6 men arrested for historical child sex abuse - UK
Illinois man arrested for CSA and Solicitation - USA
Prosecutors seeking jail term for Penn State's Spanier - USA
Welsh man jailed for 16 counts of historical CSA - UK
Arkansas truck driver gets life for CSA on foster kids - USA
Six men arrested over historical
child sex abuse
Six men have been arrested on suspicion of historical child sex abuse.
A 38-year-old man was the latest person to be arrested by police today (1st June).
It's part of an inquiry being held by the detectives investigating the death of teenager Charlene Downes.
Officers are still looking to find Charlene's body
The man from HMP Preston is the sixth man arrested on suspicion of a series of historical rapes in 2003 and 2004 against a 15-year-old girl.
Five other men from Blackburn, aged 33, 36, 37, 42 and 45, were also arrested on suspicion of historical rapes.
The 37-year-old has been released without charge while the others have been released under investigation.
Meanwhile, Michael Allen McKenzie from Blackpool has been charged with the rape and two penetrative indecent assaults of a girl under 16 as part of a separate enquiry.
The 68-year-old allegedly committed the offences in 2003 and involved a girl who was 14-years-old at the time.
The arrests and charges have been made by the team looking into the disappearance and murder of Charlene Downs in 2003.
Officers offered a £100,000 reward for information that would lead to the killer or killers' conviction or the recovery of her body.
But nobody has ever been brought to justice.
Orient man arrested on charges of child
sexual abuse and solicitation
Isaac Smith
An Orient, IL man was arrested this week on charges of sexual abuse and solicitation of a child.
According to a news release from the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, Austin Berkley, 24, was arrested around 3 p.m. Wednesday by Franklin County deputies.
Berkley was arrested at his home on a warrant alleging the crimes of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child and indecent solicitation of a child. The victim is a 15-year-old high school student, according to the news release. According to Judici, Berkley is charged with six counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child older than 5 and four counts of indecent solicitation.
Berkley is being held in the Franklin County Jail on $80,000 bond and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing at 1:30 p.m. June 21 at the Franklin County Courthouse in Benton.
The news release said this arrest is a part of an ongoing investigation and that more arrests and charges are possible.
Orient, Illinois
Prosecutors seek jail time for ex-Penn State president in Sandusky child sex abuse scandal
by MARC LEVY/Associated Press
This file combination photo shows former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz, left, former Penn State Director of Athletics Tim Curley, right, and former Penn State President Graham Spanier, center, in Harrisburg, Pa. Curley and Schultz each pleaded guilty Monday, March 13, 2017, to a misdemeanor child endangerment charge for his role in the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case, more than five years after the scandal broke. (AP Photos/File)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Prosecutors want a judge to jail former Penn State President Graham Spanier for his conviction in hushing up suspected child sex abuse in 2001 by Jerry Sandusky, saying he could have prevented other boys from being victimized by the former assistant football coach.
In a court filing unsealed Thursday, the Pennsylvania attorney general's office also assailed two one-time Penn State administrators for their testimony in Spanier's March trial after they pleaded guilty in the case.
Sentencing for all three men is Friday in Dauphin County court.
Prosecutors said state sentencing guidelines indicate that Spanier should get up to a year in jail for his child endangerment conviction.
"The child who was assaulted in the February 2001 shower incident and all of Sandusky's victims that followed were particularly harmed as timely, appropriate action against Sandusky could have prevented their victimization," prosecutors wrote in the 14-page sentencing memorandum. "Their lives have been turned upside down."
They also say that, to this day, the identity of the boy seen in the shower with Sandusky "is still in question" in part because Spanier and the other two men -- ex-athletic director Tim Curley and ex-vice president Gary Schultz -- did not alert authorities.
Curley and Schultz each pleaded guilty to child endangerment.
Spanier's four-day trial revolved around a complaint by a graduate coaching assistant, Mike McQueary, who has testified that he told Penn State officials -- including the late football coach Joe Paterno -- about seeing Sandusky sexually molesting a boy in a team shower in 2001.
Sandusky was not arrested until 2011, after an anonymous tip led prosecutors to investigate. Sandusky was convicted the next year of sexually abusing 10 boys and is serving 30 to 60 years in prison. At least four victims at Sandusky's trial said they were molested after 2001.
Curley, Schultz and Spanier denied they were told the encounter in the shower was sexual in nature.
It wasn't the first time the men had heard a complaint about Sandusky. Prosecutors cited a 1998 complaint against Sandusky over his showering with a boy on campus that led to a campus police investigation, but no charges. Sandusky admitted hugging the youngster in the shower, and promised never to shower with a boy again.
In a separate filing, Spanier's lawyer said the 68-year-old is suffering from prostate cancer and heart problems, and asked for probation and community service.
"Graham Spanier has already suffered severely through public shaming, loss of employment, and significant reputational harm," Spanier's lawyers wrote. "He is almost seventy years old and in worsening health."
Prosecutors said they had agreed not to recommend sentences for Curley and Schultz. But, in the filing, they wrote that Curley's forgetfulness during his testimony in Spanier's trial wasn't credible, and that his memory was "markedly more clear" in his private statement to investigators a week before he testified.
"The commonwealth's position is that Curley's testimony in the Spanier trial was designed to protect those who deserved to share blame with Curley for the decisions that led to the colossal failure to protect children from Sandusky," prosecutors wrote. "His `forgetfulness' also allowed him to save face in a room full of supporters who publicly called this trial a `witch hunt' and fraudulent prosecution."
Prosecutors also attacked Schultz, saying it defied common sense that he seemed unwilling to acknowledge the sexual nature of what McQueary reported, given what Schultz knew about the 1998 incident.
Paterno was never charged with a crime. He was dismissed as coach days after Sandusky was charged and died of cancer in 2012 at age 85.
Fishguard man jailed for historical child sex abuse
From BBC South West Wales
A 45-year-old man from Pembrokeshire has been been jailed for historical sex offences against a child.
Brian Buckle of Fishguard was convicted of child sex abuse in the 1990s, when his victim was aged between eight and 10-years-old.
Swansea Crown Court sentenced him to a combined 33 years in prison, to be served over a 15 year period.
He was found guilty of 16 counts of non-recent sexual abuse against a child.
Dyfed-Powys Police Det Insp Richard Yelland said the sentence recognised "long-lasting harm" to the victim.
He added: "This is the second case for the force, in recent weeks, where a significant custodial sentence has been passed down to a perpetrator of non-recent sexual offending."
Fishguard, Wales
Van Buren man sentenced to life for child sex-abuse
A judge on Wednesday sentenced Clarence Garretson to life in prison for sexually abusing children
By John Lovett / Times Record
Clarence C. Garretson will spend the rest of his life in federal prison for a series of sexual abuse crimes committed on children under this care as a foster parent for the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
Chief Judge P.K. Holmes III imposed the life sentence on Garretson, 66, Wednesday in the U.S. District Court of Western Arkansas for his conviction on one count of transporting a minor in interstate commerce with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
Garretson was also sentenced to a term of 15 years imprisonment each on four counts of transporting minors in interstate commerce with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, with those terms to run concurrently with the life sentence.
More than 45 people attended the sentencing of the Van Buren man who pleaded guilty in October to five of the 11 sexual abuse charges that occurred over the course of nearly two decades. With a “rider waiver” from C&T Trucking Co. in Van Buren so a minor could accompany him on a trip Garretson took a 10-year-old girl in 2014 on a trip and raped her, according to court documents.
“What occurred was under the guise of being a foster parent and adoptive parent he committed torture and sexual assault when the children were looking for a place of safety,” Holmes said. “It was an extreme failure on DHS’s part and further victimized the children with the most horrific criminal acts.”
Holmes said he recognized the difficulty for DHS in dealing with deception, but pointed out a female victim had told DHS on three occasions she had been sexually abused beginning when she was 11.
Several of Garretson’s victims, both adopted children and former foster children, read impact statements at the sentencing hearing Wednesday. Each voiced their contempt for Garretson’s use of intimidation to control them and the psychological repercussions they continue to experience as a result of the abuse: Anxiety, lack of self-esteem, nightmares, alcohol and drug abuse, trust issues with males or authority figures and fear of people in general.
“It’s a hurt you can never forget,” a female victim said.
One of Garretson’s victims said he had threatened to kill her younger brother if she exposed the sexual abuse.
“I felt lost, confused, alone, bullied, mad, sad, angry,” a woman who had been abused by Garretson said. “The truth is Arkansas DHS put me in the hands of a monster. Nothing can be done to change that, but he can rot in a federal prison for the rest of his life. There is no excuse to abuse a child.”
A male victim adopted by the Garretsons said in his statement that the investigation into his adoptive parents exposed them as “hypocrites” and he is regaining his self-confidence through therapy.
“Don’t let this dictate your life,” he said to the other sexual abuse victims. “This is the beginning of a new life.”
Concerning the defendant’s wife, the judge said “if she didn’t know she should have. ... It’s such a sad case.”
In 1998, Garretson and his wife were approved by DHS to operate a foster home and later to become an adoptive home.
The FBI special agent learned DHS had received a report in 2002 from a foster child then living in the home that she had been sexually assaulted by Garretson. Based on that information, the agent began locating children who had been in foster care at the Garretson residence.
A second minor interviewed in June 2016 was a foster child in the Garretson home from 2000 to 2004, which led to another Class C felony rape charge for Garretson. At the time of the offense, the girl was over 13 years of age but less than 18.
In 1999, a boy and his two older sisters were sent to the Garretson home by DHS. They were legally adopted by the Garretsons in 2001. The boy was 11 in 2001 when he went out on a long-distance trip with Garretson and was sexually assaulted. This happened on multiple trips during summer vacation from school in 2002 and 2003.
Also in 1999, DHS placed a fifth victim and her two siblings in the Garretson home and she remained there until 2004. The minor was interviewed by an FBI special agent in July 2016 and disclosed she was sexually assaulted by Garretson on an over-the-road trip to California during the summer of 2000 when she was 13 years old.
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