Autopsy says death of 13-year-old American girl was due to physical and sexual abuse
SAN PEDRO, Ambergris Caye, Belize
The lifeless body of American, Faye Lin Cannon, a 13-year-old student of San Pedro, was found on her bed in her room by her adoptive parents, who are also Americans, at about 7:30 Monday morning. Police took her to the San Pedro Polyclinic, where she was declared dead on arrival.
The child’s body was then taken to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, where a post-mortem examination was performed this morning. It certified the cause of her death as compression on the chest causing internal hemorrhage and sexual and physical abuse.
Police have detained the girl’s adoptive parents as they investigate her death.
Police said that on Monday morning, they went to the room of the teenager and saw her apparently lifeless body on her bed. According to police, the officers saw bruises on her legs, and a cut wound on the right side of her head. The right side of her head was also swollen.
The girl’s adoptive mother told police that the teenager was mentally challenged. She said that the girl would hit herself and slam her body against the wall, and that for the past three weeks she had refused to eat, or come out of her room.
They said that the girl got up at around 7:00 Monday morning to get some water, and then went back to her room.
Shortly after, at about 7:30, they went to check on her and made the sad discovery.
Initially, the demise of the child was declared by police as a “sudden death.”
Superintendent Henry Jemmott, Commander of San Pedro police, told Amandala tonight that they are treating the death as a murder and will do all they can, to solve the case. He said that even though the autopsy certified that the girl was sexually abused, police will try to find physical evidence to support the allegation.
Jemmott said that they are working closely with their legal advisors and will not anticipate what charges will be brought against the parents until the investigation is concluded.
According to the San Pedro Sun, the young teenager leaves behind three sisters, who have been placed in the care of Human Services, which has been working in collaboration with police and the US Embassy, since the children are U.S citizens.
Jemmott said that a counselor from the U.S Embassy will be taking custody of the children for the duration of the investigation.
Donegal man jailed for eight years for the rape and sexual assault of partners daughter
by News Highland
A Donegal man who raped and sexually assaulted the daughter of his former partner over a period of at least five years has been jailed for eight years.
The 52-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told gardaí he had “no knowledge” or recollection of abusing the child, but that he did not doubt she was telling the truth.
The man was charged with rape, sexual assault and producing child pornography.
The court heard that the abuse took place over a number of years, when the child was aged between 4 and 9 years of age.
The investigating guard told Róisín Lacey SC, prosecuting, that the abuse came to light in 2014 after the girl’s school principal became concerned that she was at risk of self-harm.
The girl, then aged 13, made allegations of repeated sexual abuse by the accused while she had been staying with him.
The man was the former partner of the victim’s mother and also the father of her younger sister whom she stayed overnight with at his home on a regular basis.
On the day of his scheduled trial in April, the man pleaded guilty to having sexually assaulted the child in 2006 at his home, when she was four years old.
He later pleaded guilty to six further counts of sexually assaulting the child when she was aged between four and nine years old on dates between March 2008 and August 2011 and to one count of knowingly producing child pornography for the purpose of distribution, exportation, sale or show on an unknown date between August 2007 and August 2008.
The court heard that a home video recorded by the accused on a camcorder surfaced during a separate and unconnected investigation when gardaí found the video in the man’s house.
The victim told the court that she has no memory of the 30 minute video being filmed.
In her victim impact statement the teenage girl said every area of her life had been affected by the abuse.
The accused’s barrister said that the man told gardaí he had “no knowledge” of having committed the abuse, but that he had “absolutely no doubt” that the victim was telling the truth and that she was honest.
SNAP to Guam church: Stop fighting accusers
in civil courts
Haidee V Eugenio
Hagatna, Guam - The world's largest group of clergy sex abuse survivors said Thursday the only way the Archdiocese of Agana can now make amends is to stop fighting accusers in the civil courts.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP, said making amends now also means cooperating completely with civil authorities, and turning over and making public all evidence of child sex abuse and cover-up in the church's secret personnel files.
Joelle Casteix, volunteer western regional leader for SNAP, was responding to Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes' declaration of the Year of Reparation for the Catholic Church on Guam.
"The laity of the Archdiocese of Agana has already showed tremendous solidarity with victims by standing with them, believing them, praying for them, protesting outside of the cathedral, and demanding transparency and accountability from Archdiocesan leadership and the Vatican," Casteix said in a statement.
Casteix said Byrnes must stop putting the burden of amends on the laity because that burden must sit squarely on the shoulders of church officials and their attorneys.
"Prayers are for those without the immediate power to enact change. Coadjutor Byrnes has the immediate power to enact change in the courts, open files, stop wrongdoing, and hold those who committed or covered up child sex abuse accountable," Casteix wrote.
Byrnes declared a "Year of Reparation" because of the magnitude of clergy sexual abuses and outbreaks of violence, child abuse, drug abuse and the highest divorce rate in the world, among other things, on Guam.
Guam's Catholic Church is facing 82 lawsuits in federal and local courts — 78 of them involving alleged rape and sexual abuse by priests and other clergy.
Outrage after woman, 41, 'got off lightly' for
sex attack on vulnerable boy
By Paul_Greaves
The sentence of a 41-year-old mum jailed for two years for having sex with a 15-year-old boy has started a heated public debate about whether female sex offenders get favourable treatment in the eyes of the law compared with male offenders
Lindsey Taylor, 41, plied her vulnerable victim with drink and drugs before forcing him to have sex with her on the sofa.
He was so traumatised that the next day he disappeared and Taylor had to call his mum to tell her what she had done.
The mum-of-two was given a two year jail sentence at Exeter Crown Court.
The judge said: “You are 42 and in August last year you engaged in sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old boy. He was a child with difficulties, as you knew. However this came about, this was very, very wrong and you must have known that. It happened after you had been drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis with him, and these are obvious aggravating factors.
"What you did caused untold damage. I have read the victim impact statement from the boy's mother and understandably she feels sick about it."
But many reading the story on DevonLive's Facebook page have commented that had Taylor's gender been different she would have received a different charge and a tougher sentence.
Here are a selection of the public comments, all left by other women:
“Why wasn't she charged with rape? If it was a man he would've been.
“I have to agree... sex without consent is rape... he asked her to stop.
“Even adverts on the TV focus on no means no! Whether he was aroused or not, he is a child and said no!!! ...
“I would have killed her had that been my son and had she been a man that would have been rape. A gross act of injustice when you get more than that for not paying your council tax!!!
“She's a rapist and a paedophile
“The headline would have been very different if it was a man who did this. She is a paedophile and what she did was rape!! Disgusting woman grrrrrrrrrrrr!
“This is NOT good enough what she did was disgusting and she deserves much longer there is no excuse for what she did."
Statistics from the Ministry of Justice in 2011 do not throw much light on the matter. The most recent figures do show that men receive on average tougher sentences for almost all types of crimes. Men commit the vast majority of sexual crimes.
Women, unsurprisingly perhaps, are more likely to be victims of sexual crimes and domestic abuse.
Studies and figures in the US and Australia do show that women benefit from a gender bias when sentences are handed out for sex crimes, receiving on average a far shorter jail term than men.
It has been suggested that the history of women being abused by men is given greater weight by judges. The role of women as child carers and low earners is also a likely factor of mitigation. Women are also more likely to self-harm in prison than men.
As for rape, very few women are convicted of the crime in the UK. This is because in principle a woman cannot rape a man due to the way the law is defined. A woman forcing a male to engage in sex is classed as a serious sexual assault.
An NSPCC spokesman for South West England said: “The law clearly states that the age of consent in the UK is 16 years old. Laws are there to protect children and prevent abuse or exploitation from taking place.
“Children under 16 cannot consent to sexual activity, so any adult engaging in such acts is committing a serious crime. Its impact on the victim should not be underestimated.
“This is child sexual exploitation (CSE) – a form of sexual abuse that often involves the manipulation or coercion of young people into sexual activity in exchange for things they may need or want.
“It is a form of abuse which is often misunderstood by victims and outsiders as consensual."
Anyone with concerns about the welfare on a child can call the NSPCC's adult helpline 24 /7 for free, on 0808 800 5000. Help for children and young people is available through ChildLine on 0800 1111.
Church lay reader jailed for sexual abuse
of teenage boy
A LAY reader at a Warwick church who sexually abused a teenage boy in the 1990s was arrested after the offences came to light when his victim made a complaint against another man.
And despite now suffering from serious health conditions, abuser David Palmer was jailed for three years by a judge who also ordered him to register as a sex offender for life.
The 81 year-old of Woodhouse Street, Warwick, had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to four charges of indecent assault and two of gross indecency with a child.
Prosecutor Andrew Wallace said the offences against the boy, who was ‘a vulnerable individual,’ took place in the 1990s, when Palmer was a lay reader at St Paul’s Church.
St Paul's is an Anglican Church, I believe, although its website does not make that obvious.
But they did not come to light until the victim, now in his 40s, went to the police to complain about abuse he suffered as a boy at the hands of someone from another Warwick church.
The man, who had come forward after reading of Alan Baker’s abuse of another teenager, told them of abuse he had also been subjected to by Baker when he was 14 or 15.
As a result Baker, a former assistant verger at St Mary’s Collegiate Church in Warwick, was jailed for two-and-a-half years earlier this year.
But in the course of his interview, he also disclosed that a couple of years later, when he was 17, he had also been sexually abused by Palmer.
“He described the behaviour [of Palmer] as being more overtly abusive than the other person, in terms of the degree of control and manipulation,” said Mr Wallace.
“There was a significant degree of grooming. Palmer informed him he would help him prepare for sexual relationships, saying he wanted to shape him and help him to grow.”
During incidents at two addresses, one in Warwick and the other in Hatton, Palmer touched the boy indecently on a number of occasions, and also got the boy to do the same to him and to perform oral sex on him.
And on one occasion Palmer got the teenager in a position where it seemed he was about have sex with him – but then told him it was to show how he could be at risk of such behaviour.
When Palmer was arrested, he said he did not know if he had had a sexual relationship with the teenager.
But he then claimed the youth had had a crush on him, and that ‘like an idiot’ he had fallen for it, claiming it was the boy who had wanted sexual activity.
Jabeen Akhtar, defending, observed: “These offences took place a very long time ago, when the penalties were far lower than they are now.
“It is clear this man has been in denial for a very long time. He finds it hard to accept what he has done. He just can’t understand why he allowed himself to be in that situation.
“Even he cannot explain what went wrong in his life at that time. His wife had passed away, and he was a very lonely figure, and has been since then. He keeps himself to himself, and has cut his ties to the church.”
Miss Akhtar said Palmer has serious health problems, and has undergone an amputation to his right leg, but has been having difficulties and needs to go back to the amputation clinic.
In addition he has a heart problem and his lungs are not effective, and he is on ‘a huge amount of medication,’ she added, asking the judge to consider a suspended sentence because of the difficulties Palmer would have in prison.
But jailing Palmer, Recorder Anthony Potter told him: “I recognise you are a far from healthy man, and that a prison sentence will be difficult for you to cope with.
“That is significant mitigation in my judgement, and the most significant mitigation is that, years later, you have had the courage to plead guilty.
“While your interview is far from frank, and some of your comments are unpleasant, in seeking to undermine him, in large parts you did admit the activity which took place.
“But your offending is so serious that it demands an immediate custodial sentence.
“You and people like you have continued to have an effect on people who volunteer in religious communities throughout the country, by such behaviour.”
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