238 arrested in “Operation Heartbreak” sting on child predators in California, 1,400 accused busted nationwide
June 24, 2016 Comments Off on 238 arrested in “Operation Heartbreak” sting on child predators in California, 1,400 accused busted nationwide
238 arrested in “Operation Heartbreak” sting on child predators in California, 1,400 accused perverts busted nationwide
BY Alfred Ng NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Hundreds of suspected child predators were busted in a two-month sting across Southern California, police announced Monday.
Among the 238 people arrested in the “Operation Broken Heart III” sweep by the Los Angeles Regional Internet Crimes against Children task force were clergy members, community leaders, entertainers and white-collar professionals, John Reynolds, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations special agent said at a press conference.
There had been nearly 900 investigations with 250 search warrants out for possible predators during the sweep in April and May. “The incidents of child sexual exploitation has reached staggering proportions,” Reynolds told reporters….
On June 1, Kounzong Saebphang, a Buddhist monk from Laos, was arrested at his monastery in Riverside after investigators received a tip he was sharing child pornography. Police found child porn on the monk’s computer, and believe he also shared it through social media, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said. Saebphang had been staying in California on a religious worker visa.
Former “Glee” star Mark Salling was charged with child pornography charges in Los Angeles on May 27. The region’s most high-profile arrest was Mark Salling, the former “Glee” star who was charged with receiving and possessing child pornography on May 27….
Nationwide, Operation Broken Heart III has busted up to 1,400 perverts. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/238-arrested-california-sting-child-predators-article-1.2682918
Rotherham victim’s sex abuse claims ‘dismissed by police officer’, Rotherham sex abuse trial: Arshid Hussain ‘had sex with child 100 times’
December 17, 2015 Comments Off on Rotherham victim’s sex abuse claims ‘dismissed by police officer’, Rotherham sex abuse trial: Arshid Hussain ‘had sex with child 100 times’
Rotherham victim’s sex abuse claims ‘dismissed by police officer’
Court hears that complainant, then aged 12, was accused of lying after telling officer about the abuse
Lisa O’Carroll Tuesday 15 December 2015
A police officer in Rotherham dismissed claims of child sexual abuse by a 12-year-old girl and told her she was lying, Sheffield crown court heard.
The complainant, who is now 31, reported the abuse she suffered to an officer after telling a staff member at the care home where she lived about being assaulted.
In an interview taped by police ahead of the trial and shown to the jury, she said the officer took her out of the home in a car to discuss the matter. He drove her down a country lane and told her she was making up the stories. The complainant said: “He ripped loads of paperwork up and said I was lying.”
He did not take a statement from her and she did not hear from any other police officers afterwards, the court heard. She said she did not know the officer’s name, but he was known by girls at the home as “Kimble the thimble”.
A second complainant in the trial said she had a baby after being raped by two of the defendants at a pub. The woman, now 36, claimed she started being abused, aged 11, at the hands of “Mad Ash”, a man the prosecution say is defendant Arshid Hussain….
Hussain denies having met the woman in person. The 39-year-old, of no fixed abode, denies one rape, five indecent assaults, one count of procuring a girl under 21 to have unlawful sexual intercourse with another, false imprisonment, three counts of indecency with a child, one count of procuring a woman under 21 to become a common prostitute, two assaults occasioning actual bodily harm, and one count of making threats to kill.
All seven defendants in the case deny all 52 counts including rape, indecent assault, conspiracy to rape, false imprisonment and procuring a woman for prostitution or sex with another….
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/15/rotherham-victims-sex-abuse-claims-dismissed-police-officer
Rotherham sex abuse trial: Arshid Hussain ‘had sex with child 100 times’
From the section Sheffield & South Yorkshire Wednesday 16 December 2015
An alleged victim of child sexual exploitation has said she was forced to have sex with Asian men against her will in houses, a park and churchyard.
The woman, who cannot be named, told Sheffield Crown Court she was given heroin in exchange for sex and beaten up when she tried to leave a house.
The woman said Arshid Hussain, one of seven defendants, had sex with her about 100 times from the age of 11.
All seven defendants deny the range of charges they face in court.
The woman said she was introduced by Mr Hussain to 10 or 11 other men for her to have sex with.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-35115874
300 victims groomed and assaulted by Oxfordshire gangs, Ten men charged over Rochdale child abuse claim
March 3, 2015 Comments Off on 300 victims groomed and assaulted by Oxfordshire gangs, Ten men charged over Rochdale child abuse claim
300 victims groomed and assaulted by Oxfordshire gangs, report finds
Serious case review finds failings by police and social services as it identifies hundreds of victims
By Telegraph reporter
A damning report is expected to disclose that more than 300 young people have been groomed and sexually exploited by gangs in Oxfordshire over the past 15 years.
Systemic failures by police and social services meant victims were subjected to years of sexual torture, rape and trafficking, it is understood….
The report comes after seven men were jailed for a string of horrendous child sex crimes against six victims, aged between 11 and 15, over a seven-year period….
It is expected to condemn Thames Valley Police and Oxfordshire social services for failing to act.
Key findings are will expose how police officers and social workers failed to believe the girls when they detailed the abuse they were suffering, and dismissed their complaints.. .. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11443868/300-victims-groomed-and-assaulted-by-Oxfordshire-gangs-report-finds.html
Ten men charged over Rochdale child abuse claim 2 March 2015
Ten men have been charged by police investigating child sexual exploitation in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
The men are accused of a catalogue of serious sex offences against seven females aged between 13 and 23 at the time of the alleged abuse, police said.
They were held under Operation Doublet, investigating child sexual exploitation of teen girls by older men in Rochdale.
The offences are alleged to have happened between 2005 and 2013.
They include rape, conspiracy to rape, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, sexual activity with a child and sexual assault….
“So far, 65 people have been arrested as part of Operation Doublet and the investigation continues…. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-31695832
Rotherham abuse lawyer: More evidence will link perpetrators to police, Essex Police under investigation over ‘failings’ by child abuse unit
February 12, 2015 Comments Off on Rotherham abuse lawyer: More evidence will link perpetrators to police, Essex Police under investigation over ‘failings’ by child abuse unit
Rotherham abuse lawyer: More evidence will link perpetrators to police
Complaints have been made about the late Pc Hassan Ali alleging he was unwilling to pursue claims of exploitation
By Telegraph reporter 09 Feb 2015
A child abuse lawyer has revealed more damning evidence could emerge in the Rotherham scandal that shows a link between police and perpetrators.
David Greenwood, of Switalskis Solicitors, represents 38 of the 1,400 children found to have been sexually exploited in the South Yorkshire town.
He revealed that two of them asked him to make official complaints about Pc Hassan Ali – who died in hospital this week following a collision with a car – alleging he was unwilling to pursue their claims of exploitation.
Mr Greenwood said the officer’s death would not be the end of the matter, and the wider scandal “is not going away”.
He said: “I’m pretty certain it will be bigger than it is even now.
“I think that evidence will emerge of links between perpetrators and police. It may be there was, as I have said, an unofficial policy of not pursuing these complaints….
The National Crime Agency is leading the investigation into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham.
Earlier this month, a police officer and two councillors in the town were accused of having sex with underage girls.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11399556/Rotherham-abuse-lawyer-More-evidence-will-link-perpetrators-to-police.html
Essex Police under investigation over ‘failings’ by child abuse unit
Essex Police apologise to alleged victims of child abuse after ‘uncovering problems’ with 30 investigations over a three year period
By Martin Evans, Crime Correspondent 11 Feb 2015
A police force has apologised to alleged child abuse victims after uncovering “concerns” with 30 investigations dating back to the 1960s.
Cases involving 59 victims that were investigated by Essex Police are now being re-examined after various allegations were made against detectives working in one of the force’s child abuse units.
Some detectives have been accused of failing to arrest suspects or carry out thorough investigations, while others have allegedly been dishonest or have lacked integrity while carrying out their duties.
One officer has been suspended and 11 others placed on restricted duties after a decision was made to refer 30 investigations to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11405598/Essex-Police-apologises-to-child-abuse-victims-after-its-revealed-30-investigations-were-flawed.html
Britain Condemns Leaders in Town of Rotherham for Ignoring Reports of Child Abuse
February 5, 2015 Comments Off on Britain Condemns Leaders in Town of Rotherham for Ignoring Reports of Child Abuse
Britain Condemns Leaders in Town of Rotherham for Ignoring Reports of Child Abuse
By STEVEN ERLANGER FEB. 4, 2015
LONDON — The British government on Wednesday severely criticized legislators in the northern English town of Rotherham for a culture of “complete denial” that led to a long-running ring involving the sexual abuse of up to 1,400 children from 1997 to 2013.
A report into the scandal by a senior official at Britain’s Department for Communities and Local Government found a deep-rooted culture of cover-ups and bullying, and grounds for possible criminal indictments.
The Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council leader, Paul Lakin, has resigned, and the council’s cabinet is also set to resign. Earlier, Shaun Wright, the police and crime commissioner of South Yorkshire, stepped down over the scandal.
The work of the council will be given to five commissioners appointed by the British government, which will call early elections in Rotherham next year to choose a new council.
“This inspection revealed past and present failures to accept, understand and combat the issue of child sexual exploitation, resulting in a lack of support for victims and insufficient action against known perpetrators,” the report said…..
To address another child abuse scandal, Home Secretary Theresa May appointed a New Zealand High Court judge on Wednesday to lead an inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse of children by powerful figures in British society that date from the 1970s….
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/world/europe/britain-child-abuse-scandal-rotherham-city-council.html
Spoken-Word Artist Captures Pain and Fear of Child Abuse Kelsey Timmerman Co-authored by J.R. Jamison
02/04/2015
Taking a story someone has lived and translating it into a story you write — as if you were them — is not for the faint of heart, especially when that story is about child abuse, prostitution, and sex trafficking….
Yewande was the artistic director for Facing Sex Trafficking: Atlanta’s Dirty Little Secret. She wrote and performed this first-person story of Kasey McClure who suffered years of sexual abuse from her father before she left home and fell into the trap of the sex industry….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelsey-timmerman/spokenword-artist-capture_b_6607344.html
Abuse Cases in British City Long Ignored, Report Says 1,400 Children in Rotherham, England, Were Sexually Abused, Report Says
August 28, 2014 Comments Off on Abuse Cases in British City Long Ignored, Report Says 1,400 Children in Rotherham, England, Were Sexually Abused, Report Says
Abuse Cases in British City Long Ignored, Report Says 1,400 Children in Rotherham, England, Were Sexually Abused, Report Says
By KATRIN BENNHOLD AUG. 26, 2014
LONDON — A report released on Tuesday on accusations of widespread sexual abuse in the northern England city of Rotherham found that about 1,400 minors — some as young as 11 years old — were beaten, raped and trafficked from 1997 to 2013 as the local authorities ignored a series of red flags.
Some children were doused in gasoline and threatened with being set on fire if they reported their abusers, the report said, and others were forced to watch rapes and threatened with the same fate. In more than a third of the cases, the victims appear to have been known to child protection agencies, but the police and local government officials failed to act….
Alexis Jay, the author of the report and a former chief inspector of social work, said that vulnerable girls as young as 11 and largely from disadvantaged backgrounds had been brutalized by groups of men.
“They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated,” she wrote.
The report described the failures of the political and police leadership as blatant. Even as social workers reported that the sexual exploitation of children was becoming a serious problem in Rotherham, senior managers in the local authority and South Yorkshire police ignored them. When victims came forward, Ms. Jay said, the police often regarded them “with contempt.”
Three earlier reports, published from 2002 to 2006, detailed the abuse, and according to Ms. Jay, “could not have been clearer in the description of the situation in Rotherham.” But the first one was “effectively suppressed” and the other two “ignored,” she said….
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/world/europe/children-in-rotherham-england-were-sexually-abused-report-says.html
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997 – 2013)
Independent inquiry CSE in Rotherham
Information relating to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham
http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/1407/independent_inquiry_cse_in_rotherham
27 August 2014
Rotherham child abuse: Calls for police commissioner to quit
….Rotherham abuse
1,400 children were abused, 1997-2013
+ 30% of victims were already known to social services
157 reports concerning child sexual exploitation made to police in 2013
9 prosecutions were made
Source: Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham
Key findings of the report
Children as young as 11 were raped by multiple attackers, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated.
The “collective failures” of political, police and social care leadership were “blatant” over the first 12 years covered by the inquiry.
Police were said to have given child sex exploitation no priority, regarding many child victims “with contempt” and failing to act on their abuse as a crime.
The majority of those behind the abuse were described as Asian, while the majority of the reported victims were young white girls. The inquiry team noted fears among council staff of being labelled “racist” if they focused on victims’ descriptions of the majority of abusers as “Asian” men.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28947707
Sex Industry Child Trafficking, Madonna: I Was Raped at Knifepoint, Child Abuse Effects, Children Who Report Abuse Often Ignored
October 8, 2013 Comments Off on Sex Industry Child Trafficking, Madonna: I Was Raped at Knifepoint, Child Abuse Effects, Children Who Report Abuse Often Ignored
– I was sold by Mum and Dad to make images of child abuse
– Madonna: I was raped at knifepoint
– Children who report abuse are often ignored, says NSPCC
– The truth is that the effects of child abuse are long-lasting, not just on its victims but on the health system’s bottom line
I was sold by Mum and Dad to make images of child abuse
Aged four, Raven Kaliana’s parents took her to a film studio where she was sexually abused in front of cameras. For most of her childhood they regularly trafficked her to the sex industry. Now she campaigns against child abuse
Nuala Calvi The Guardian, Friday 4 October 2013
One of Raven Kaliana’s earliest memories is being taken to a family portrait studio by her parents, at around the age of four. The studio was in the basement of a department store in a town 50 miles from their home. Once they had arrived, they waited for another couple to arrive with their own child.
“Would you like to have your picture taken with this cute little boy?” her mother asked, before the parents left the kids with the photographer and retired to the cafe upstairs. But while they sat eating ice cream, the images being made in the studio down below were far from happy family portraits. Raven and her companion had just been sold into the child abuse industry.
It was to be the beginning of a 15-year ordeal, which saw Raven regularly trafficked by her parents and other members of an organised crime ring from her home in a middle-class suburb in the American north-west to locations all over the US and abroad. In her teens, the crimes were often perpetrated in Los Angeles, where many film studios provided ample opportunity for the underground child abuse industry in the 70s and 80s….
Inevitably, as she grew older, Raven’s value to her abusers decreased and subsequently the kinds of films she was required to take part in became more extreme and violent.
Yet from a young age, she had learned from her parents to rationalise and deny what was going on within the family. “It’s the same way that someone who has a problem with alcohol will rationalise their behaviour – ‘It’s only this many drinks. It’s before noon but, oh well, just today’.
“I remember my mother saying things like, ‘Oh, they’ll never remember it,’ like people do when they get their babies’ ears pierced. I told myself that my parents meant well, that what I was going through was what was necessary to help my family. It was paying our mortgage.”….
Her adult life has been driven by the belief that it is important for survivors of child sexual exploitation and trafficking to tell their stories, in order to make people realise that these aren’t crimes that happen “somewhere else, to someone else”. She moved to the UK to create Hooray for Hollywood, an autobiographical play in which the children are represented by puppets, while the adults – their parents – are only shown up to waist height, from a child’s eye view. This critically acclaimed drama has toured the UK, Poland and France, and has been made into a film….
Britain’s Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre, a division of the police, says the number of indecent images of children in circulation on the internet runs into millions, with police forces reporting seizures of up to 2.5m images in single collections alone, while the number of individual children depicted in these images is likely to be in the tens of thousands. The commonest way that offenders found their victims was through family and personal relationships….
For Raven, the psychological effects of her abuse have been extreme. From an early age she began to experience dissociative amnesia – a psychological phenomenon common in victims of inescapable trauma, in which painful experiences are blocked out, leading to gaps in memory. “I started putting things into little rooms in my mind, and it was like: OK, we don’t look in that room,” she says. “When there’s no relief, there’s no one stepping in to save you, and it’s clear you’re just going to have to endure something, then your mind just does that. As a child, dissociation is a serious survival advantage, but in adulthood it can become a disability.”
It was at the age of 15 that the coping mechanisms of denial and dissociation began to break down. “At school, I started getting flashbacks – like remembering being in a warehouse the night before – and I could feel in my body it was true, but it was terrifying because I didn’t want those things to be true.”….
The therapy made it possible for her to move on and start to enjoy life. “I realised that it is possible to get your life back. I started to gain an appreciation for life and a recognition that I only have so many breaths, so I’ve got to use them well.”….
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/05/sold-mum-dad-images-child-abuse
Hooray for Hollywood, began as a play and is also available as a short film. Both puppets and performers communicate a fractured tale for adult audiences, set within the child pornography industry. This criminal underworld is revealed in flashes and glimpses from a child’s vantage point. Laced with black humour and a haunting live violin score by Susanna Ferrar, it presents a window on both human frailty and resilience. It is based on a true story. http://www.hoorayforhollywood.co.uk/
Madonna: I was raped at knifepoint
Singer writes of how she was held up at gunpoint, raped on a rooftop and burgled three times in first year in New York
Shane Hickey
theguardian.com, Saturday 5 October 2013
Madonna has detailed how she was raped not long after she moved to New York City at the age of 19, in a revealing account of her life to date.
In an article for Harper’s Bazaar magazine, the singer said she was forced on to the roof of a building at knifepoint and attacked. The first-person account, which accompanied a fashion shoot, spans Madonna’s life from growing up in the US midwest and moving away from home, to her marriages and children.
“New York wasn’t everything I thought it would be. It did not welcome me with open arms. The first year, I was held up at gunpoint. Raped on the roof of a building I was dragged up to with a knife in my back, and had my apartment broken into three times. I don’t know why; I had nothing of value after they took my radio the first time,” she wrote….http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/05/madonna-raped-knifepoint-new-york-20s
Children who report abuse are often ignored, says NSPCC
Emily Dugan
Sunday 06 October 2013
When children tell adults they are being abused, their confidants only take action in just over half of cases, according to a study by the NSPCC. Eight out of 10 abused under-18s tried to tell an adult, according to research based on interviews with 60 young adults. But adults acted in only 58 per cent of cases.
The insight comes as several high-profile cases reveal the failure of social services and other agencies to react to signs of children being ill-treated.
Previous research concluded that abuse is under-reported and that most children don’t speak out, often carrying their secret for years. This has led some to dismiss the idea of asking children themselves what is going on….
It took an average of seven years for those children who had been sexually abused to successfully tell someone about what was happening and to get help.
Pam Miller, co-author of the report called No One Noticed, No One Heard, which is published tomorrow, said: “We were surprised at the number of people who had told someone about their abuse as a child, particularly given the extreme amount of abuse they suffered.
“We keep hearing in these serious case reviews of all these missed opportunities …. We, as professionals, don’t pay attention often to what the child might say, because our minds are already closed to the idea that they might tell us stuff….
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/children-who-report-abuse-are-often-ignored-says-nspcc-8861356.html
The truth is that the effects of child abuse are long-lasting, not just on its victims but on the health system’s bottom line
October 7, 2013 Rebecca Reeve
Churches have begun to acknowledge how they ”failed” abused children. Scouts NSW recently told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse it, too, had ”failed” young boys. But such admissions are insufficient if society’s largest institution, government, fails to invest fully in child protection….
Research published in the journal Economic Record and conducted by Dr Kees van Gool and myself at the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation shows that in addition to the human cost of child abuse there are lasting health effects for victims and therefore substantial and very long-term costs for the health system…..
In all cases the outcomes are worst for victims of combined physical and sexual abuse.
We found that the average annual healthcare costs of people who had been sexually abused as children were more than double those of the people who had not been abused. For those who had been both sexually and physically abused, annual healthcare costs as adults were six times higher.
The study also found the probability that a woman would attempt suicide rose from 1.2 per cent within the general community to 17.5 per cent among women who had suffered combined physical and sexual child abuse.
Among men, the probability of drug abuse rose from 7.5 per cent generally to 25.8 per cent for those who had suffered combined abuse.
The probability of alcohol abuse increased from 6.6 per cent for women who had not been abused to 17.9 per cent for women who had suffered combined abuse. For men, the probability rose from 32.1 per cent to 49.8 per cent….
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-truth-is-that-the-effects-of-child-abuse-are-longlasting-not-just-on-its-victims-but-on-the-health-systems-bottom-line-20131006-2v282.html