Everyday thousands of children are being sexually abused. You can stop the abuse of at least one child by simply praying. You can possibly stop the abuse of thousands of children by forwarding the link in First Time Visitor? by email, Twitter or Facebook to every Christian you know. Save a child or lots of children!!!! Do Something, please!

3:15 PM prayer in brief:
Pray for God to stop 1 child from being molested today.
Pray for God to stop 1 child molestation happening now.
Pray for God to rescue 1 child from sexual slavery.
Pray for God to save 1 girl from genital circumcision.
Pray for God to stop 1 girl from becoming a child-bride.
If you have the faith pray for 100 children rather than one.
Give Thanks. There is more to this prayer here

Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour

Monday 18 March 2024

Wolves among the Sheep > Christian School Teacher Arrested in Colorado; Columbus School Employee gets probation for CSAM; Aussie cops strip-searching kids

 

Normally, I would just count Christians as being sheep, but there are many flocks out there including school children, and any child in the care of someone who should command respect.


Affidavit details child sex abuse claims against

former Centennial Christian school teacher


Authorities believe there may be more victims in Parker and Douglas County

Posted at 1:34 PM, Mar 13, 2024
 
and last updated 8:27 PM, Mar 14, 2024

DENVER — An arrest warrant affidavit obtained Wednesday by Denver7 details an array of child sex abuse claims against a former Centennial Christian school teacher who says his actions "plagued him for years."


Christopher Ballard, 26, was arrested last week on nearly two dozen felony charges including sexual assault on a child, sexual exploitation of a child, unlawful sexual contact and obscenity.

His arrest follows an investigation by the Parker Police Department that began in early March after police were contacted by parents and founders of the Journey Academy, located at 7691 S. University Boulevard in Centennial, which bills itself as “a school for the 21st century” where students “discover their unique abilities with which they can impact the world for Christ.”

The arrest affidavit states that parents at the academy contacted police on a report of a sexual assault on a child the evening of March 2 after parents came forward accusing Ballard of inappropriately touching students, showing them pornography and making them run naked as punishment.

Ballard had been a teacher, or “guide,” at the academy since 2021 and was tasked with performing certain school-type activities for middle-aged children at least three times a week, the affidavit states.

One of the parents told police he “initially believed the boys could be making the information up,” but after talking to other students at the academy who confirmed those allegations, the parent called Ballard that night to confront him about the accusations.

During the phone conversation, Ballard confirmed he “engaged inappropriately with a couple of (students),” and told the parent and founder of the academy some of the things he did with them.

On several occasions, the affidavit states, Ballard admitted to showing boys under his care pornographic material. Ballard also admitted to sexually abusing students during several other incidents.

The suspect told the parent that “these things had been plaguing him for years” but never sought help “for the guilt and shame” and thought “he had dealt with the situation,” according to arresting documents.


Narcissist - Only concerned about himself, not the least bit concerned about the children whose lives he messed up.


The affidavit details several additional claims against Ballard, including alleged abuse using bribery and other forms of coercion. Some students alleged Ballard would tell them not to tell anyone about his actions, according to the affidavit.

Authorities believe there may be additional victims. Anyone who believes their child may have been victimized is asked to contact Parker Police Detective Bev Wilson at 303-805-6561 or bwilson@parkerco.gov. You can also contact Douglas County Sheriff's Office Detective Randy Allen at 303-784-7802 or rallen@dcsheriff.net.





Ex-Columbus schools controller gets probation

for sharing images of child sexual abuse


Jordan Laird
Columbus Dispatch
Columbus City Schools headquarters in downtown Columbus

A former Columbus City Schools employee will spend three years on probation and have to register as a sex offender after admitting to sharing sexually explicit images of children online in 2021.

Michael McCammon, 60, of Dublinpleaded guilty Thursday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court in a plea agreement with county prosecuting attorneys to one count of pandering sexually-oriented matter involving a minor.

Judge Chris Brown sentenced McCammon to three years of community control, often called probation, and ordered him to register as a Tier II sex offender.

McCammon worked as the controller in the central office for Columbus Public Schools from 2006 until his arrest in 2021, after which he resigned.

According to court records, McCammon admitted to sharing images of underage girls engaged in sexual activities via messages on the social media site X, then-called Twitter. In those messages, he also discussed sexually abusing children as young as 2.

In a sentencing memo, McCammon’s defense attorney, Steve Nolder, said the arrest served as a wake-up call for McCammon and caused him to “recognize the dark place where his life had taken him.”“Seeing the crossroads at which he had arrived, within a month of his arrest, he began treatment with (a psychologist) and Mike faithfully participated in these sessions in the ensuing three years. Therapy has occurred every 2-3 weeks and Mike’s completed more than 30 sessions,” Nolder said. 



SMH

Morning Edition

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

James Manning

Police continue to strip-search children despite a review of the controversial practice.





Police strip-search dozens of children

NSW Police strip-searched more than two dozen children, including a 12-year-old, in the four months to mid-February, despite a Minns government promise to review the controversial practice. Police strip-searched 26 children between October 18, 2023 and February 14, 2024, data released after a freedom-of-information request by the Herald shows. Police found weapons only three times, prompting legal concerns that officers are often not meeting the legal threshold to justify a strip search.

Strip-searching minors, in which police direct children to remove their clothes and sometimes lift their genitals – usually without a parent or guardian present – has been criticised by health experts for causing serious long-term trauma and harm. In October, after the Herald reported that at least 115 girls and boys aged 12 to 17 were strip-searched in the two years to June 2023, the government committed to review the policies underpinning the practice and directed NSW Police to do likewise. But the new data suggests police have continued strip-searching children at the same rate as before the review was announced, and Indigenous children are being disproportionately searched.

Police Minister Yasmin Catley said she knew the data would be concerning for the community and she has met with key stakeholders. Her office declined to give a timeframe for the review and NSW Police declined to comment. Redfern Legal Centre senior solicitor Samantha Lee said there should be a pause on all strip searches of children while the review is ongoing. Greens justice spokeswoman Sue Higginson described the practice as “a terribly degrading exercise and a genuine violation of somebody’s dignity”. 

Photo: Dean Sewell

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South Yorks man jailed for despicable child sex abuse - sentence is not sufficient

 

South Yorks man jailed for despicable child sex abuse

The Irish Post

A MAN who carried out a 'despicable' sexual assault on a child before forcing his victim to endure a trial has been jailed.

-ADVERTISEMENT-

Steven McGibbon, 49, targeted the girl as she slept before subjecting her to a sickening sexual assault when she was just 12 years old.

McGibbon was sentenced to five years in prison at Sheffield Crown Court on Friday, March 8, having previously been found guilty of sexual assault by penetration.

"McGibbon's victim was left absolutely traumatised as a result of his despicable actions and it was her courageous testimony which has led to this conviction," said Detective Constable Kay Morgan of South Yorkshire Police.

"McGibbon couldn't even bring himself to own up to his crimes, forcing his victim and her family to endure a trial and relive the horrific events he put them all through."

TRIAL

A statement from South Yorkshire Police said McGibbon's young victim was powerless to stop her attacker but told her mother about the assault before opening up to officers.

McGibbon, previously of Apley Road in Doncaster, was subsequently arrested and charged with two counts of sexually assaulting a girl under the age of 13.

He denied both offences but was found guilty of sexual assault by penetration following a five-day trial in December 2023.

He was found not guilty of sexual assault by touching.


Well, now, how is that possible? He raped her but didn't touch her sexually? And then he gets 5 years in prison, half of which will be forgiven, and so he will be back on the street while that little girl is still a teenager. How fair is that?


As well as his custodial sentence, McGibbon was handed an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order preventing him from having contact or communication with a child under 16.

'BRAVERY'

DC Morgan said both she and the victim's family were relieved at both the verdict and sentence.

"I cannot commend enough the bravery of the young victim in this awful case, and I want to thank her and her family for the support they have shown us through this difficult investigation," she said.

"I know they share our relief in knowing that McGibbon has been found guilty and is now behind bars, and I hope this sentence allows them to begin the healing process.

"We will not tolerate any form of violence against women and girls and we will use all the resources we have at our disposal to secure justice against dangerous offenders like McGibbon."






Meta doesn't stop Pedophiles from using Messenger, Pay, to buy Child Sex Abuse Material

 

Can't, or won't?


Meta can’t stop paedos from using Messenger, Pay to buy child sexual abuse material

FP Staff  March 15, 2024, 11:04:00 IST


Paedophiles are using Meta’s Facebook Messenger and Meta to buy and sell child sexual abuse material, mainly videos. An investigation into various court proceedings revealed that on many occasions, Meta failed to flag suspicious messages and activities, whereas other chat services did.

Meta can’t stop paedos from using Messenger, Pay to buy child sexual abuse material
Meta has often been accused of harbouring paedophiles and not being strict enough on child abusers, and CSAM content. Image Credit: AFP

Meta is falling short of its own standards when it comes to curbing the dissemination of CSAM or child sexual abuse material. A recent investigative report by The Guardian has revealed that paedophiles and child abusers often use Meta’s Facebook Messenger and Meta Pay to buy and sell videos and images of children getting abused.
The investigation started off authorities in the US state of Pennsylvania, arrested one Jennifer Louise Whelan in November 2022 on multiple charges, including sex trafficking and indecent assault involving three young children, some of whom were as young as six. Whelan would create photos and videos of her abusing the children and then would sell the content to paedophiles via Facebook Messenger.

Authorities came to know of Whelan when one Brandon Warren was indicted in February 2022. Warren was accused of distributing explicit material involving minors. Warren, like Whelan, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Both Whelan and Warren were using Meta’s Facebook Messenger to send and receive the content. They also used Meta Pay for financial transitions in lieu of the abuse materials.

Meta Pay, formerly Facebook Pay, is a simple peer-to-peer payment service integrated with Meta’s social networks.

Court documents reveal that Meta failed to flag Whelan and Warren’s activities. Instead, it was Kik Messenger, a different messaging app that first reported Warren’s suspicious uploads to authorities, which triggered a police investigation in West Virginia.

Subsequent findings led to the discovery of videos and images allegedly purchased from Whelan via Facebook Messenger.

Former Meta content moderators claim they observed suspicious transactions related to child sex trafficking via Meta Pay but lacked avenues to report them to compliance teams. Former moderators also note the ease of using Meta Pay within Messenger, facilitating potentially illicit transactions. Despite this, Meta’s systems reportedly do not flag such transactions, especially those involving relatively small amounts of money.

Meta Pay, as a money services business, is subject to US anti-money laundering regulations. Failure to detect and report illicit transactions could constitute violations of these laws.

Experts highlight the need for better detection mechanisms, especially given the visibility social media platforms have into users’ activities.

The siloed nature of Meta’s operations further complicates the situation. Former moderators highlight their inability to communicate internally about suspicious transactions they encounter.

As scrutiny intensifies, questions arise about Meta’s effectiveness in combating illicit activities facilitated through its platforms. The implications extend beyond regulatory compliance, touching on broader issues of child safety and corporate responsibility.

It seems corporations have only one responsibility, to their shareholders. The days of good corporate citizenship have long passed by.

=======================================================================

Canadian Convulsions > The Trudeau Government does absolutely nothing as child sexual abuse explodes in Canada

 

Welcome to Justin Trudeau's Canada. He has been Prime Minister since 2015 and has done absolutely nothing to protect children from the explosive growth in child sexual abuse whether online or in person. Of all the G20 countries, Canada is probably the only one that has completely ignored the harrowing fate of our children.


Online child sexual exploitation rates have tripled

in Canada since 2014



A stock image shows a hand typing on a computer keyboard. (Soumil Kumar/Pexels)A stock image shows a hand typing on a computer keyboard. (Soumil Kumar/Pexels)

Daniel Otis

CTVNews.ca Journalist

Published March 12, 2024 11:45 a.m. PDT

Online child sexual exploitation rates more than tripled in Canada between 2014 and 2022.

According to new research from Statistics Canada (opens in a new tab), police were only able to solve two in five online sexual offences against children in that period.

"Online child sexual exploitation, including the transmission of material related to child sexual abuse, sexting, sextortion, grooming and luring, and live child sexual abuse streaming has been on the rise," the Statics Canada report explained.

It attributed the increase to a possible combination of factors, including a potential rise in crime, more awareness and reporting from the public, and improved police detection efforts.

Police-reported data shows online child sexual exploitation rates in Canada have risen sharply from 50 incidents per 100,000 children in 2014 to 160 in 2022. This was largely driven by an almost fourfold increase in the incident rate of online child sexual abuse material, which is also referred to as child pornography. Overall, Canadian police recorded 15,630 incidents of online sexual offences against children and 45,816 incidents of online child sexual abuse material between 2014 and 2022.




In that period, just 41 per cent of online sexual offences against children were considered solved by police. Charges were laid or recommended in 74 per cent of solved incidents.

Only 34 per cent of adults, however, were found guilty after being charged, compared with 44 per cent of those tried in youth court. The majority of all charges were stayed, withdrawn, dismissed or discharged. Of those found guilty, adult offenders were most likely to receive prison sentences (78 per cent) while young offenders were more likely to receive probation (62 per cent).

And what were the average sentences for adults? Was it a matter of months or weeks in prison? Canadian justice almost never accounts for the victims.

The Statistics Canada report also tracked the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, which became an offence in 2015. Over 1,700 incidents like this were reported to police between 2015 and 2022, with victims largely being youth aged 12 to 17 (97 per cent) and girls (86 per cent). The accused in such cases tended to be male, similar in age and known to their victims

"Like trends in violent crime overall, especially sexual offences, boys and men accounted for the vast majority of accused persons in incidents of online sexual offences against children from 2014 to 2022," Statistics Canada explained. "An incident may remain uncleared (that is, unsolved) for various reasons: it could still be under investigation or there may be insufficient evidence to proceed with a charge."

=====================================================================================


A Powerful new voice standing up for the voiceless > NM's AG takes on Meta

 

I don't mean to insult Raúl Torrez by calling him a new voice, he has obviously been standing up for abused children all through his career. He's just new to me, and possibly on the national stage. Pray for him please, he could do a lot of good for suffering children.


He prosecuted child sex predators. Now, he’s

going after Meta for allegedly enabling them

New York
CNN
 — 

When Raúl Torrez, then a young prosecutor in a rural New Mexico, was preparing one of his first child abuse cases, he went to his father for advice.

Torrez expected his dad, a career prosecutor, to offer some tips about preparing evidence or addressing the jury. Instead, Presiliano Torrez asked: “Have you met this little boy?”

“He really had me focus on thinking about the impact on this child,” the younger Torrez said, recalling the case against the father of an infant suffering from shaken baby syndrome.

The guidance changed the way Raúl Torrez thought about his work as a prosecutor. His dad had “made it clear that the work I was doing, especially in that space, was to try and give voice to people that didn’t have the abilities to go and advocate for themselves,” he said.

Now, Torrez is applying that same focus as he takes on a powerful new opponent in court: Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Less than a year into his new role as New Mexico’s attorney general, Torrez in December filed a lawsuit accusing Meta of creating a “breeding ground” for child predators and exposing young users to sexually explicit material. The complaint alleges that Meta employees have for years raised alarms that children may be at risk of sexual abuse on its platforms, but that the company has failed to adequately address the issue. (Meta has firmly pushed back on the claims and says it has more than 30 safety and well-being tools for teens and parents.)

Meta, along with other major social media companies, faces growing scrutiny over the safety of young users on its platforms. Lawmakers, parents and online safety advocates have raised concerns about the impact of social media on teens’ mental health, body image and overall wellbeing. But of the several lawsuits filed against Meta over child safety in recent years, none have focused as pointedly as Torrez’s case on alleged child sexual exploitation.

It’s a case that in some ways has been years in the making, based on Torrez’s experience prosecuting child pornographers and sexual predators and learning about the tools they frequently use to carry out those crimes.

Still, Torrez faces a tough road: Meta is among the richest companies in the world. And Big Tech in general has proven a formidable opponent thanks to unique legal protections for online platforms. But with proposed legislation to address social media and child safety stalled for years, some online safety advocates see the courts as their best hope to make progress.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez speaks during a rally organized by Accountable Tech and Design It For Us to hold tech and social media companies accountable for protecting teens on January 31, 2024 in Washington, DC. Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Accountable Tech


“As a prosecutor, and as a father, I am very concerned about the way in which our digital economy and social media platforms have been allowed to evolve in ways that are just so obviously dangerous to kids,” Torrez told CNN in an interview last month in Washington, DC, on the eve of a Senate subcommittee hearing with Zuckerberg and other social media leaders about potential harms from their platforms to young users.

Torrez’s lawsuit seeks an order blocking Meta from “engaging in unfair, unconscionable, or deceptive practices.” A ruling against Meta could also be an indicator that other big tech firms could be successfully sued for similar issues — and that there might be a workaround to the powerful law known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields social media platforms from being held liable for content posted by their users.

“I do think there’s precedent here” for using the court for corporate accountability, said Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee whose 2021 whistleblower disclosure helped bring public awareness to the risks to young people from social media. “We didn’t pass a law … for tobacco. We didn’t do it for opiates. In both of those cases, (progress) came through lawsuits.”

Meta declined to comment for this story.

‘IN THE BUSINESS OF TRYING TO PROTECT’
Torrez was born and raised in Albuquerque and left to study government at Harvard. He later earned degrees at the London School of Economics and Stanford Law School.

After Harvard, Torrez briefly worked for the tech startup GovWorks, which went bankrupt when the dot.com bubble burst in the early 2000s. He said his experience with Silicon Valley’s culture then continues to influence his work, adding that “the culture oftentimes lends itself to this cavalier attitude about overcoming the next technological challenge or attracting a new investor … and moral and ethical and legal considerations are oftentimes not a priority.”

In 2009, Torrez took a White House fellowship in the Obama administration, where he advised the US deputy attorney general on issues such as reducing southwest border violence and cracking down on drug cartels.

He went on to work as an assistant US attorney in his home state, where he prosecuted dozens of cases related to internet crimes against children and sexual abuse. In some cases, Torrez said he volunteered to take child abuse cases and to visit safe houses to conduct interviews with child victims.

“If you’re an adult or you’re a business owner or you’re somebody that has access to resources, you can go find a lawyer,” Torrez said. “If you’re an abused child and your parents have harmed you or somebody that you count on has not protected you, you need somebody to step in.”

As district attorney for Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque, Torrez worked with a nonprofit called New Mexico Victim’s Rights Project to try to improve the experience for victims in the courtroom — especially children — and in some cases to allow victims to have their own representation in the courtroom.

“It’s unusual for many attorneys to want to have a third-party attorney in the courtroom,” said the group’s executive director, Linda Atkinson. “But with [Torrez], I don’t see an ego like I have with other attorneys.”

Among the other actions Torrez has taken in his first year as the state’s top prosecutor is rebranding his office as the New Mexico Department of Justice, from the Attorney General’s Office.

“What we’re really trying to do is to signal … that we are in the business of trying to protect,” Torrez said. “And that this is an institution that will be looking out to give voice and perspective to people and to stakeholders that oftentimes aren’t heard, either in government or in corporate boardrooms.”

TAKING ON META
Although Meta is far from the only online platform used by criminals, Torrez’s lawsuit against the social media giant was borne in part out of his experience prosecuting sex crimes against children.

“I had been aware for a number of years that we had both adult offenders and … child victims who had been approached and contacted,” through Meta’s platforms, Torrez said. But it wasn’t until his team started investigating the company that he says he realized the scale of the alleged issue.

By the company’s own accounting, an estimated 100,000 children received sexual harassment on its platform each day in 2021, according to an internal Meta document cited in an unredacted version of the New Mexico complaint last month. (Meta said the unredacted complaint “mischaracterizes our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.”)

Investigators in Torrez’s office created multiple fake Facebook and Instagram profiles posing as young teens, which the suit alleges were served sexually suggestive content and, in some cases, urged to send pornographic content of themselves.


The New Mexico Attorney General's office alleges it found in an investigation of Facebook and Instagram accounts promoting sexualized images of minors. CNN


One of the fake accounts belonged to a fictional 13-year-old girl named Issa Bee. The account listed Bee’s birth year as 2002, which would make her 21 years old in the company’s systems, to “avoid having to create a children’s Facebook profile.” But it posted about things like losing a baby tooth and the first day of 7th grade and mentioned her age as 13 in private messages, according to the complaint.

The account received comments appearing to be from adult men “telling Issa they love her and calling her beautiful, sexy, or gorgeous,” as well as messages “filled with pictures and videos of genitalia,” the complaint states.

“I’m looking for a sugar baby to spoil with $5000 for your weekly allowance via PayPal just text me (hi daddy) if you’re interested,” one man said on Facebook Messenger to the Issa Bee account, according to the complaint.

Meta has pushed back on the claims in Torrez’s lawsuit and cited its various existing efforts to protect young users.

“We use sophisticated technology, hire child safety experts, report content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and share information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to help root out predators,” Meta spokesperson Nkechi Nneji said in a statement in December.

The company said in a December blog post that it had launched technology to proactively detect and disable accounts displaying suspicious behaviors and that it formed a Child Safety Task Force. Meta also says it has removed hundreds of thousands of accounts, groups and devices for violating its child safety policies.

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg stands and apologizes to families harmed by social media during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 31, 2024. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters


An apology is absurd when you continue to do what you apologized for!

In January — after Torrez’s lawsuit was filed and ahead of the Senate committee hearing on online youth safety — Meta rolled out additional youth safety features, including updating teens default privacy settings to restrict anyone they don’t follow from messaging them, including other teens. The move comes after Meta in 2021 restricted adults over the age of 19 from messaging teens who don’t follow them.

Ann Olivarius, senior partner at the law firm McAlister Olivarius who has worked on cases related to sexual abuse and exploitation, said similar cases against other internet firms have not been successful because of the power of Section 230 protections.

But she said that if New Mexico can “prove their case, it means that maybe section 230 will be amended, and at least there will be carve outs, there’ll be exceptions, for porn, for trafficking, for rape, for child abuse, for gender violence.”

A ‘CANCEROUS EFFECT’ ON VICTIMS
New Mexico’s suit against Meta came two months after a group of 33 state attorneys general filed a separate complaint against Meta, alleging that the company’s platforms have harmed minors and contributed to a mental health crisis in the United States. Meta said in response to the multi-suit complaint that it is committed to “providing teens with safe, positive experiences online.”

Torrez opted not to join that case but rather pursued a separate action because he says he felt the alleged child sexual exploitation risks were “misunderstood” and deserved individual attention.

“Because of my experience and the capabilities of my office, we were uniquely positioned to put together an undercover operation and really pull the curtain back on the scale of the harm,” he said.

Torrez said he sees his effort to fight alleged child abuses on Meta’s platforms as part of a larger effort to make New Mexico safer.

The state frequently ranks low on measures of youth well-being: it’s among the US states with the highest child poverty rates, per the Census Bureau. High school graduation rates in New Mexico are also among the lowest in the country, according to US News and World Report.

“If we don’t highlight and find ways to prevent this type of harm, it has a cancerous effect,” Torrez said. “Almost all of the hands-on abusers that I encountered in my time as a prosecutor were themselves abused.”

He added: “We have to break that cycle, both by holding individual offenders accountable, but by also holding corporate leaders accountable if they allow that kind of behavior to manifest itself in any community.”

=====================================================================================


Sunday 17 March 2024

Wolves Among the Sheep > 'Church with no name' is making headlines for all the wrong reasons; Polish Catholics can't avoid reckoning; Mormon Bishop arrested for years of incest

 

Historical sexual abuse charges filed against B.C. minister belonging to church with no name


Complainant says she is speaking out about what happened in 1989 to protect others

woman with short hair
Former 2x2s member Lyndell Montgomery said she decided to go public with allegations of being sexually abused within the church when she was 14 after seeing a newspaper story about the conviction of another minister. (Chris Corday/CBC)

A Vancouver Island woman is speaking out about the alleged sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager while a member of an insular and secretive Christian sect that has no official name, but is most commonly called the Two-by-Twos, or 2x2s.

Lyndell Montgomery was 14 years old in 1989 when the alleged abuse happened. She claims her alleged abuser was 2x2s minister, Lee-Ann McChesney.

McChesney, 60, was arrested in January and charged with one count of sexual abuse and one count of sexual exploitation after an investigation by the Delta Police Sexual Offence Section and Vulnerable Sector Unit. 

According to court documents, the charges stem from incidents in 1989 in or around the B.C. communities of Terrace, Delta and Surrey.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

WATCH | Lyndell Montgomery explains why she's telling her story of alleged sexual abuse: 


Lyndell Montgomery says she wants to tell her story of alleged sexual abuse within the 2x2s church so other survivors don't feel alone.


Now 49, Montgomery says she wants to go public with her story to protect others in the church. She's asked that her name not be put under a publication ban by the court, as is usually the case with victims of alleged sexual violence.

"My story is one of thousands within this organization," she said in an interview. "I want to protect other kids that are still in that high control environment. I want to bring publicity to the fact that I am not the only [one]."

The 2x2s organization is being rocked by a wave of child sexual assault allegations making headlines in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. 

According to the co-founder of a 2x2 victim hotline in the U.S. called Advocates For The Truth, 1,500 unconfirmed reports of child sexual abuse and other offences have been submitted in one year of operation.

"The response to the hotline has been overwhelming," said Cynthia Liles, who is also a private investigator specializing in child sex abuse cases against institutions of trust. "It's been a fire hose — just a deluge of reports coming in."

On Feb. 20, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced it was investigating the 2x2s in the United States, and issued an appeal for victims to come forward.

"The group has often been referred to by others outside of the group as '2x2,' 'The Way,' 'The Truth,' and 'The Church With No Name,' among others," reads the FBI alert. 

"If you … believe your child or other children may have been victimized by individuals affiliated with 2x2, the FBI requests you complete a short online questionnaire."

Who are the 2x2s?

The roots of the 2x2s trace back to 19th-century founder William Irvine, an evangelist Scotsman. Followers brought the faith to Canada in the early 1900s. 

2x2s do not own places of worship, publish a leadership structure or keep public records.

The sect is largely a home-based fellowship, but Sunday gospel meetings — like one CBC attended at a Port Coquitlam, B.C., funeral chapel — are held at public venues.

aerial shot of funeral home and parking lot
The sect has no official name but is known as 2x2, The Truth, The Way and the Church with No Name, according to the FBI. It is largely a home-based ministry but larger gospel meetings take place in public venues like this funeral chapel in Port Coquitlam, B.C. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

Ministers, called "workers," are supposed to be free of worldly possessions and rely on church members, called "friends," for support.

Workers are dispatched to communities in pairs — two-by-two — to preach the faith while living in the homes of congregants, moving frequently. They are expected to be celibate.

Workers in top leadership positions are called "overseers." 

Estimates put the number of 2x2 followers in the world today at 75,000. Liles says the majority live in Canada, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

Adopted into the faith

Montgomery says her membership in the 2x2 sect began when she was adopted at six weeks old by a family of devout first- and second-generation followers. 

Growing up, there was violence in the family home, she says. After one particularly terrible blowup in 1989, she was sent to live with McChesney, who as a worker, held a position of authority and trust. 

"My parents had implicit trust in the organization, in the workers, in all of it. They truly believed it was the one true way," said Montgomery.

older man with grey hair looks at camera
Wings of Truth website co-founder Bruce Murdoch is a 2x2s member who posts about child sexual abuse cases within the church. (Corey Bullock/CBC)

Soon after the alleged abuse, Montgomery cut ties with her family and the 2x2s. In the intervening 35 years, she resisted overtures from church members to come back into the fold, wanting to keep her trauma firmly in the past.

But last year, a story in her local newspaper changed everything. 

It was about the conviction of 2x2s worker Aaron Farough, who was found guilty on two counts of child pornography and sentenced to 175 days in prison. The offences took place while Farough was living in the family homes of 2x2 members on northern Vancouver Island. 

"He was on the front page of the Comox Valley Record, and as soon as I started reading it, I was like, oh my God," said Montgomery. 

"I thought that I was in a silo, that no one ever in a million years would believe that anything happened to me … and certainly not by a female minister-slash-worker."

CBC reached out to Merlin Affleck, the man identified by current and former church members as the 2x2 leader or "overseer" in British Columbia. Affleck declined to speak on camera or answer written questions about McChesney's charges, her status in the church and the FBI investigation. 

ation

6:03
In an email, Affleck said steps have been taken to protect children, including development of a child safe policy and a minister's code of conduct. 

"In the last few years we've implemented many positive measures to insure the safety of children," he wrote. "But positive things don't usually make for interesting news, so I will respectfully decline your request for an interview."

CBC also asked a 2x2 worker leading the gospel meeting in Port Coquitlam last weekend for an interview. She declined.

Public reckoning

To some in the faith and many who have left it, 2x2 leadership needs to answer for the public reckoning that is now taking place. 

Bruce Murdoch is one of them. The lifelong and current 2x2 member has been pushing the issue for over a decade as co-founder of a website that posts about child sexual abuse within the church.

woman carrying box of hymn books
A 2x2s member is pictured attending a gospel meeting in Port Coquitlam on Sunday. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

"One of the things that the church does is it denies that it's even an organization, even though it's quite well organized ... So the denial of the fact that we are even an organization has really prevented proper management," Murdoch said, speaking from his home in Cranbrook, B.C.

"There are hundreds and hundreds of allegations that have not gone to the legal authorities, and for many, many years, the leadership of the church would not go to the authorities on purpose," he said. 

As someone who studies alternative and controversial religions, Steve Kent says a lack of public accountability is common in groups with antagonistic attitudes to the outside world. 

"The outside secular world is evil, fallen, even Satanic, and consequently they almost never go to outside authorities to report incidents of abuse," said Kent, professor emeritus at the University of Alberta. 

"What often happens is these groups have either internal investigative procedures that are very, very poor, or they get their abusers to repent and say they had a conversation with God and God has forgiven them."

CBC reached out to the FBI and RCMP to ask if the agencies were co-ordinating across borders on 2x2 allegations. B.C. RCMP Staff Sgt. Kris Clark said he could not confirm or deny any investigation before charges are laid.

"We would encourage any survivor of sexual abuse regardless of when the offence occurred, to contact their local police to report it," he said. 

In an email, the FBI said in order to preserve the integrity and capabilities of its investigation, no details would be shared. 

McChesney is next scheduled to appear in Surrey Provincial Court on March 14.

There is no update to be found.

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A Bishop who hides the sexual abuse of children from the law is no better than the pedophile who committed the abuse. He has blood on his hands, and is apparently too stupid to know that you cannot hide anything from God.

If you are wondering why Poland has moved to the political left while the rest of Europe is leaning to the right, this is why. God removed the conservative government because it was protecting the Catholic Church from the reckoning that is beginning to come down.


Vatican announces resignation of Polish bishop due to “negligence in handling sexual abuse”


The Vatican has announced the resignation of Andrzej Dziuba, the bishop of Łowicz, due to his “negligence in handling cases of sexual abuse against minors”. However, a leading Catholic commentator has criticised the church for allowing the bishop to go into retirement rather than facing real punishment.

Meanwhile, criminal proceedings against Dziuba are ongoing, after Poland’s state commission on paedophilia filed a notice to prosecutors on suspicion that the bishop had failed to notify law enforcement authorities of abuse committed by his subordinate.

On Saturday, the apostolic nunciature, the Vatican’s embassy in Poland, released two statements about Dziuba’s resignation. The first informed that Pope Francis had accepted Dziuba’s resignation and appointed a new bishop, Wojciech Osial, as his temporary replacement.

The second cited the reasons behind the decision as being “difficulties in the management of the diocese”, particularly “negligence in handling sexual abuse cases committed by some clergy against minors”, saying this had been confirmed in proceedings conducted by the Holy See.

The latter statement did not, however, provide any further details as to the nature of Dziuba’s negligence nor of the sexual abuse cases it had related to.

The Vatican’s investigation was prompted by a series of reports by investigative news website OKO.press regarding the claims that Dziuba, who had served as bishop of Łowicz since 2004, had failed to act on knowledge of sexual abuse of children by priests under his authority.

In 2020, the website published a secret recording of a conversation the bishop held in 2020 with a victim of one such priest, in which Dziuba admitted that the diocese had first received reports about the priest’s crimes in the mid-1990s but there had been “ommissions on our part” in the church’s response.

OKO.press reported that, despite being aware of the allegations against the priest, Dziuba had allowed him to continue working with children, including leading an altar boys’ football team.

A preliminary investigation into the priest, which should have taken weeks, lasted three years, only after which he was removed from contact with children, reports the website. In 2018, the Vatican removed Dziuba from overseeing the investigation and transferred responsibility to another bishop.

In 2021, the priest in question, named only as Piotr S. in Polish media was found guilty of abuse in church proceedings and expelled from the priesthood. In 2023, he was convicted in a public court and handed a three-year prison sentence.

In a separate case reported by OKO.press, Dziuba was found to have allowed three priests who had previously been caught in a room with naked altar boys watching a pornographic film to continue having unrestricted access to children, including one who taught Catholic catechism classes in a primary school,

The latest case of Dziuba’s alleged negligence, reported by OKO.press in 2022, concerned him launching an investigation into another priest’s abusive behaviour five years after having initially learned about it and doing so only after prosecutors started looking into the matter.

Dziuba then suspended the priest from his duties and sent him to a monastery. Later, a court sentenced the clergyman to two years in prison.

Last year, prosecutors in Poland began an investigation into whether Dziuba had failed in his obligation to notify the authorities of child sex abuse. They did so following a notification to this effect that was submitted to them by Poland’s state commission on paedophilia.

Separately, in 2020 the Vatican ordered an investigation into negligence by Dziuba following the reports by OKO.press. Another Polish bishop, Grzegorz Ryś, was tasked with overseeing it.

That process has led to Saturday’s announcement of Dziuba’s retirement. However, a leading Catholic journalist, Tomasz Terlikowski, criticised the church for such lenient treatment of the bishop.

In a column for RFM24, Terlikowski noted that the retired bishop will benefit from a monthly pension and a food allowance. Additionally, his rent, including all bills, will be covered, as will all healthcare costs and remuneration for one person helping him at home.

We must “ask ourselves whether what the Vatican did was a punishment or a mockery”, added Terlikowski, who has been a longstanding and vocal critic of failings by the church to deal with cases of sexual abuse.

In recent years, the Catholic church in Poland has come under increased scrutiny and criticism for its alleged failures in dealing with such cases, hundreds of which have come to light. In response, the Vatican has taken disciplinary action against a number of Polish bishops.

Last year, the Vatican for the first time handed over to a Polish court the case file of a former priest on trial for child sex abuse. The move came after the local Polish archbishop informed the judge that he was unable to make the documents available himself.

Shortly afterwards, one of Poland’s most senior bishops apologised for neglect in how the country’s Catholic church dealt with child sex abuse by priests in the past, saying that it had been “naive”.





We Exposed the Mormon Church’s Protection of an Ex-Bishop Accused of Sexual Abuse. He Was Just Arrested.


“I hope this case will finally bring justice for my childhood sexual abuse.”



In 1999, John Goodrich, an Idaho dentist who was also a bishop with the Mormon church, accompanied his teenage daughter Chelsea on a school field trip to the East Coast. During a stay in colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, he allegedly abused her sexually, as she later claimed he had done since she was at least nine. 

Nearly a quarter-century later, Goodrich—whose story was at the center of an Associated Press/Reveal radio collaboration about how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints protects itself from sexual abuse allegationshas been arrested in Virginia following a grand jury indictment on multiple felony charges, including forcible rape, forcible sodomy, and aggravated sexual battery by a parent of a child. 

The indictment came in January, weeks after AP investigative reporters Jason Dearen and Michael Rezendes exposed how the Mormon church used a legal playbook to keep accusations against Goodrich secret, despite numerous recordings and witnesses supporting the allegations. Goodrich has been accused of similar abuse in Idaho. 

Chelsea and her mother, Lorraine, went to Idaho police in 2016 to report wide-ranging allegations of abuse during her childhood,” Dearen and Rezendes writeThose charges were eventually dropped after a key witness in the case, another Mormon bishop to whom John had made a spiritual confession about him and his daughter, refused to testify. While the details of that confession have not been made public, the church excommunicated Goodrich.

Did they excommunicate the creep that refused to testify?

John Goodrich’s defense lawyer declined to comment.

The AP/Reveal episode, which first aired in December, drew on hours of audio recordings of Chelsea Goodrich’s meetings with Paul Rytting, a Utah attorney who directs the church’s risk management division. The recordings show how Rytting, despite expressing concern for what he called John Goodrich’s “significant sexual transgression,” discouraged the local bishop to whom John Goodrich confessed from testifying. Rytting cited Idaho’s clergy-penitent privilege that exempts clergy from having to divulge information to authorities that is gleaned in a spiritual confession.


As the AP reports: 

Invoking the clergy privilege was just one facet of the risk management playbook that Rytting employed in the Goodrich matter. Rytting offered Chelsea and her mother $300,000 in exchange for a confidentiality agreement and a pledge to destroy their recordings of their meetings, which they had made at the recommendation of an attorney and with Rytting’s knowledge. The AP obtained similar recordings that were made by a church member at the time who attended the meetings as Chelsea’s advocate.

In a statement in December, a church spokesperson told the AP and Reveal that “the abuse of a child or any other individual is inexcusable.” The church said it dedicates “tremendous resources” to preventing and reporting abuse and noted that John Goodrich, following his excommunication, “has not been readmitted to church membership.”

Lawmakers in Utah, where the Mormon church is headquartered, recently passed a bill that provides legal protections to clergy if they notify authorities of ongoing child abuse based on information obtained from a perpetrator during a confession. The measure extends to clergy the same legal protections that exist for mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect, such as doctors, teachers, or therapists. However, religious leaders who report abuse still will not be required to testify. 

“I hope this case will finally bring justice for my childhood sexual abuse,” Chelsea Goodrich, now in her 30s, said in a statement to the AP. “I’m grateful it appears that the Commonwealth of Virginia is taking one event of child sexual assault more seriously than years of repeated assaults were treated in Idaho.”   

Idaho needs a slap upside the head! Yes, Virginia, there is justice in America, sometimes.