A 'Revolution in Attitudes" Needed to Deal With Child Sex Abuse

A “revolution in attitudes” is needed to safeguard children from sex abusers, 

according to the shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper.

In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Ms Cooper said that the problem was wider than the historic cases uncovered through the Jimmy Savile scandal and the abuse of hundreds of children in Rotherham.

She said that “children’s voices” must be heard by organisations which had failed to act in the past, and pledged that a Labour government would make the reporting of abuse a legal requirement.

Lawyers echoed Ms Cooper’s sentiments, saying that attitudes towards abuse allegations had been part of the problem, with an absence of a “culture of prosecution” in the 1980s. On Thursday last week, a report into Savile’s abuse of patients, staff and visitors at Stoke Mandeville found that victims had reported his actions to staff on 10 separate occasions but had been ignored.

Ms Cooper said that radical changes in British society were required to ensure that the nation’s children were protected.

“Abusers are responsible for terrible crimes. So you need much stronger police action against criminals, but much stronger child protection. There was institutional negligence in Rotherham – but this is not just about Rotherham and historic abuse,” she said.

“You need a revolution in attitudes towards this and towards children, so tinkering at the edges isn’t going to be enough. If cases come forward, you need to have every organisation listening to children and hearing children’s voices.

“Where they don’t, where there are failings, there needs to be much clearer national standards and much stronger intervention early.

“We need to introduce mandatory reporting so that no institution can ever be tempted to think that the reputation of the institution matters more than the protection of the child … there has to be a stronger obligation to report and to act.”

Labour has included mandatory reporting in the party’s pre-election manifesto and has also said it will set up a cross-Whitehall unit to tackle child protection.

Tom Perry, founder of the MandateNow group, which campaigns for mandatory reporting, said an effective law would help to kick-start wider societal change.

Yvette Cooper has said that radical changes in British society are required
to ensure that the nation’s children are protected 

“Britain lags behind the world, appallingly so, on abuse. A large majority of European countries, 86 per cent, have some form of mandatory reporting, 77 per cent of African countries do, 72 per cent of Asian countries and 90 per cent of the Americas do,” he said. “It would change the culture of so many areas and, in the long run, would go a long way to remedying a situation in which, by credible estimate, only 5 per cent of sexual abuse is detected.”

Mr Perry, who was the first complainant in the Caldicott School child abuse scandal in Buckinghamshire in the 1960s and 1970s, said he planned to meet Ms Cooper to discuss mandatory reporting, and added that it appeared that Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were all now agreed that action had to be taken on the issue.

Ian Kelcey, a solicitor-advocate specialising in criminal law, said attitudes to child sex abuse had changed significantly in the past few decades.

“We’ve moved on a lot from the bad days of Savile, when men did things they wouldn’t dream of doing now,” he said. “In the 1980s, when Savile was perpetrating this abuse, there wasn’t the culture of prosecution that there is now. The Crown Prosecution Service, having only been founded in 1984, was still in its infancy.”

Full claims against Savile only
emerged after his death in 2011

However, he said that mandatory reporting was already enshrined in law under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, although this was disputed by Mr Perry. “The law to report was – and still is – there, but nobody then was prepared to pick up the baton and run with it. There is, therefore, no need to change the law – we don’t need mandatory reporting because we already have it,” Mr Kelcey said, suggesting Labour’s pledge was simply a “good soundbite”, with an election looming.

However, he admitted that the 1933 Act had not produced the desired effect. “If people won’t or don’t report, what can you do?” he said.

Joy Merriam, named as solicitor-advocate of the year in 2013, said: “Unfortunately, in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, in all sorts of circumstances, children complaining of child abuse were simply not believed. To try and retrospectively prosecute for that culture that existed then but not now is going to be difficult.

“I think the aim of introducing mandatory reporting is laudable and well-intentioned but criminal prosecution is not always the remedy. What we need to do is educate not only doctors and nurses but the public that, when a child complains of abuse, they should be believed.”

Toronto ‘Exorcism’ Pastor Wayne Marlon Jones Hit with New Sex Assault Charges

Four women have now come forward: police

Wayne Marlon Jones, 53, of Ajax is charged with sexual assault
and three counts of fraud over $5,000

AJAX, Ontario -- More charges have been laid against an Ajax pastor accused of sexually assaulting women at his church.

Toronto police said Friday they had laid two new charges of sexual assault against Wayne Marlon Jones. The new allegations relate to two women who claim they were assaulted when they attended “spiritual guidance” sessions at the Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Toronto between 1993 and 1996, police said.

Mr. Jones, 53, now faces four counts of sexual assault. He was first arrested in August 2014 on allegations he had sexually assaulted and defrauded a woman while acting as pastor of the United Spiritual Baptist Church on Midland Avenue in Scarborough. Toronto police said the woman claimed she’d been exploited while participating in spiritual counselling sessions that included exorcisms.

On Feb. 16 Toronto police laid another charge of sexual assault. And on Feb. 26 two new charges were laid, this time relating to women who said they’d attended spiritual guidance sessions at the Mount Ararat Baptist Church in the 1990s.

Any responsible church would never allow a pastor or elder to hold closed door counselling or deliverance sessions with just him and a woman. Such a case is a field day for demonic forces.

An online biography of Mr. Jones says the Trinidad and Tobago native immigrated to Canada in 1984 and was ordained in 1987. The following year Mr. Jones “pastured” his own congregation, establishing the Mt. Ararat Spiritual Baptist Church. He was consecrated as a Bishop in 1990, the site says.

In a news release Friday, police indicated they believe there may be more victims. Call police at 416-808-1400 or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-8477.

Ajax is a town in the Greater Toronto area about 25 kms east of Toronto proper, on Lake Ontario.

Christian School Teacher Sentenced to 210 Years in Federal Prison for CSA

Warner Christian Academy, south Daytona Beach, Florida

A Daytona Beach Christian School Teacher has been sentenced to 210 years in federal prison for sexually abusing 29 children in his care. The ex-wife of the former Warner Christian Academy (south Daytona Beach, Florida) teacher maintained a list of suspicious incidents starting more than a decade ago between her husband and children, according to police reports released Friday.

Matthew Graziotti, who had refused to speak with investigators, was a skilled sexual predator who used his position as a schoolteacher, summer camp director and church volunteer to get close to children, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Gable, who prosecuted the 43-year-old.

Graziotti was given a hefty prison sentence by U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr. on Jan. 26 before a courtroom packed with angry adults, including Graziotti’s former wife who sent up the first red flags about Graziotti.

Matthew Grazziotti

Edgewater police began looking into Graziotti in May 2004 when Susan Little of Edgewater Public School contacted police and asked if Graziotti was being investigated, according to a report. Former police detective Dan Blazi contacted Tim McCardel, the pastor at Friendship Community Church where Graziotti was listed as a youth minister, and asked if the pastor was aware of any criminal investigation into his youth minister, reports show.

McCardel said he was not aware of anything, but less than a week later, he contacted Blazi about information from Jenny Graziotti, who was in the process of separating from Matthew Graziotti.

McCardel also said he asked Matthew Graziotti to leave the church because his contact with a juvenile “went beyond the normal parameters established for mentors,” according to the report.

From 2002 to 2004, Jenny Graziotti made a list of behavior between her then-husband and children that concerned her. In a note written July 22, 2003, she said “[Redacted] came to spend the night. I went to bed and Matt was on the couch watching T.V. with all the lights off. Something kept telling me to get out of bed. So I did and Matt was lying in bed with [redacted] (both of them were in their [redacted] rubbing [redacted] belly.”

When Blazi spoke with Little again, she said the Department of Children & Families had refused to take a report because of a lack of information, according to a report. Blazi contacted Steve Hoinaki, a supervisor of investigations at DCF, who said “the children alleged to be involved were in no immediate danger” since Matthew Graziotti was no longer working as a youth minister and no longer was a mentor at Edgewater Public School. A report was taken after Blazi provided the new information from McCardel.

As Edgewater police investigated the allegations, they encountered children who appeared uncomfortable when asked questions about Graziotti, but they did not disclose any inappropriate behavior on his part. Most parents also refused to allow a forensic interviewer at the Children’s Advocacy Center to talk to their children, the report shows.

Graziotti initially agreed to speak with detectives but then hired Armistead W. Ellis as his lawyer and refused to be interviewed by police or submit to a voice stress test. Ellis hired his own polygraph examiner who found Graziotti was not deceptive.

Ellis sent a letter on June 28, 2004, to police saying that Graziotti had been falsely accused of “having improper and inappropriate contact with minor children in his care” due to his pending divorce. The letter said Graziotti was “a decent Christian man, who devoted his life to working with children.” No, he was an indecent, un-Christian man who devoted his life to preying on children instead of praying for them.

Warner Christian Academy

Blazi, who has since retired from the police department and today is a city councilman, closed the report as inactive pending further leads.

“… I was unable to make a determination that this case was either founded, or unfounded in regards to criminal fact finding,” Blazi wrote. “I was also unable to eliminate Matthew Graziotti as a potential suspect.”

Blazi also wrote: “There are still unanswered questions in this case due to the lack of cooperation on the part of the parents of the involved juveniles, to have forensic child interviews conducted.”

That would not be the case in 2014 when the FBI searched Graziotti’s home and found on his computer a folder titled “personally known” with 41 sub-folders with boys’ names. A forensic examiner found a folder with 8,761 images, many of which depicted the “sexual abuse and exploitation of prepubescent males,” according to the criminal complaint against Graziotti.

Graziotti sexually abused 29 children under the age of 12 with some as young as 6, prosecutor Gable said at his sentencing. Yet there were 41 sub-folders in his "personally known" file. One would think there should be 41 victims. But then, sometimes I'm just too logical.

Graziotti is serving his sentence at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona.

Former Navy Officer Sentenced to 18 Years for Child Sex Abuse

A former Navy officer was convicted of child sex abuse charges earlier this week in Cleveland County District Court.

Brock Gabriel Mason, 25, was sentenced to 18 years in prison Tuesday for two counts of lewd acts to a child, a lewd proposal to a child and two counts of forcible sodomy after entering a blind plea, court records show. A blind plea is just a plea of guilt without any plea bargain for a lighter sentence. 

Mason also received a 10-year suspended sentence for soliciting sexual conduct or communication with a minor by use of technology and one year in prison for contributing to the delinquency of minors.

Records show four other similar felony counts were dismissed, including three counts of lewd acts and soliciting sexual conduct or communication with a minor by use of technology.

Mason was on deployment in Japan, but shipped back to Oklahoma in December 2013 after being charged with the felony counts involving a pre-teen boy. Records show the incident occurred between January 2012 and November 2013, at which time Mason was a student at the University of Oklahoma.

The boy was between the ages of 11 and 13 when the incidents occurred, records show.

Felony information filed shows Mason forced the boy to look at pornography, gave him marijuana, performed oral sex and masturbated him and forced the boy to perform oral sex on him.

All of the acts occurred in Norman including at the Country Village Apartments, in Mason's vehicle while driving in Norman, Mason's residence on Eagle Drive and Days Inn on Interstate Drive, the arrest warrant states.

According to media reports, Mason is originally from Shenandoah, Iowa.

Sexual Abuse Allegations Against Imam Stir Rifts in Insular Illinois Community

A woman  says she was sexually assaulted by Mohammad Abdullah Saleem,
an imam who headed the Islamic school where she worked in Illinois

ELGIN, Illinois — She ordinarily did not wear a veil. But it was required at the Islamic school where she worked, and she remembers being surprised when the head of the school, a conservative imam, suggested that she remove it.

When the imam, Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, came into her office, she said, he would sometimes touch her cheek or put an arm around her shoulder. Mr. Saleem was revered in her close-knit community, and she did not object at first. But simply being alone together represented a forbidden intimacy, and looking back, she said those first gestures should have been more alarming.

“It’s not something that gets done,” the 23-year-old woman said recently. “Men and women don’t even shake hands.”

Over time, she said the touching became more aggressive, reaching a point that she did something almost unheard-of in her community. She told people: her family, a social worker, an Islamic scholar.
Recently, she went to the police. As word spread of what she had told them, three other women came forward, telling detectives that as young girls they had been molested by Mr. Saleem.

Mohammad Abdullah Saleem in a screen shot from a
YouTube video  that has since been removed the site

In the next few days, the women will name Mr. Saleem in a lawsuit that accuses him of decades of assault and child sex abuse, according to Steven A. Denny, their lawyer. But the accusations are already widely known and deeply felt within the community of Indian and Pakistani Muslim immigrants and their families in the Chicago area for whom the Institute of Islamic Education, the school that Mr. Saleem founded, is a focal point. They have highlighted the kinds of tensions that divide a small, cloistered segment of Mr. Saleem’s followers from a more assimilated generation that bristles at the notion that such matters should be handled privately.

Abuse allegations against Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis have brought similar anguish to insular communities suddenly exposed to outsiders, in a crisis. But the Chicago case comes with added baggage in a community where discussion of sex is taboo and many girls are forbidden to attend school health classes. Dating is uncommon or secretive, many marriages are arranged, and a blemish on a young woman’s reputation can render her unmarriageable.

The accusations are particularly jarring because of Mr. Saleem’s stature. “In the South Asian community, he is like Billy Graham. He’s the archbishop of Chicago,” said Omer Mozaffar, an Islamic scholar who serves as the Muslim chaplain at Loyola University Chicago and who acted as a mediator between Mr. Saleem and his first accuser last year.

Mr. Saleem said in a brief phone interview that his accusers “are lying.” He referred questions to his lawyer, Thomas T. Glasgow, who said that after an internal investigation by the school, “I have not seen any evidence to substantiate anything.”

In a statement posted on its website, the Institute of Islamic Education attributed the accusations to “individuals outside our community” seeking to discredit the school’s beliefs. “The individuals involved do not wish to seek privacy and resolution, but are actively seeking publicity for their claims,” the statement said, which has since been removed from the site.

The Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin, Ill.

Mr. Saleem, 75, was part of a generation of immigrants from India and Pakistan who settled in the Chicago area in the 1970s and 1980s. They shared apartments, prayed in a basement mosque and socialized almost exclusively among one another. Mr. Saleem was a student of the Deobandi school, a movement originating in India that espouses a fundamentalist version of Islam. He had the title maulana, an honorific given to prominent scholars. Friends let him stay in a spare room, where he taught children the Quran.

The community retained many of its beliefs and customs. Purity and honor were paramount. Girls wore head scarves, kept their arms and legs covered, and were excused from school health classes where puberty and reproduction were discussed. In some families, talking about sex in any way was unthinkable.

“A lot of the attitudes around sexuality and marriage, I would literally describe them as ultra-Victorian,” said Hamzah Maqbul, the imam of a mosque in Rockford, a nearby city.

Mr. Saleem founded his school in 1989 to teach students to memorize the Quran “in accordance with the Islamic values and traditions of the earlier periods of Islam,” according to its bylaws. It has grown into one of the country’s most prominent schools of its kind and one of the few in which the students, typically ages 10 to 17, are boarded for several years. Subjects like math and English are offered, but primarily through computer programs and never at the expense of Quran studies. The school is not recognized by the state and does not award accredited diplomas.

As the Muslim community grew, most families assimilated, finding no conflict between their faith and their adopted homeland, said Muhammad Shamsi, 70, who helped organize the school but is no longer involved with it. Raising children in America accelerated that process, he said.

Omer Mozaffar leading a prayer service at the American Islamic College.
Mr. Mozaffar acted as a mediator between Mohammad Abdullah Saleem
and his first accuser last year

But others, including some of Mr. Saleem’s most devoted followers, resisted, said Mr. Mozaffar, the scholar and Loyola chaplain. “The fear is of becoming Americanized,” he said. “And that includes a decline in morality, losing a person’s Islam, a person’s faith. And so faith gets mixed in with culture.”

The young woman who first accused Mr. Saleem was born in the United States to Indian parents and graduated from an American college. She hoped the secretarial job at the school would be a springboard to a corporate human resources position.

While she was making copies in April, she said, Mr. Saleem pulled her onto his lap and held her there, lifting her dress as he groped her. “I just looked at the wall or the ceiling and just kept saying, ‘This is very uncomfortable,’ ” she said. After he left, she said, she found something sticky on the black pants she wore beneath her dress.

She confided in her cousin, her mother and a social worker, and ultimately Mr. Mozaffar. She quit her job, and though she said she was reluctant to press the issue, she wanted an admission and an apology. Mr. Mozaffar agreed to mediate.

Hanging over the entire process was the threat that the allegations would destroy her reputation. Such concerns are common in abuse cases but are particularly acute in a community that values virginity so highly, said Nadiah Mohajir, executive director of Heart Women and Girls, a sexual health advocacy group for Muslim women.

Nadiah Mohajir, executive director of Heart Women and Girls,
a sexual health advocacy group for Muslim women

“There is this fear of ‘Who’s going to marry you now?’ ” she said. “We can say, ‘You don’t want a man who would hold that against you.’ But in practice, that decreases their pool so much that it’s completely unfair to even say.”

Ms. Mohajir said educating Muslim women about sexual health could make people so uncomfortable that she did not talk about her job with some family members. Getting her programs accepted in mosques has been difficult, she said, and fund-raising is “incredibly challenging.”

Mr. Mozaffar said he had ultimately brokered a settlement in which Mr. Saleem signed a handwritten document saying he had apologized and “admitted to his actions.” But the document does not specify what actions. Mr. Saleem indicated that he was apologizing for the sin of zina, or consensual extramarital sexual contact, Mr. Mozaffar said.

That agreement was supposed to end things, but word spread through the community, and Mr. Mozaffar addressed them on his blog, writing that it was “public knowledge” what Mr. Saleem had done and that he had “admitted the details to me, face to face.”

Angry commenters accused him of undermining Mr. Saleem. “Dear brothers and sisters this matter does not concern you,” one wrote. “Regardless if the allegations are true or false he is a much better Muslim than all of us. Please stop spreading information regarding him. He has reached a very old age. You should be instead focusing on how you can spend more time in his presence.”

A Community Mediator

acted as a mediator last year when a woman accused a prominent local imam,
Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, of sexual assault

Mr. Mozaffar deleted his post, but not before two women in their 40s saw it and told advocates that Mr. Saleem had abused them in the early 1980s, when he was teaching from his bedroom. One woman said Mr. Saleem began touching her when she was 12. Once, she said, he sat on a bed, covered in a brown blanket, and put her hand on his genitals while he taught her a chapter of the Quran called al-Qari’a, about the Day of Judgment when people will be held to account for their good and evil deeds.

“The Quran is right on top of us and he is doing this,” she said. “What disrespect he had in front of the Quran.”

A second woman said that, when she was in sixth grade, Mr. Saleem kissed her and touched her, remarking, “You’re really growing up.”

The new allegations prompted the former secretary to go to the police, despite the concerns of some family members. She took with her the pants with the dry, white stain. “If this happened in my parents’ generation, nobody would’ve ever found out,” she said.

The Elgin police and prosecutors have interviewed the three women. A fourth, who declined to be interviewed, told the authorities that Mr. Saleem molested her while she was a student in 2002 and 2003, according to Mr. Denny, her lawyer. Mr. Glasgow, the lawyer for Mr. Saleem, said he was unaware of these allegations. The statute of limitations has expired on the claims dating to the 1980s.

“It’s an ongoing investigation into allegations of sexual offenses,” said Cmdr. Ana Lalley of the Elgin police.

Mr. Saleem said in the interview that he was still teaching at the school, though he officially retired in October, and that his son Ubaidulla had replaced him. “These are good, peaceful, kind, conscientious people trying to do the right thing in the face of some pretty nasty allegations against a former employee,” Mr. Glasgow, the lawyer, said.

Mr. Mozaffar said he had heard criticism that he had brought negative attention on Muslims at a time when terrorism fears have made many Americans suspicious of them. “There is a notion that we are already under assault. Why add more fuel?” he said.

But he said none of this had to do with Islam. “The Catholics aren’t the only ones who have pedophiles, and the Muslims aren’t the only ones who have terrorists,” he said.

No, just 99.99% of terrorists are Muslim. That other 0.01% is important.

Catholic Church Opposes Proposed Iowa Law for CSA Survivors to Sue

Iowa State capitol Building, Des Moines

Victims in decades-old cases of alleged sexual abuse could bring new lawsuits under proposed legislation that church and school officials say could leave their organizations vulnerable to huge legal liabilities.

The bill would undoubtedly have its biggest effect on clergy abuse lawsuits involving the Catholic Church, which has paid out more than $2.5 billion in damages nationwide because of past incidents involving more than 16,500 victims allegedly abused by religious members.

The Iowa proposal, Senate File 107, is strongly supported by victim advocates, including the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which says the crimes are often psychologically repressed for decades.

"This really becomes kind of a no-brainer when you look at it. It is putting first the children of Iowa and the children who have been victimized," said an adult man only identified as "John," who spoke before the Senate panel about his experience as a victim of child sexual abuse.

The legislation is opposed by the Iowa Catholic Conference and the Iowa Association of School Boards. Lobbyists for both groups contend it could have a huge negative financial effect on Iowa churches and school districts, which would find it nearly impossible to mount a legal defense against such lawsuits long after witnesses have died and records have been destroyed.

The Iowa Catholic Conference, the official policy voice for the Catholic bishops of Iowa, pointed out that the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul was forced to file for bankruptcy in January after the Minnesota Legislature approved the Minnesota Child Victim's Act. The Minnesota law, passed in 2013, opened a three-year window for filing new lawsuits alleging sexual abuse that otherwise would have been barred by the statute of limitations. About 20 alleged victims of clergy abuse have filed civil suits against the Minnesota archdiocese because of the law, and church officials have reportedly received more than 100 notices of potential claims.

"As everybody knows, the Catholic Church has had some painful lessons to learn over the past 20 years," said Tom Chapman, lobbyist for the Iowa Catholic Conference. He noted initiatives within Iowa's Catholic churches to advocate for victims and to provide widespread training to prevent future incidents.

The Iowa bill as drafted "would pose a great danger to Catholic ministries. It will end up hurting people who help other people," Chapman said. The Davenport Catholic Diocese has already gone through bankruptcy as a result of sexual abuse cases involving its priests.

So, who are the people that are helping people? Are they the same people who are helping themselves to defenceless little people?

No vote was taken on the proposed legislation in last week's subcommittee meeting. But Sen. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, who is chairing the panel studying the bill, said she plans to discuss the proposal with other senators and will likely schedule another subcommittee meeting. The subcommittee also includes Sens. Julian Garrett, R-Indianola, and Kevin Kinney, D-Oxford.

John, the sexual abuse victim who testified before the panel, described child sexual abuse as a "perfect crime for predators" because children often try to repress the horrors of what they have experienced. It's common for victims to be unable to talk about their abuse until their early 40s, which justifies the 25-year window for filing civil lawsuits, he said.

Amy Campbell, a lobbyist for the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said her organization is very supportive of the bill. Once one victim comes forward, it can spur other victims to speak up, she said.

Several other lobbyists said while they have sympathy for victims of child sexual abuse, they questioned the fairness of opening a window for lawsuits they believe will be very difficult to defend.

Emily Piper, lobbyist for the Iowa Association of School Boards, said her organization is concerned that an entirely new school board and school administration could have to deal with allegations that occurred long ago. It's not fair to impose the legislation upon a future elected school board when it had no input on a how a situation was handled 25 years ago, she said.

Scott Sundstrom, a lobbyist for the Iowa Defense Counsel Association, expressed similar concerns.

The justice system is an adversarial system, which allows both sides to present evidence, Sundstrom said. But under the proposed legislation, an allegation could be made about an incident that occurred decades ago and there would be no evidence available to defend against the claims, he said. That's because employees and witnesses would be gone, and documents that detailed policies and procedures at the time would have been destroyed, he said.

Lisa Davis-Cook, a lobbyist for the Iowa Association of Justice, said her organization has lawyers on both sides of the issue. She said it's important to recognize that even if the bill is approved to extend the window for civil lawsuits, plaintiffs would still need to prove their cases in court.

Precisely! I don't see how it tips the scales very significantly. Judges would certainly be aware of the possibility of fraudulent suits, and, I assume, would require a significant level of proof that the abuse actually occurred.

The Catholic Church is still trying to avoid the full consequences of their shameless and relentless abuse of children. 

What's in the bill

The proposed Iowa legislation to expand the statue of limitations on child sex abuse cases has four key provisions:

• It specifies that victims of alleged child sexual abuse who would be barred from filing civil lawsuits under Iowa's current statute of limitations be given a three-year window to commence lawsuits.

• The time for filing a civil lawsuit relating to sexual abuse of a minor would be extended from the current one year after a person turns 18 to a period of 25 years after a person reaches age 18.

• It provides that a lawsuit for damages for alleged sexual abuse when the victim was under age 14 must be brought within 25 years from the time of the discovery of both the injury and the relationship between the injury and the sexual abuse.

• Criminal charges for sexual abuse in the first, second or third degree involving a person under age 18 must be filed within 25 years after the victim reaches adulthood. The charges must now be filed within 10 years.

Pervert Rock Star Gary Glitter Sentenced to 16 Years in Prison

Former pop star Gary Glitter has been jailed for a total of 16 years for sexually abusing three young girls between 1975 and 1980.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was sentenced for attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one of having sex with a girl under 13.

Sentencing, Judge Alistair McCreath said he could find "no real evidence" that Gadd had atoned for his crimes.

The 70-year-old showed no emotion as he left the dock at Southwark Crown Court.

Judge McCreath told Gadd it was clear his victims "were all profoundly affected" by his abuse of them.

"You did all of them real and lasting damage and you did so for no other reason than to obtain sexual gratification for yourself of a wholly improper kind," he said.

Sentencing explained
Judge McCreath said he assessed the seriousness of the offences by current guidelines, but he was limited to the maximum sentences that were available at the time the offences were committed, when "the sentencing climate was less severe".

"The offences for which I must pass sentence today took place many years ago at a time when in particular, in respect of one of them, the maximum sentence was considerably lower than that which is now available," he said.

Judge McCreath said the modern equivalent offence of unlawful intercourse with a child under 13 would be equivalent to rape of a child, but said he was not permitted to pass a life sentence.

He said the offence of attempted rape was "so serious" as to justify the maximum available sentence under the old regime of seven years, which he noted would be a lenient sentence under modern guidelines.

Sallie Bennett-Jenkins QC, defending, told the court that Gadd had been subject to a "very high degree of vilification" and "demonification" in the press after being jailed in Vietnam in 2006 for molesting two girls aged 11 and 12.

She said he had led "an increasingly isolated life" for the last decade and had been unable to walk down the street "without being the subject of vilification".

Gadd, from Marylebone, central London, had denied the allegations against him but was found guilty at the end of a three-week-long trial earlier this month.

He had been at the height of his fame when he attacked two girls aged 12 and 13 after inviting them backstage to his dressing room.

His youngest victim had been less than 10 years old when he crept into her bed and tried to rape her in 1975.

Judge McCreath described Gadd's abuse of a girl under 10 as "appalling" and said: "It is difficult to overstate the depravity of this dreadful behaviour."

He noted that in 2011 Gadd sought professional help to understand his sexual behaviour but said: "Whatever changes may have been effected in you by this treatment, they did not include any admission at all on your part of the wrong that you had done."

Gary Glitter returned to the UK after his conviction in
 Vietnam for molesting two girls aged 11 and 12

The allegations against Gadd came to light only years later when he became the first person to be arrested under Operation Yewtree - the investigation launched by the Met in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Scotland Yard confirmed that it had received other information in light of Gadd's conviction, and that it is "currently being assessed".

Det Ch Insp Michael Orchard, from Operation Yewtree, said Gadd was a "habitual sexual predator who took advantage of the star status afforded to him".

He added: "His lack of remorse and defence that the victims were lying make his crimes all the more indefensible."

Mark Castle, chief executive of charity Victim Support, said: "This prison sentence is testament to the courage Glitter's victims showed in reporting their ordeal and bravely confronting this serial paedophile in court."

Investigating The Trade in Child Rape & Torture aka Child Pornography Part 2

Lori Handrahan

Maine's Publicy Protected Pedophile/Porn Ring

From the blog of Lori Handrahan

Maine: Governor LePage & 
Attorney General Janet Mills

On 20 February 2015, Maine’s Governor, Paul LePage, issued an Executive Order prohibiting Maine state employees from accessing pornographic or sexually explicit material on both state computers or devices even when they were off-duty on personal time.

To my knowledge, it is the first executive order of its kind and Governor LePage is to be congratulated. It is highly likely Governor LePage issued this executive order, in part, out of frustration for prosecutorial discretion and misconduct in Maine, which is extensive.

Governor LePage (R) has been waging a public battle with Maine’s AG, Janet Mills (D). Maine is the only state in the country where the attorney general is neither elected by the general population nor appointed by the governor. In Maine, the AG is elected, solely, by the state representatives. This is a huge problem in that it enables and protects massive state-level corruption among state legislatures who are protected against prosecution for their crimes under “prosecutorial discretion” by the AG they elected to office.

Maine’s Governor, Paul LePage

The structure is essentially a legalized protection racket for Maine politicians. It is a structure that has been working very well for Maine Democrats who have controlled Maine politics, more or less, for the past three or four decades.

However, in 2011, in a protest vote, Mainers elected Republicans across the state, including Governor Paul LePage. Janet Mills lost her position as AG because the state legislature went Republican. Bill Schneider was voted in as attorney general. In 2013 the state legislature returned to a Democratic majority and voted in, again, Janet Mills to be attorney general. The war between Mills and LePage began.

I must note, I have a personal connection to Janet Mills. Not only did she grow up in my very small, rural home town of Farmington, Maine, where my father was a history professor at the University of Maine (UMF) and a very active member of the Democratic Party, but Janet’s mother, Kay Mills, was one of my favorite teachers at Mt. Blue High School. Kay Mills was absolutely wonderful. I do not know what happened to her daughter.

Maine’s AG, Janet Mills

In addition to a childhood connection with both Janet Mills and her mother, later, in my adult life, it was Janet Mills, in her capacity as attorney general in 2009, who made the trafficking and abuse of my daughter possible. In December of 2009 Janet Mills, as AG, ordered DHHS senior officials to cancel meetings around the confirmed sex abuse of my then two year old daughter with both me and my attorney Bill Harwood of Verrill Dana law firm in Portland, Maine.

Janet Mills, as AG, then, I have been told, engaged in a prolonged email argument with Bonnie Titcomb Lewis, a former Maine state Democratic Party heavy-weight, and Lucky Hollander, a senior DHHS employee about my daughter’s rape and abuse and defended her actions to halt Child Protection from protecting my daughter. Janet Mills is alleged to have said, in writing, that Child Protection was to “take no action to protect this child no matter what happened because “a judge was going to handle this one.”

Talk about prosecutorial discretion and misconduct.

Janet Mills’ actions constitute extremely serious obstruction of justice. Imagine. An AG who not only refuses to prosecute child sex abuse but also intervenes in a child protection investigation for the confirmed rape of a two year old girl by her father, taking action to protect the rapist and not the child?

Janet Mills should be behind bars, not re-elected by Maine state Democratic politicians to the AG’s office. But she was. Party politics above all else. Right?

Governor LePage is very well aware of the details of my daughter’s case and Janet Mills’ role. It is likely actions like these by Janet Mills that have prompted Governor LePage to issue this recent executive order. Surely there are more children Janet Mills has, literally, helped to traffick into sex abuse. My daughter cannot be the only one.

Governor LePage is also well aware, as are most people in Maine, that child sex abuse by state employees has been protected by corrupt prosecutors and cops for far too long. AG Janet Mills is the top prosecutor refusing to prosecute. She is the boss of every District Attorney (DA) in the state. Public knowledge, even of many reports and rumors of institutional child sex abuse, is useless when prosecutorial discretion is invoked.

Next Steps for Governor LePage

Governor Paul LePage does not have the power of prosecution. He does have the power of Executive Order over his Executive Branch. His executive order is a powerful first step. But it is only a first step.

Now, investigations and prosecutions of all Maine state employees trading in child sex abuse on government computers must follow. Swiftly. How will Governor LePage accomplish this if the top prosecutor in the state is protecting child rapists and enabling the trafficking children like my daughter?

First, Governor LePage will need the assistance of good, clean federal investigators outside of Maine and outside of New England. It’s now public knowledge that the Boston FBI protected and enabled Whitey Bulger for decades. Maine does not have a real FBI office. Maine’s FBI is only a remote outpost for Boston. Boston calls the shots in Maine, still, even though Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820.

Second, Governor LePage will need to request that trusted, clean, federal law enforcement in Washington, D.C. investigate Maine state computer servers and IP addresses for child sex abuse images/videos, etc.

Third, a Triage List must be composed of which state agencies are investigated and prosecuted.

Triage in Maine

First, on the triage list for outside federal investigation must be every prosecutor in Janet Mills office, including Mills herself, and every District Attorney and their staff. All Maine judges and court staff should also be included.

Second, all Department of Health and Human Service (DHHS) employees, particularly those working in Child Protection, be investigated immediately. It is widely rumored former Child Protection Director Dan Despard, fired over his role in my daughter’s case but not yet investigated and prosecuted, is, and has been, key in Maine’s child sex abuse ring.

In 2001, Senior Child Protection staffer Cynthia Wellman claimed University of Maine Orono (UMO) professors were sexually abusing children, along with Child Protection Staff, on UMO’s campus. Maine’s prosecutors refused to prosecute and law enforcement refused to open a criminal investigation. It is suspected that Dan Despard was one of the Maine state employees Cynthia Wellman named. He needs to be investigated.

Third, every single Maine state employed law enforcement official must be investigated, starting with Lt. Glenn Lang, Maine Computer Crimes Director. Again, it is common public rumor in Maine that local and state police have been running a child sex abuse ring for a long time now. Cole Farms and former Maine State Police Chief Demers are only the bits of the slip that escaped under the skirt. Multiple sources have told me it is “open knowledge” that South Portland’s former Police Chief Robert Schwartz “was raping little boys in the woods for decades.” Schwartz is now Executive Director of Maine Police Chief Association. These rumors must be investigated.

Lighthouses & Lobster Rolls

Maine is not all lighthouses and lobster rolls. Maine is a key supplier (thanks to a legalized structure of corruption and an abdication of key checks and balances fundamental to a rule of law) of children to abuse for the national and global child sex abuse industry.

Prosecutorial discretion is a dirty term in America’s broken legal system. In Maine the phrase takes on even darker connotations — prosecutorial discretion and misconduct centers on the trade in child rape and torture on the internet and cell phones, otherwise known as child porn.

My daughter and I are victims of this crime. Maine’s top prosecutor, Janet Mills, is directly responsible. God willing, Governor LePage has just issued a shot across the bow to Maine state employees engaged in the trade in child sex abuse. If he is able to take appropriate next steps to give his executive order teeth, this could be a game-changer in the history of Maine and in the lives of many children who are being raped and destroyed each and every day in Maine.

Changing the way child porn is investigated and prosecuted is an urgent need, as the Canadians have identified. Perhaps Governor LePage’s new executive order will trigger the start of a much-needed shift in American policy and procedure regarding the crime of government employees trading in child rape and torture, aka child pornography.

As goes Maine, so goes the nation. We hope and pray.

Dr. Lori Handrahan’s forthcoming book Child Porn Nation: America’s Hidden National Security Risk details America’s child sex abuse epidemic. Her Ph.D. is from The London School of Economics. She can be reached on Twitter @LoriHandrahan2

Investigating The Trade in Child Rape & Torture aka Child Pornography Part 1

Lori Handrahan

From the blog of Lori Handrahan
medium.com/@LoriHandrahan

Scope of the Crime

There is a global child rape and torture crisis, otherwise known as child pornography, traded electronically in images, videos and live-streaming on the internet and cellular phone networks.

America now produces an estimated half of the world’s child pornography. Of all the global internet servers hosting child sexual abuse websites, nearly half are located in the United States. An estimated 50,000 Americans, at any given time, are trading child sex abuse images/videos.

In 2012 child sex trafficking became America’s fastest growing crime, expanding by 150% per year. The Department of Justice reports a pedophile can earn up to $1,000 per night molesting a child via a web camera. One investigator says the child porn industry is “very tempting” with lots of “sales to be made.” A picture can sell for $25, a video for $300. Monthly child porn subscriptions average $100 per month.

The global child porn industry may be yielding $20 billion to $50 billion per year. One estimate is that every second there are 750,000 pedophiles on-line globally. Germany, for example, has estimated some 250,000 Germans spent $27 billion on child sex abuse images/videos in 2013. That is Germany alone in one year.

Human sex trafficking is organized crime’s fastest growing business and is estimated as, at least, the third-largest criminal enterprise worldwide. Globally, an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked for sexual abuse and exploitation every year. Says one expert, “the market is huge. And the operators of these forums will stop at nothing to keep their business running.” With this kind of easy profit, child porn is rapidly overtaking drugs as organized crime’s preferred money-maker.

Government officials, including, judges, military officers and police, often with substantial authority, have been identified as both consumers and producers in the illegal child porn industry.

Canadian Investigations

Canadian investigators have recently changed tactics in how they investigate the trade in child sex abuse, now “going after companies that host the online files and profit from the data sharing.”

Ontario Provincial Police (OPP)’s Deputy Commissioner Scott Tod said, “Our goal . . . is actually to look at the money behind the organization. Who made decisions so that profits could be made in a criminal manner? Where do they reside? And who are they?”

Isn’t this what investigators have been doing all along? Surprisingly, no.

Standard operating procedure (SOP) for child porn investigations, at least in America and Canada, have been investigators trolling known on-line child porn trading venues, posing as pedophiles, and catching the criminal in this random net-casting strategy.

Image throwing a net into a spring salmon run, mid-stream, and pulling out whatever you catch. I think the analogy would be more accurate if you imagined a fisherman with a single, barbless hook.

So dense is the on-line trade in child sex abuse, the volume so rapid, pedophiles know that the chances of being caught are very small. Pedophiles also know that investigators have not structured their investigations in a systematic manner that targets the source, the kingpins, the leaders of this highly lucrative organized crime.

Ontario Provincial Police (OPP)’s
Deputy Commissioner Scott Tod

Bruce Campion-Smith, a journalist in Ottawa, Canada detailed the change in child porn investigations in Canada quoting Deputy Commissioner Scott Tod, “Rather than the peer-to-peer, one-to-one, we now want to look at . . . how do corporations actually profit and benefit from trading in child sexual exploitation… …This is the first investigation of the scale in my knowledge in North America, if not worldwide.”

In this manner, Canadian investigators found a file service owned by several web hosting companies and seized 1,250 terabytes of data. The estimated profits, in this investigation, were $18 million in just three months. The investigation revealed 2,200 IP addresses in the United States, 843 in Germany, 534 in Japan, 457 in Russia and 394 in Canada.

Let me repeat this fundamental fact: of all the global internet servers hosting child sexual abuse websites, nearly half are located in the United States. Why haven’t US investigators targeted these servers? Why has the US government allowed these servers to operate in America?

Prosecutorial Discretion

Like Canada, procedures also need to change in how child porn is investigated and prosecuted in America. The burden of change falls most heavily on corrupt prosecutors. Law enforcement investigators often express their frustrations to me that they will spend hours, weeks, months on a child porn investigation only to have it blocked by the prosecutors.

Why? Prosecutorial discretion — the two dirtiest words in the American legal system.

In 2014 The New York Times editorial board called prosecutorial misconduct “rampant” in America and that was a gross understatement. Prosecutors are not legally obliged to prosecute crimes. Prosecutors can pick and choose which crimes they wish to prosecute and which they do not. Stunning isn’t it? Can you image emergency room doctors choosing which patients are operate on versus who gets left to bleed out on the floor?

This is what prosecutors across America do every day. The poor get prosecuted and the rich play golf, drink, sail, and party with their favorite local and federal prosecutor who simply decline to prosecute his/her rich friend’s crimes if some hard-nose investigator ever dares to investigate.

In terms of child porn/child sex abuse investigations, this means that wealthy business men, lawyers, politicians, judges, lawyers, and prosecutors themselves are enjoying near total impunity. Prosecutorial discretion has given a green light to the richest, most powerful pedophiles in America to engage, at will, in the trade in child rape and torture.

If you have trouble believing this to be true, you haven't been paying attention. This blog has documented such goings on in four European countries, England, Northern Ireland, Holland and Belgium.

How to Investigate Child Porn 101

Based on extensive discussions with law enforcement and prosecutors, at the state and federal level, across America, here are some ideas about the changes needed to better fight, prevent and halt the crime.

Servers located in America that host, store and distribute child porn must be investigated, shut-down, and the owners must be prosecuted. That this is not yet happening in America is gob-smacking. Target the top, not the low-hanging fruit. Period. This should be a top priority.

Investigators need to conduct targeted investigation of known supply-side sources to which pedophiles flock. For example, the amount of child porn produced in day cares, preschools and baby-sitters is significant enough for investigators to start requesting search warrants to randomly search any and all day care, preschools and baby-sitting services IP address and cell phone networks for child porn production and distribution. Judges need to issue search warrants for these investigations.
State licensing agencies should require legal consent to submit to random child porn investigations as a component of all licenses granted to day care, preschool and baby-sitting services.

The amount of military and police, both local and federal, arrested for trade in child sex abuse is staggering. All military and law enforcement personnel must be required to submit to random child porn search, just like random drug tests, on their IP networks, phones, hard-drives, etc.

Federal and state law enforcement should police each other outside of their areas of influence. For example, an Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) investigator in Texas should be able to get a search warrant for a police department in Maine. This would eliminate the roadblocking “code of silence” within corrupt police forces when good cops are prevented from investigating and exposing crimes they are often aware their own colleagues are committing against children.

All state and federal employees should be required to sign a Code of Conduct where they acknowledge that trading in child sex abuse is a crime and they pledge to refrain from doing so, to report anyone they are aware may be engaged in child porn on government computers and agree to random searches of their phones, laptops, hard-drives, thumb-drives, etc, for child porn.

All state and federal employees must be randomly searched for child porn on a regular basis. Full stop. State and federal government agency servers and IP addresses must be routinely searched. State and federal government agencies must implement software that blocks porn and child porn from being downloaded on government computers.

When investigators encounter prosecutorial discretion, they must be able to network with other prosecutors and investigators outside their physical jurisdiction to do an end-run around a corrupt local or federal prosecutors who may be involved in the trade of child porn themselves. Likewise, when a prosecutor encounters an investigator unwilling to investigate, that prosecutor must reach out to law enforcement outside the physical jurisdiction and receive investigative assistance and do an end-run around a local or federal investigators who may be involved in the trade of child porn.

The trade in child rape and torture, aka child pornography, knows no physical, geographic boundaries. It is not a traditional crime that occurs in one single physical location for which law enforcement and prosecutors have “legal” jurisdiction. It is crime that explodes all over the world via electronic networks the instant the rape of a child is posted on-line or sent over cell phone networks.

Child porn must no longer be investigated and prosecuted as a traditional crime based on traditional legal jurisdictions.

Rehtaeh Parsons Case Review Expected This Fall

Review looking into police, prosecution service's actions

A woman holds a photo as several hundred people attend a community vigil to
remember Rehtaeh Parsons at Victoria Park in Halifax on Thursday, April 11, 2013.
 The girl’s family says she ended her own life following months of bullying after she
was allegedly raped by four boys and a photo of the incident was distributed

A former Ontario chief prosecutor says his review of how police and prosecutors in Nova Scotia initially handled the Rehtaeh Parsons case should be done in the fall.

In an update on his review, Murray Segal says he has met with members of the province's Public Prosecution Service, Parsons's family and police and all have been forthcoming.

The provincial government ordered the review in August 2013 but it was delayed until legal proceedings involving two men charged in Parsons's case concluded.

Police charged the men with child pornography offences just four days before Segal was appointed to lead the review.

A 20-year-old man pleaded guilty last November to distributing a sexually graphic image of Parsons, who was 15 years old at the time of the offence.

Another 20-year-old man pleaded guilty to making child pornography by taking a photo of the accused having sex with Parsons, who was taken off life-support after attempting suicide in 2013.

Both men were youths at the time of the offence and were charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Neither spent 5 minutes in jail. A young life tortured and destroyed and there was no penalty for anyone.

Parsons's family alleged she was sexually assaulted in November 2011 and bullied for months after a digital photo of the alleged assault was passed around her school.

Police said they looked into the allegations of sexual assault and an inappropriate photo, but concluded there weren't enough grounds to lay charges after consulting with the prosecution service.

The photo allegedly shows Rehtaeh leaning out a window vomiting and one of the two pathetic boys helping himself to her and doing a thumbs-up for the camera. The police and prosecutor decided that did not constitute rape as she might have consented - presumably, between vomits, she turned to the boy and said, "help yourself, it sounds like so much fun!"

The child pornography charges were laid after Parsons died and there was a national outcry for some semblance of justice.

In another development...

Glen Canning, father of Rehtaeh Parsons, says police arrested a member of the
military for using a computer at a Nova Scotia Canadian Forces base
to edit the Wikipedia entry about the girl's death.

Dad of guilty man reportedly arrested

in Wikipedia edits probe

Military member with CFB Shearwater was released, no charges in Wikipedia edits probe

The father of one of the men who pleaded guilty in the Rehtaeh Parsons case was arrested for allegedly using a computer at a Nova Scotia Canadian Forces base to make inappropriate web comments, and edit the Wikipedia entry about the girl's death, according to her father.

Glen Canning says he was contacted by a Halifax military police officer Wednesday morning.

Wikipedia's revision history shows more than a dozen changes were made to its page about Rehtaeh. A quote attributed to Canning was changed to make it appear as though he said his daughter had consensual sex with two boys who were later convicted of child pornography.

The Department of National Defence said an individual was arrested Tuesday at CFB Shearwater, and questioned following a complaint about someone making inappropriate comments online.

The department wouldn't confirm the connection to the Rehtaeh case. They have said they are investigating allegations her Wikipedia page was altered from a DND IP address.

No charges were laid and the man was released. Where have I heard that before?

Brit Charity Boss Gets 17 Years For Kenya Child Sex Abuse

The judge told Harris: 'You designed your life to be close to boys'

A former school teacher who ran a charity helping African street children has been jailed for 17 years and four months for abusing young Kenyan boys.

Simon Harris, 55, from Herefordshire, was convicted of three indecent assaults, five sexual assaults and four counts of possessing indecent images of children in December last year.

The offences involved five children - one was aged just nine.

At his eight-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court, jurors heard Harris would cruise the streets of Gilgil and lure vulnerable boys into his Land Rover with the promise of education, food and money.

He would take them back to his home, known as the Green House on the outskirts of the town, and sexually abuse them.

The court was told that some were threatened with death if they told anyone.

Judge Philip Parker QC said Harris was obviously "intelligent" and "charismatic" but he used it to conceal a "self-centred arrogance".

"You designed your life to be close to boys - it suited you to be in education," he said.

"It gave you kudos and it also provided a source of boys."

Harris came to the attention of the authorities after British journalists working in Kenya were tipped off about the abuse.

Little known legislation was used where English courts have jurisdiction to try offences carried out by Britons abroad.

Kelvin Lay, lead investigator for the National Crime Agency, told Sky News: "We anticipate Simon Harris has been offending over four decades.

"We know of around 46 victims, but we anticipate that should we keep digging there would be many many more."

Simon Harris - crimes were discovered after journalists in Kenya were tipped off

The jury were told that following a conviction in 2009 for possessing indecent images of children, Harris spent 15 months in a British jail.

He also admitted six counts of sexual assault on three teenage pupils at a public school in Devon where he taught Latin in the 1980s.

Victims' evidence was heard via video link from Kenya to the Birmingham court.

One young Kenyan man who made a complaint against Harris killed himself before jurors had reached their verdicts.

Harris was found guilty in December 2014.

Gang-rape Victim Lives Life of Isolation After Video Goes Viral

Pakistan Today

Sadia*, the victim of a gang-rape, remained silent at first. Only when the video of her being gang-raped became widely circulated did she have the courage to approach the authorities. Four suspects have been arrested, with the trial underway. So far though, the video remains out there as she stays shut at home due to the stigma the act entails.

The above raises the bigger question about how many more such victims continue to suffer in silence. More importantly, it raises questions about cyber crime laws and their inability to protect the citizens’ basic rights.

According to the report, with the rise in access to technology across Pakistan, the video continues being shared via Bluetooth and Facebook, it is alleged. Needless to say, there is no pertinent legislation to prevent this from happening.

The slight, young, elementary school teacher is now
a prisoner in her own home ashamed to face the people of her village

In a small village like Sadia’s, almost everyone may have seen the video. She has been forced to discontinue her studies, ashamed of having to face the society, despite being the victim.

She says she was on her way to the market to buy her sister's school uniform when she was bundled into a car and threatened with a gun. She claims the four men in the car took her to a house and raped her while filming the act on a mobile phone.

"After I begged and pleaded with them, they beat me even more," she says. "They said to me that if I don't listen to them and do what they want, they'll show everyone the video, put it up on the internet, that they would hurt my brothers and sister.

“A lot of people are watching this video for fun, they see it as something interesting.” She says, despairingly.

The prisoners hung their heads and would not look at the reporter

The suspects are being prosecuted for kidnapping, gang-rape and distribution of pornography. Although police say that they have contacted the government to get the video deleted from websites, cyber crime experts say that no such law exists in Pakistan.

In such cases, the suspects are often tried under clauses from sexual harassment, defamation or criminal intimidation laws. Clauses on the violation of privacy from Electronic Transaction Ordinance (ETO) are also invoked.

In light of the above, it is surprising to note that a holistic cyber crime ordinance had been allowed to lapse four years ago before it could become the law. With a lack of political or social will power to combat this issue, a new law could be a long way off.

* Sadia is not her real name

Bikram Choudhury, Millionaire Yoga Guru, Sued for Alleged Sexual Assault

Bikram Choudhury, front, founder of the Yoga College of India,
leads a yoga class at the Los Angeles Convention Center, in September 2003.

A Vancouver woman has filed a lawsuit against yoga millionaire Bikram Choudhury, alleging the 69-year-old yoga guru sexually assaulted her during an instructor training course in Las Vegas in 2010.

Jill Lawler alleges she was "repeatedly sexually assaulted, raped and harassed" by Choudhury, and that he "preyed on … her youth and vulnerability … which caused her significant and enduring physical, emotional and psychological harm."

The leaders of at least 2 ashrams (live-in yoga centres) in Australia have been investigated for rape and child sex abuse, and at least one in India. Also, in the 1960's, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was accused of attempted sexual assault of Mia Farrow at his ashram when the Beatles were also there.

The civil lawsuit filed in the California Superior Court in Los Angeles earlier this month says Lawler was 18 years old when she began training with, and then working for, Choudhury's yoga business.

Lawler says she paid $10,000 in 2010 to attend a nine-week intensive yoga instructor training course after personally writing to Choudhury to be allowed to take part, despite not meeting the course's normal minimum age requirement of 21.

The lawsuit alleges the exhaustive training program and low protein diet pushed "students to the point were they become compliant and unquestioning with regard to their guru's requests."

Evening assaults alleged

During an evening meeting, Lawler's lawsuit alleges, she began massaging Choudhury's feet and he put his hand on her thigh, then attempted to put his hand inside her pants. She jumped up and left the room in shock, according to the lawsuit.

Bikram Choudhury appears at a
book signing in New York in 2007
Choudhury is the creator of Bikram
yoga, also known as hot yoga

The lawsuit alleges the unwanted sexual advances continued during the course, stating "one night about a week later Choudhury insisted that Jill accompany him to his hotel room … where in addition to raping her … Choudury demanded she say disgusting and untrue things, including: 'Bikram you're the best' and 'I want to f--k you all night long.'"

The lawsuit alleges Choudhury assaulted Lawler again during his training session, and on other occasions over the coming years while she was working at his studios, including at his home in Los Angeles, at another training course, and while training in India.

In the lawsuit, she says she felt there was nothing she could do about the alleged assaults, because she thought Choudhury would retaliate by preventing her from working at his Vancouver studios and make it impossible for her to earn a living.

"Jill was terrified of … Choudhury because he had a number of close followers in Vancouver, would brag that he knew 'all of the police' and many other powerful people, he warned students, including Jill, not to 'f--k with him,' and frequently stated that 'people who don't listen to me, they die,'"  says the lawsuit.

Lawler alleges that once she learned another woman had filed a lawsuit against Choudhury, he became concerned and began to offer "veiled bribes to buy her silence," which she refused.

The lawsuit says that in July 2014, Lawler taught her last Bikram class, but she still suffers from crippling psychological harm. She is suing for unspecified compensation.

No police investigation

The allegations have not been proven in court, and Choudhury has not filed a response to the lawsuit.

The Bikram Yoga Vancouver Team said this is a "terrible tragedy for the individuals involved."

"If these allegations are upheld, we certainly condemn this type of behaviour," it said in an emailed statement. "All of that said, once there is a verdict in this case, we'll see where that takes us."

CBC News has not yet received a response to a request for comment from Choudhury. But according to an article published yesterday in the New York Times, Choudhury's lawyers said they had not yet been formally served with the lawsuit.

Lawler's lawyer Mary Shea Hagebols is also representing five other women who filed lawsuits in 2013 and 2014 against Choudhury for alleged sexual harassment and sexual assault.

According to a statement posted on the Bikram Yoga website dated April 2014, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office has looked into the prior allegations and decided against pursuing criminal investigations of Choudhury at that time.

The New York Times article also said Choudhury's lawyers issued a statement saying Choudhury "did not sexually assault any of the plaintiffs” and that the women were “unjustly” exploiting the legal system for financial gain.

Choudhury is known for developing and copyrighting a sequence of 26 yoga postures which are normally performed in a room heated to 40 C. His chain of 650 yoga studios around the world have made the Beverley Hills resident a multimillionaire.