for the archdiocese and priests who objected to the records being released did not return phone calls or an email seeking comment. Among the revelations in the trove of documents:

The church records show the archdiocese maneuvered behind the scenes to avoid a possible lawsuit against a priest over abuse allegations in Los Angeles. In 2007, five former altar boys from Tucson, Ariz., were awarded $1.5 million each as part of the archdiocese’s $660 million clergy-abuse settlement. The five said they were abused by the Rev. Kevin Barmasse, who was sent to Arizona during the 1980s after he’d been accused of child molestation in Los Angeles. The records show Monsignor Thomas Curry told Mahony in a Nov. 10, 1989, confidential memo that “the young boy involved is now about eighteen, so Kevin should certainly not return for another two years by which time the period for filing law suits will have passed.” Later that month, Mahony advised Barmasse to stay away from Los Angeles. “Your presence in this area … would greatly increase the possibility of a suit against you,” Mahony wrote. Barmasse was never criminally prosecuted.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/02/02/us/ap-us-california-church-abuse-glance.html

Josh Powell’s in-laws want law to protect kids
February 2, 2013 OLYMPIA — The parents of a missing Utah mother pushed Friday for changes in Washington state laws on custody cases, saying proposed legislation might have prevented the killing of their two grandchildren.

Chuck and Judy Cox testified before a state Senate committee considering a bill that would restrict or block visitation rights for someone who is the subject of a murder investigation.

They told lawmakers the legislation could have changed the course of the case involving their missing daughter, Susan Powell, whose husband, Josh Powell, killed himself and their young kids during a parental visit last year….

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/yhr/saturday/794502-8/josh-powells-in-laws-want-law-to-protect-kids

Abuse victims ‘trafficked abroad’
Seventies paedophile ring in Barnes extended to Amsterdam, say two men who claim they were abused in brothels
James Hanning , Paul Cahalan Sunday 03 February 2013

Two alleged victims of a sophisticated paedophile ring at the centre of a police investigation claim they were taken on trips to Amsterdam where they were sexually abused in brothels in the 1980s.

One male victim had been taken from the Grafton Close care home in Richmond, south-west London, it is claimed, and, as well as being trafficked in Amsterdam, was rented out to customers at the Elm Guest House, a bed and breakfast nearby. Another man has claimed he was taken to Amsterdam on a different trip.

Police are understood to be looking into the men’s claims as part of Operation Fernbridge, an investigation into historic child abuse set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal. Detectives are building a picture of the reach of the network – which allegedly used the property – and have seized a number of files from local authorities.

The Elm Guest House in Rocks Lane, Barnes, said to have been frequented in the Seventies and Eighties by prominent peoples including former Tory politicians, is at the centre of the investigation….

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/abuse-victims-trafficked-abroad-8478607.html

Criminal investigation launched into paedophile ring involving UK politicians in the 1980s, India’s New Focus on Rape Shows Only the Surface of Women’s Perils

Criminal investigation launched into paedophile ring involving UK politicians in the 1980s
Police launch criminal investigation into MPs’ child sex ring
Martin Hickman Author Biography
Thursday 17 January 2013

Scotland Yard tonight launched a full investigation into allegations that Conservative politicians were members of a paedophile ring which abused children in care the 1980s.

Operation Fernbridge will centre on the alleged historic sexual abuse of children at Elm Guest House, in Rocks Lane, a suburban street in Barnes, south-west London.

Residents of a nearby care home run by Richmond Council claim they were sexually assaulted at the property by a network of prominent individuals, including Tory MPs, who used their connections to escape justice….

Saying that the file contained “clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring”, Mr Watson said at Prime Minister’s Questions: “One of its members boasts of a link to a senior aide of a former Prime Minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad….

In a short statement, Scotland Yard said: “The Metropolitan Police Service have today, Thursday 17 January, launched an investigation, Operation Fernbridge, into historic allegations of child abuse in the early 1980s at the Elm Guest House, Rocks Lane, Barnes, London.

“The investigation will be led by the Child Abuse Investigation Command.”

The statement went on: “The allegations under Operation Fernbridge were initially assessed under Operation Fairbank which was information passed to police by MP Tom Watson. Operation Fernbridge reached the threshold for a criminal investigation.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-launch-criminal-investigation-into-mps-child-sex-ring-8456434.html

India’s New Focus on Rape Shows Only the Surface of Women’s Perils
January 13, 2013
By GARDINER HARRIS / The New York Times

NEW DELHI — Harassed for years by her husband and his relatives, an Indian woman was finally kidnapped, raped, strangled and tossed into a ditch.

For more than a year, the woman’s father has tried without success to get the police to arrest those accused of killing her, including her husband, who were charged but remain at large. The father, Subedar Akhileshar Kumar Singh, an army officer, says he believes his daughter was killed because her in-laws were not satisfied with her dowry, according to an article on Thursday in The Indian Express.

Such crimes are routine in this country, where researchers estimate that anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 women a year are killed over dowry disputes. Many are burned alive in a particularly grisly form of retribution.

While a horrific gang rape in New Delhi has transfixed India and drawn attention to a violent epidemic, rape is just one facet of a broad range of violence and discrimination that leads to the deaths of almost two million women a year, researchers say. Among the causes are not only sexual violence but also domestic violence, family disputes and female infanticide, as well as infant neglect and poor care of the elderly that affect girls and women far more than boys and men….
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/indias-new-focus-on-rape-shows-only-the-surface-of-womens-perils-670266/

 

School abuse victim $23m damages, Savile 450 alleged victims, Epigenetics and Stress

School abuse victim wins $23 million in damages
By Melissa Pamer, NBCLosAngeles.com

LOS ANGELES — A former student in Los Angeles was awarded $23 million in damages Tuesday for sexual abuse he endured at the hands of his elementary school teacher.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated for less than five hours before finding in favor of the teen.

The lawsuit, filed on his behalf in October 2009, concerned abuse by Forrest Stobbe, the boy’s fifth-grade teacher at Queen Anne Elementary School in the Mid-Wilshire area.

Stobbe was sentenced to 16 years in prison after pleading no contest to criminal charges in the case in 2011. He had been arrested in 2010, when he was 39….

Stobbe abused the boy 10 to 15 times in the classroom during the 2008-9 school years, and another five times during the summer of 2009, according to Estey.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/19/16014572-school-abuse-victim-wins-23-million-in-damages

Jimmy Savile abuse: Number of alleged victims reaches 450  12 December 2012

Police have confirmed that the number of alleged sex abuse victims of the late Jimmy Savile has reached 450.

The Operation Yewtree team said 589 alleged victims have come forward during their investigation of offences committed by Savile and others.

Of the alleged victims, 82% were female and 80% were children or young people.

Meanwhile, police have set up Operation Fairbank to investigate allegations by Labour MP Tom Watson of a paedophile ring in high places.

Mr Watson said in October that police should investigate claims of a “powerful paedophile ring” linked to a previous prime minister’s “senior adviser” and Parliament.
‘Exploited his position’

Savile, who died last year aged 84, was a Radio 1 DJ and the presenter of the Jim’ll Fix It show on BBC One.

Operation Yewtree, which launched 10 weeks ago, has a team of 30 officers and has so far cost about £2m.

Police said on Wednesday they have recorded 199 alleged crimes in 17 police force areas against Savile.

They said they had recorded 31 allegations of rape against Savile in seven force areas.

Met Police Commander Peter Spindler, head of Operation Yewtree, said: “Savile’s offending peaked in the 70s and what we can show, or will be showing in the New Year, is how he used his position in society across the country – the crimes relate to 17 different police force areas – how he exploited this position to get his sexual gratification.”

BBC home affairs correspondent Matt Prodger says the level of allegations against Savile – 450 in total – is unprecedented – never before have police received that number of allegations against a single person.

Our correspondent says he believes the police have a total of 20 suspects whom they wish to interview. They have interviewed seven people in total – six of whom were arrested.

Police are looking at three strands within their inquiry – claims against Savile, those against Savile and others, and those against others only….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20697738

‘I’m staying put’: Esther Rantzen claims she will remain child abuse charity patron after claims she ignored warnings over Jimmy Savile

Rantzen is a patron of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood
Child abuse campaigner Shy Keenan says she warned Rantzen about paedophile rumours but Rantzen strenuously denies this
Television presenter faces accusations that she failed to act on information
ChildLine founder says she cannot remember the incident and denies that Jimmy Savile’s name was ever mentioned
Department of Health launches inquiry about why Savile was appointed to ‘taskforce’ overseeing management of Broadmoor hospital
Rantzen said today she would remain as patron of child abuse charity, despite founder claiming trustees would discuss if she was still appropriate

By Anna Edwards, Alex Ward and Larisa Brown
15 October 2012

Esther Rantzen has strenuously denied rumours she is facing the sack as patron of a child abuse charity after she failed to act on allegations that Jimmy Savile molested youngsters….

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217149/Im-staying-Esther-Rantzen-claims-remain-child-abuse-charity-patron-claims-ignored-warnings-Jimmy-Savile.html

Jimmy Savile abuse allegations: Timeline
2 November 2012 Allegations of sexual abuse by Sir Jimmy Savile continue to emerge after ITV broadcasts an investigation on 3 October. This timeline charts the presenter’s rise to fame, the claims against him and subsequent action by police and broadcasters.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19921658

Genes and Immune System Shaped by Childhood Poverty, Stress
Oct. 18, 2012 — A University of British Columbia and Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics (CMMT) study has revealed that childhood poverty, stress as an adult, and demographics such as age, sex and ethnicity, all leave an imprint on a person’s genes. And, that this imprint could play a role in our immune response.

The study was published last week in a special volume of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that looks at how experiences beginning before birth and in the years after can affect the course of a person’s life.

Known as epigenetics, or the study of changes in gene expression, this research examined a process called DNA methylation where a chemical molecule is added to DNA and acts like a dimmer on a light bulb switch, turning genes on or off or setting them somewhere in between. Research has shown that a person’s life experiences play a role in shaping DNA methylation patterns.

The research team discovered that childhood poverty, but not socioeconomic status as an adult, was correlated with the marks or methylation patterns left on genes.

“We found biological residue of early life poverty,” said Michael Kobor, an associate professor of medical genetics at UBC, whose CMMT lab at the Child & Family Research Institute (CFRI) led the research. “This was based on clear evidence that environmental influences correlate with epigenetic patterns.”….

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121018123052.htm

L. L. Lam, E. Emberly, H. B. Fraser, S. M. Neumann, E. Chen, G. E. Miller, M. S. Kobor. Factors underlying variable DNA methylation in a human community cohort. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; 109 (Supplement_2): 17253 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1121249109

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/suppl.2/17253

 

Pair jailed over witches’ coven ‘ritualistic’ sex abuse, Abuse in ‘devil church’

Pair jailed over witches’ coven ‘ritualistic’ sex abuse      
Ryan Hooper  Friday 14 December 2012

Two men accused of being part of a paedophile ring involving murdered “witch” Peter Solheim have been given lengthy jail sentences for their part in “ritualistic, sickening” sex abuse of young girls.

Jack Kemp and Peter Petrauske spent years tormenting their female victims, one said to be as young as three. Both men had denied any involvement in the abuse, claiming they were victims of a witch hunt or conspiracy.

But a jury at Truro Crown Court dismissed their protestations, convicting the pair of a string of offences dating back to the 1970s, as well as finding Kemp guilty of several more recent sexual assaults unconnected to Petrauske.

Jailing Kemp for 14 years and Petrauske for 18, Judge Graham Cottle told them: “The offences range from the extremely serious to the truly horrifying.

“You are two of the surviving members of a paedophile ring, together with others whose names have repeated frequently in this trial who were members of a ring that operated in Falmouth (Cornwall) in the 1970s and 1980s….

“It (the trial) has featured ritualistic, sickening abuse of young, young children. The scars left on (two victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons) are so obvious that it would seem extremely unlikely that either of them have any real prospect of recovery….

Petrauske was convicted of rape, aiding and abetting an attempted rape, and indecent assault. Judge Cottle sentenced him to 18 years in prison.

Kemp was guilty of 10 sexual offences including indecent assault and indecency with a child, and was handed a 14-year term.

Both men were given a discount because of their age, the judge telling Petrauske he was likely to die in prison.

Petrauske was said to be the “high priest” of a witches’ coven in St Ives, Cornwall, and ordered the girls to carry out his sick fantasies. The court heard Kemp videoed the abuse, but also took part in the assaults, along with friends Solheim and Stan Pirie – a notorious paedophile who died in jail following his conviction for sex abuse in the mid-2000s.

The duo’s victims gave harrowing evidence from behind a screen during the three-week trial. They said they were then abused by their tormentors, before being given money and sweets to buy their silence.

The abuse was only investigated further by police last year when Kemp was arrested in connection with another incident, causing rumours to spread around his home town of Falmouth and prompting the alleged victims of the historic offences to contact detectives.

Speaking after the case, Detective Constable Rick Milburn praised the bravery of the pair’s victims, adding: “It was truly horrific abuse, the worst my officers and myself have ever seen. It was truly distressing for everyone involved….

“I have no doubt Kemp and Petrauske were key players (in child sex abuse in Cornwall).”

Prosecutor Jason Beal said some of the assaults took the form of rituals with the young girls’ wrists tied.

Mr Beal said: “(One victim) was taken to a house where pagans were present, Jack Kemp was present and ‘German Pete’ (Petrauske) was also there….

When Petrauske was arrested last year, detectives discovered daggers, sheets, candles and a mask, the court heard. He immediately mentioned the names Kemp and – in a dramatic twist in the case – Solheim.

The latter was a 56-year-old parish councillor whose body was found five miles off the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, by fishermen on June 18, 2004. He had been drugged and mutilated by a machete or an axe….

But counsel for the defendants told the jury that Petrauske and Kemp played no part in the abuse….

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/pair-jailed-over-witches-coven-ritualistic-sex-abuse-8417739.html

Girl ‘was abused in churchyard’ STEPHEN WARD
Tuesday 08 June 1993

A COURT at the Old Bailey was told yesterday that a young girl was taken to a churchyard each Hallowe’en by three men, then sexually abused in front of a group of adults who wore black cloaks and balaclavas, writes Stephen Ward.

The girl, now 11, is one of seven children who were allegedly victims of sexual and physical abuse by a man aged 67, his daughter, 29, and his two sons- in-law, aged 41 and 31. The offences span 1978 to 1989. The defendants deny 28 specimen charges.

The court was told that all the defendants and all the victims are related. None can be identified to protect the children.
The rector of St Mary’s church, Northolt, west London, is to testify that over 10 years witchcraft has taken place in the church at Hallowe’en.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/girl-was-abused-in-churchyard-1490250.html

Girl, 10, tells of sexual abuse in ‘devil church’: Child accuses relatives in video shown to jury
Wednesday 09 June 1993
A VIDEO in which a 10-year-old girl wept as she told of being sexually abused in a church by her father and grandfather was shown to a court at the Old Bailey yesterday.

The one-and-a-half hour interview was conducted by a policewoman in the presence of the girl’s foster mother and a social worker last autumn. The girl also described a catalogue of abuse at the hands of her uncle and other adults.

The father, 41, grandfather, 61, another uncle, 31, and an aunt, 29, variously deny 28 specimen charges against seven children, including rape, buggery, indecent assault and cruelty.

The girl, now 11, described her father as ‘horrible’ and said he frequently beat her. She said he started sexually abusing her when she was three and having full sex with her when she was five.

She described being taken late at night by her father and others to a ‘devil church’ where she was stripped, tied up, had knives held in front of her face and was abused by adults in black cloaks and balaclavas….

Linda Stern QC, for the prosecution, has told the jurors they will hear from the rector of St Mary’s Church, Northolt, west London, who had noticed ‘unpleasant practices connected with witchcraft’ had taken place at Hallowe’en ‘in various parts of the church’.

Once the taped interview was over, the girl was cross-examined through a live video link running between the court and a private room in the Old Bailey. She said other children were at the church – four or five, along with 20 adults. She denied that she had made up details of the church from watching horror videos.

Mrs Stern has alleged that the defendants made the children watch obscene tapes. Several of the children described seeing ‘rude’ videos.

She said that as well as being sexually abused, the children were physically neglected and were kept silent through fear and threats.

They were cowed into submission, and ‘sexual abuse and neglect of their other needs was the only way of life they knew’.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/girl-10-tells-of-sexual-abuse-in-devil-church-child-accuses-relatives-in-video-shown-to-jury-1490468.html

Four people in one family are jailed for child sex
DAVID TAYLOR Wednesday 30 June 1993
FOUR MEMBERS of the same family were jailed at the Old Bailey yesterday for sexually abusing seven children over an 11-year period, writes David Taylor.
A father, aged 41, who was found guilty of 16 charges of rape, indecent assault, buggery, cruelty and indecency, was jailed for life with an order that he serve a minimum of 12 years. He was said to have ‘behaved like a monster’.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/four-people-in-one-family-are-jailed-for-child-sex-1494769.html

New children’s home sex abuse probe

New children’s home sex abuse probe
Nov 6 2012

The National Crime Agency (NCA) is to mount an investigation into fresh allegations of abuse in children’s homes in North Wales amid claims that a senior Tory was among the perpetrators.

Home Secretary Theresa May said the director general of the NCA Keith Bristow would review the original police handling of the case – which dates back to the 1970s and 1980s – as well as looking at the latest allegations by one of the victims.

“The Government is treating these allegations with the utmost seriousness,” she told MPs in a Commons statement. “Child abuse is a hateful, abhorrent and disgusting crime and we must not allow these allegations to go unanswered.”

Mrs May said she would also consider Labour calls for a wider, over-arching inquiry into child abuse – including the allegations involving the late DJ and BBC presenter Jimmy Savile – if the evidence was shown to justify it.

Labour backbencher Tom Watson, who has raised claims of a past paedophile ring linked to No 10 and of a former Cabinet minister allegedly involved in child abuse, dismissed the latest moves as simply “the next stage of a cover-up”.

The announcement comes after David Cameron said he would be appointing a senior figure to review the original public inquiry into abuse at the Bryn Estyn children’s home led by Sir Ronald Waterhouse, a retired high court judge.

The investigations followed renewed allegations last week by one of the victims, Steve Messham, who said the inquiry examined only a fraction of the claims of abuse. He told BBC2′s Newsnight that he was taken out of the home and “sold” to men for sexual abuse at a nearby hotel and that a senior Tory from the time was among the perpetrators….
http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/chester-news/uk-world-news/2012/11/06/new-children-s-home-sex-abuse-probe-59067-32177960/

‘World’s largest paedophile ring’ uncovered, priest abuse case


‘World’s largest paedophile ring’ uncovered
16 March 2011  By Dominic Casciani BBC News home affairs correspondent
International police led by a UK team say they shut down the largest internet paedophile ring yet discovered.

The global forum had 70,000 followers at its height, leading to 4,000 intelligence reports being sent to police across 30 countries.

The operation has so far identified 670 suspects and 230 abused children. Detectives say 184 people have been arrested – 121 of them were in the UK. Some 60 children have been protected in the UK.

The three-year investigation, Operation Rescue, was led by investigators from the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop). Speaking at a news conference at The Hague in the Netherlands, investigators said the network hid behind a legal online forum which operated out of the country – but its members came from around the world.
Along with the Netherlands and the UK, suspects have been identified in Australia, Italy, Canada, New Zealand and Thailand.

The members of the network went into a private channel, boylover.net, and then used its secret systems to share films and images of abused children, said Rob Wainwright, director of European police agency Europol.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12762333

Child abuse ‘big business online’12 May 2010
There are around 450 criminal gangs around the world making money from images of child sex abuse, the UK’s Internet Watch Foundation has said. The watchdog’s annual report says that the 10 most prolific of these account for more than 650 web pages.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10108720

Philadelphia judge fired up at priest during sex-abuse hearing
http://m.philly.com/phillycom/db_/contentdetail.htm;jsessionid=077E98FEED1D9AE045148527BC666D1D?contentguid=fJPVsew9&full=true#display

Defense Fights Charges in Pa. Priest Abuse Case
Associated Press
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wbOyLDJU3c&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Holy See accused of flouting UN Convention on the Rights of the Child – At the plenary session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday 15 March 2011, Keith Porteous Wood of Britain’s National Secular Society accused the Holy See of contravening its duties under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child in relation to child abuse.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SecularismOrgUK?feature=mhum

“false memory” defense, DID/MPD documented in movie, impact of trauma

“Before being sentenced, Sargent admitted that his “false memory” defense was a ruse. He confessed his guilt, apologized to the children, and, as reported by the Associated Press, told the judge: “I wasn’t in denial for what I had done, but I just didn’t want to pay the consequences.”

articles:
Remembering the Case of Wayne B. Sargent
Stepfather confesses to child molestation
When the Devil Knocks (documented Dissociative Identity Disorder case formerly known as Multiple Personality)

The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease – The Hidden Epidemic
Paedophile ring leader Colin Blanchard jailed

Remembering the Case of Wayne B. Sargent, Jr. December 31, 2010 Recovered Memory Project

Sargent earned an uncritical mention in the “Legal Corner” section of this FMS. newsletter….after he successfully appealed his criminal conviction for sexually assaulting his two minor step-children and one of their friends. See, State v. Sargent (1999). The court ruled that Sargent should have been allowed to present a “false memory” expert to the jury. But the FMS. never reported the rest of the story.

Sargent was convicted by a jury after a second trial that included a “false memory” expert for the defense. That conviction was upheld by the New Hampshire Supreme Court….But the second appellate decision, State v. Sargent (2002), was never mentioned in the FMS. newsletter. Neither were the remarkable events that unfolded after his second trial.

Before being sentenced, Sargent admitted that his “false memory” defense was a ruse. He confessed his guilt, apologized to the children, and, as reported by the Associated Press, told the judge: “I wasn’t in denial for what I had done, but I just didn’t want to pay the consequences.” Judge Smukler, mindful of the fact that Sargent put three children through two separate trials before admitting the truth, sentenced him to 21 to 54 years in prison.
http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2010/12/31/remembering-the-case-of-wayne-b-sargent-jr/

Stepfather confesses to child molestation LACONIA, N.H. AP 7/6/00
After five years of denying he raped his two stepchildren and one of their friends, Wayne Sargent Jr. admitted to the crimes Wednesday. Sargent, 33, was convicted in Belknap County Superior Court in May on nine counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and felonious sexual assault for molesting the children between 1995 and 1996. He had been convicted in 1997 for the same crimes and sentenced to 21 to 54 years in prison.

But the state Supreme Court overturned the verdict last year because Judge Larry Smukler did not allow a defense expert to testify about how
“false memories” can be implanted in children through suggestive questioning. At Sargent’s sentencing Wednesday, Smukler handed down the same sentence – 21 to 54 years in prison.

“I wasn’t in denial for what I had done, but I just didn’t want to pay the consequences,” Sargent told the judge. “Now I don’t think there’s anything I could ever do or say to my children that would convince them of how sorry I am.” http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/files/2010/12/AP-Sargent.pdf

When the Devil Knocks
Sunday January 23 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC News Network

HILARY STANTON was born Sept 16, 1950 in central Alberta, the middle child in a family of five. Her dad was a farmer, mom a war-bride from Liverpool. Hilary remembers her childhood as one of neglect and abuse and believes that is what made her the target for pedophiles and  ultimately led her personality to fracture into fragments – as a sufferer of Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality….

Throughout her life, Hilary suffered from blackouts and would find herself places that she didn’t remember going. But she thought that was normal, until she got herself into therapy and began getting in touch with the distinct personalities (“alters”) whom she’d created to help her survive childhood sexual abuse.
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/passionateeyeshowcase/2011/whenthedevilknocks/hilary.html

When the Devil Knocks is – the intimate story of a woman suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality. The film premieres at the 2010 Vancouver International Film Festival. http://whenthedevilknocks.com/

When the Devil Knocks is the intimate story of a woman suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality. Hilary Stanton gave the filmmakers unlimited access to more than 40 hours of videotapes of her psychotherapy, filmed over 10 years. The therapy tapes reveal a cast of supporting characters, “alters”, who kept Hilary alive by taking over from her during times of crisis. As Hilary says, “For years, my alters went to therapy and I wasn’t there for more than five minutes.”

Until her mid-40s, Hilary Stanton lived with big gaps in her memory that she thought were normal. Then Hilary had a breakdown, started therapy, and gradually discovered that – during those gaps in memory that she thought were so normal – other personalities (“alters”) were taking over from her. http://whenthedevilknocks.com/when-the-devil-knocks-documentary/

The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease – The Hidden Epidemic – There is now ample evidence from the preclinical and clinical fields that early life trauma has both dramatic and long-lasting effects on neurobiological systems and functions that are involved in different forms of psychopathology as well as on health in general.
Edited by: Ruth A. Lanius, University of Western Ontario
Edited by: Eric Vermetten, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
Edited by: Clare Pain, University of Toronto
ISBN: 9780511771484 Publication date: August 2010
http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item6024972/?site_locale=en_GB

Paedophile ring leader Colin Blanchard jailed 10 January 2011
The leader of a paedophile ring which sexually abused young children and shared the images has been jailed. Colin Blanchard, 40, of Rochdale, admitted a string of sex offences. He received an indeterminate sentence and must spend at least nine years in jail.

Two women were also sentenced. Tracy Lyons, 41, of Portsmouth, was jailed for seven years and Tracy Dawber, 44, of Southport, for four years. Plymouth nursery worker Vanessa George, 40, was jailed in 2009. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-12143586

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