UK defense secretary Fallon resigns
- BBC political editor on Twitter
Britain's Secretary of State for Defence Sir Michael Fallon © Hannah McKay / Reuters
Michael Fallon has quit as Britain’s defence secretary, according to the BBC. He has admitted his behavior in the past may have “fallen short,” it has been reported.
His resignation comes amid the Westminster ‘sex pest’ scandal, which has seen a number of MPs accused of inappropriate behavior.
Fallon admitted earlier to inappropriately touching a female journalist. He insisted that he apologized over the incident 15 years ago, however, and that he and the journalist considered the matter closed.
FILE PHOTO: A Group Four security officer patrols the corridors of the Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre © Russell Boyce / Reuters
Women who have been raped and sexually assaulted are still being routinely locked up in detention centers. That is despite the government’s policy explicitly forbidding authorities to do so.
A women’s refugee organization found severely traumatized victims are still being detained in the Yarl’s Wood immigration detention center for indefinite periods.
The detention is in breach of new guidelines introduced by the government back in September 2016 by which “adults at risk” should be spared detention, including victims “of sexual or gender based violence, including female genital mutilation".
Yet research by Women for Refugee Women published on Wednesday found that of 26 women who had been held in detention, 22 had been victims of sexual or gender-based assault, while 23 were found to have been detained for more than a month.
The research found all women were depressed following the detention, and that almost half had had suicidal instincts, with two actually making the attempt. More than 1,500 female asylum seekers were being held at the detention center with no knowledge of when they would be released.
In one case, Valerie (not her real name), who sought asylum in the UK after being beaten and forced into prostitution by her husband, was detained at Yarl’s Wood for six months despite the Home Office being aware that she was a victim of gender-violence.
Recalling her experience in the detention center, she said: “It's a confined space and I was afraid of being in a confined space. I was suicidal, I was depressed and it was very traumatic. I wasn't sleeping - I was having flashbacks because of the memories that happened to me in that room. I felt like I was caged in again.”
She added that people routinely checked on her at the center as they knew she was suicidal, yet they failed to release her. She was eventually released in August 2017 to continue with her asylum claim.
Detention has been widely criticized amid claims that other countries which resort to alternative methods are equally effective in staying in touch with asylum seekers and controlling immigration. According to the new report, up to 85 percent of women being held behind bars were released back into the community to continue their asylum applications, compared to 15 percent who were removed from the UK.
Natasha Walter, founder of Women for Refugee Women, said she had hoped the Home Office would put into practice the new detention guidelines for vulnerable people. Saying the findings of the research were “hugely disappointing,” Walter added:
“Detention is traumatic for individual women, and it is also unnecessary, expensive and inefficient.
“We need to move away from detention and build a fair asylum process in which cases are heard and resolved while refugees are living in the community, so that they are able to start rebuilding their lives,” she said, according to the Guardian.
2 men get 15-year prison terms for child sex abuse
By Ferdie De La Torre Saipan TribuneNorthern Marianas Islands - A man who sexually abused a 6-year-old girl was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison, while another man met the same fate last Friday for sexually abusing a 7-year-old girl.
Superior Court Presiding Judge Roberto C. Naraja sentenced 43-year-old Joseph Mar Katmag Tuesday to 20 years imprisonment, all suspended except for 15 years, for sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree.
On Friday, Naraja sentenced 33-year-old Nathan Iano Narcis to 15 years and six months imprisonment, all suspended except for 15 years, with the possibility of parole, for sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree.
Katmag was ordered to spend the 15 years without the possibility of parole; he was given credit for time served. After completing the prison term, he will be placed on 10 years of probation.
Narcis was given credit for time served. After completing the prison term, he will be placed on 10 years of probation.
Katmag and Narcis were required to pay all court costs and fees and register in the CNMI Sex Offender Registry, among other conditions, during their probation.
Katmag pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree, while Narcis pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree. As part of the plea deals, the Office of the Attorney General dropped the remaining charges against the two.
Katmag sexually abused a 6-year-old girl between Dec 1, 2016, and May 27, 2017, on Saipan.
Narcis sexually abused a 7-year-old girl on May 21, 2016, on Rota.
Assistant attorney general Teri C. Tenorio noted that Narcis is a known sexual predator and a registered sex offender.
In this case, the prosecutor said Narcis sexually abused the girl twice. If the court sentences Narcis harshly, it will send a message to all sex offenders and deter other potential predators, Tenorio said.
Assistant public defender Shoshanah Epstein, counsel for Narcis, recommended a five-year prison term and 10 years of probation.
Epstein said Narcis is a young man who was addicted to both oxycodone and methamphetamine at the time of the incident. Epstein said on the day of the incident, the defendant had smoked “ice,” taken multiple oxycodone pills, and smoked marijuana.
To reduce any chance of future criminal behavior, Narcis anticipates living alone on family land as a farmer, she said. “He plans to avoid the villages entirely to the extent possible, to grow his own food, and to live a simple and sustainable life off the grid and away from society,” Epstein said.
Katmag was arrested in May 2017 after the Division of Youth Services staff received an anonymous call that he sexually abused a 6-year-old girl.
Rota police arrested Narcis on May 21, 2016, after the girl’s mother filed a complaint of child molestation against Narcis. The mother learned of the incident after the girl told her that Lizama touched her privates.
Narcis is a registered sex offender. He was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree in 2008. As a sex offender, Narcis is prohibited to be anywhere with minors. At the time he was arrested, Narcis was employed as a community worker at the Rota Municipal Council.
Derby child sex abuse claims 'swept under carpet' with £5K council payoff, social worker's trial told
A social worker “abused his position of trust” to indecently assault “vulnerable” underage girls at a Derby children’s care home, a court has heard.
But, when allegations of sexual impropriety began to surface against Andrew Wilson, they were “swept under the carpet” by Derbyshire County Council who paid him £5,000 to leave, a jury at Derby Crown Court has been told.
Wilson, 62, faces eight charges of indecent assault of children under the age of 16 relating to three girls who were all at Moorfields Children’s Centre, in Sinfin, in the 1970s and 1980s.
They include him touching and kissing their breasts and, in one case, engaging in sexual activity “five or six times”. He denies all of the charges.
Sarah Knight, opening the case, said: “The prosecution’s case is that they are his victims. He abused his position of authority and trust as he dallied with them in a sexual way. “They were all vulnerable young girls on care and in their early teens, ill equipped to deal with someone like Andrew Wilson in his mistreatment of them.
“In 1994, the council commenced disciplinary proceedings against Andrew Wilson and that was because of complaints of sexual interference by several young girls.
“That investigation by the council resulted in a compromise agreement being reached in which he was required to leave the council’s employment by tendering his resignation and receiving a financial pay out of £5,000 to do so.
“His sexual problem was effectively swept under the carpet. The culture then was different to today.”
Miss Knight told the jury of eight men and two women how Wilson, now of Baslow Road, Bakewell, worked as a social worker at Moorfields, in Sinfin Lane, between 1976 and 1984. He then moved on to work at Queensferry Children’s Home, also in Derby, between 1984 and 1989.
She said three former children at Moorfields have now come forward with the allegations against him. The first was aged 12 and 13 when the alleged abuse happened.
Miss Knight said: “She has told the police how the defendant would tickle her and, in the course of doing that, it would turn into an opportunity to grab her and touch her breasts despite her telling him not to. “He was canny, she said, and would make it look like he was play fighting but it was a cover for what he was actually doing.”
Moorfields Children's Centre, in Sinfin Lane, Sinfin (Image: Northcliffe Media)
Miss Knight said the second complainant was at Moorfields between while aged 13 to 14 and she alleges she was indecently assaulted by Wilson there.
She said: “He came into her bedroom, she was already in bed, he lowered the bed covers and caressed her breast and kissed it, she felt shocked and lay still, she simply did not know what to do.”
Miss Knight said the third woman who has come forward said she was at the home when she was aged 13 or 14. She said: “Her memories of the defendant involved him coming into her bedroom when he was on night duty.
“He sat next to her on the bed and started to touch her stomach and her breasts. He then had one hand down the top of her nightie touching her breasts.
Miss Knight said he then made her perform a sex act on him and that he “took advantage of her in this way five or six times” although it “never developed into full sexual intercourse”.
She said the women came forward independently from 2014 to speak to the police about what they claim happened to them at Wilson's hands.
Wilson was interviewed a number of times and, on each occasion, he “maintained a complete denial of their allegations”. Miss Knight said: “He said there would be little opportunity to have contact with girls as he worked on the boys unit.
“He told the police he later reached a confidential agreement with the local authority through his solicitor. He reiterated he was not sexually attracted to girls and he denies the allegations.
“The prosecutions say it was an unhealthy culture that Andrew Wilson enjoyed at the time. Things that should not have been tolerated were clearly overlooked and impropriety was swept under the carpet.”
The trial, which is expected to last two weeks, continues.
Sinfin, Derby, UK
Ex-serviceman jailed for 11 years for sexual abuse at a Kingsley children's home
A FORMER serviceman has been jailed for 11 years for sexually abusing two girls and a boy in the 1970s when they lived at a children's home in Kingsley.
David Royle, 60, of Bracken Court, Harworth, Doncaster, who served in both the Royal Navy and RAF, had denied 18 charges against him including three of rape against one of the girls while they all lived at Newton Hall in Frodsham.
But a jury at Chester Crown Court convicted him on all counts apart from rape following a trial in August this year. Sentencing on Friday, October 27, Judge Roger Dutton said Royle had been convicted “quite rightly on the strength of the evidence”.
He also praised the courage of the three victims for speaking out about the abuse they suffered, and for the heartfelt statements they gave to the court following the trial. “No one who heard their evidence could fail to be moved by the measured testimonies given by each,” the judge said. “This whole experience is raw, even after 40 years.”
He told Royle: “Their whole lives have been impacted by your behaviour. They have lived with what happened to them on a weekly and daily basis ever since. It has truly and substantially had a psychological impact of enormous proportions on each. The impact for them has been dreadful.”
The three victims – who cannot be identified for legal reasons - were said to be between nine and 14 at the time of the offences. Royle was aged between 14 and 16.
Over the course of the trial, the two women told the jury the defendant would sneak into their bedroom after lights-out and abuse them. This happened three to four times a week for two years. The male complainant said Royle used to climb into his bed late at night or early in the morning to molest him.
Two of the victims also told jurors that sexual, physical and psychological abuse by older children and staff members was widespread at the home.
Victims did not speak out due to the fear of repercussions from staff if the National Children's Home organisation (NCH) was “brought into disrepute”.
The judge said: “The victims were clearly frightened about saying anything to anybody. The fear of being disbelieved or disciplined for making any complaint was all too evident.”
Royle's offending emerged after one of the girls – now an adult - got in touch with the male complainant via Facebook between 2014 and 2016 and discovered the defendant had subjected him to a similar ordeal.
Reading her victim impact statement in person via video-link, the first victim said the ordeal had left her feeling “dirty, repulsive and ashamed”. She also has regular flashbacks of the abuse. “I now know that holding such a secret is something that, as a child, I should not have been expected to do,” she said.
The second female victim said in her statement: “This man has had a life getting away with what he has done and I hope this has finally caught up with him and he takes responsibility for his actions.”
The male victim stated that he felt “ashamed and embarrassed” by the abuse he suffered, which led him to contemplate suicide as a teenager. “I lived in fear of David but there was no one I could tell or speak to,” he said.
Edward Moss, defending, stressed that Royle had lived a blemish-free life with no convictions until now. “This is a man who served his country in two separate armed forces,” he said. “He has worked all his life.”
In the 1980s Royle had completed a 3,000 mile sponsored cycle ride in aid of NCH, now known as Action For Children. “This is a man who offended through immaturity,” Mr Moss added.
Royle was handed three consecutive prison sentences relating to each of his victims – two of four years and one of three.
Labour MP says she asked Theresa May to act over sex abuse three times
Rob Waugh for Metro.co.uk
Labour’s Lisa Nandy said today that she had asked Theresa May to act three times over reports that party whips were hushing up reports of abuse.
Nandy said that she had reported several cases in which whips were using reports of abuse to ‘control’ MPs, rather than dealing with the issues.
Nandy said at Prime Minister’s Question Time, she said, ‘Three years ago I brought evidence to her in this House that whips had used information about sexual abuse to demand loyalty from MPs. ‘I warned her at the time that unless real action was taken, we risked repeating those injustices again today. ‘On three occasions I asked her to act, and on three occasions she did not.’
Mrs May said whips’ offices should ‘make clear to people that where there are any sexual abuse allegations that could be of a criminal nature that people should go to the police’.
A senior Downing Street source said at least one of Ms Nandy’s questions appeared to refer to an alleged assault on a child in the 1970s.
Nandy had been seeking reassurance from Mrs May that the inquiry into child sexual abuse would be able to look into allegations relating to information held by whips.
Obviously, she didn't get it!
Plymouth paedophile jailed for decade of child abuse
A child abuser has been jailed for eight years after his brave victim told a judge how he had condemned her to a lifetime of loneliness and self doubt.
David Peters sexually assaulted the girl repeatedly for more than a decade, including touching her under her costume in the deep end of a public swimming baths in Plymouth.
His repeated assaults during the 1980s and 1990s robbed her of a normal childhood and left her with anxiety, depression, isolation and misplaced guilt.
She sobbed, gasped for breath, and stumbled over her words as she read out a heart-rending victim personal statement from the witness box at Exeter Crown Court.
She said: "I came to hate the sheer sight of him. It has continued to affect me in later life. I just wanted a normal life. I have always felt on edge, anxious and sick when all I craved was normality.
"I have had mood swings and struggled with relationships. I have felt unable to plan for the future. I have felt lonely for as long as I can remember. I have always had to carry my secret around with me. As a result of the abuse, I have no self confidence. It took years to find the courage to go to the police."
Peters, aged 62, of Austin Avenue, North Prospect, denied but was convicted of four counts of gross indecency and eight of indecent assault at a trial in Plymouth (2nd story on link). He was jailed for eight years and ordered to remain on the sex offenders' register for life by Judge Mrs Justice May, sitting at Exeter Crown Court.
She told him: "This was casual violence and random and repeated abuse of a young girl over at least ten years. You did it in ways which were cruel and diminished her. You humiliated and put her down.
"To her enormous credit, she has found the courage to come forward. She spoke about how she was diminished and emotionally impoverished by your abuse and with a longing for a normal life. She spoke about how her terrible secret and the intense feelings of guilt."
During the trial at Plymouth Crown Court the victim told how Peters had started abusing her when she was about six and gone on abusing her for many years, either touching her or forcing her to touch him. Some of the assaults happened when he took her swimming at the former open air pool in Central Park, Plymouth.
New Zealand man gets five years’ jail for
child abuse collection
A huge collection of child sexual abuse material resulted in a 45-year-old sickness beneficiary being jailed for five years in the Wellington District Court today.
Salman Jabbar Alhisaynawi, of Lower Hutt, pleaded guilty to seven representative charges of making, distributing and possessing child sexual abuse material.
Judge Ian Mill said he was puzzled that, as someone who had suffered the effects of trauma, Alhisaynawi had not recognised the trauma evident in the young victims when he traded the images.
In early 2015 the United States’ National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children referred to Internal Affairs six cybertipline complaints about a New Zealander uploading objectionable material to cloud storage accounts.
The collection is the largest the Department has encountered. An examination showed Alhisaynawi’s computer and storage equipment contained 222,704 images and 10,340 movies, of child sexual abuse.
Most involved preteen children including toddlers and babies. He also had a paedophile’s handbook, several hundred images of computer generated child sexual abuse, and pictures and movies of adult objectionable material. He had over 17 different cloud storage accounts.
The electronic handbook described methods and techniques for pursuing children for sexual gratification and how to avoid being caught.
Internal Affairs’ Regulatory Services General Manager, Maarten Quivooy, said New Zealand works closely with partner agencies internationally and is highly successful in detecting, tracking down and prosecuting people who create, trade or download images of child sex abuse.
“People who trade and collect such pictures are taking pleasure from the criminal abuse of children, and they incite more abuse to be inflicted,” Mr Quivooy said.
“Any sexual offending against children is disturbing but, by photographing and distributing pictures of the assault, the victim is victimized again and again every time their photo turns up on the internet.
“Offenders need to know that they will be detected and held accountable for their offending, which is not only an offence against children, but an offence against our values as a society.”
You would think so.
Former police puppy walker sentenced for catalogue of historic child sex crimes
A detective constable has praised the memories of trial witnesses after a former police puppy walker was jailed for 21 years for the sickening sexual abuse of two young children.
Michael Bennett, 68, of Fore Street in Tywardreath near St Austell, was sentenced at Truro Crown Court after being convicted over two separate trials of three sexual assaults on a female by penetration, two attempted rapes, one rape and two indecent assaults.
Throughout the most recent trial the court heard details of how, nearly 30 years ago, Bennett raped and sexually abused the first victim, who was aged under ten at the time.
The jury was told how the victim gave an account of four specific incidents that she recalled where she was sexually abused by Bennett, saying that she did not know the things he did were sexual, but felt they were not right.
She described how he lifted her top and pulled her trousers down and his and took a Polaroid photo of them.
The victim, now in her thirties, described Bennett and him showing her a pornographic video on another occasion and, another time, attempting oral sex. She recalls that her father walked nearby and Bennett quickly zipped up his trousers as he did not expect to see him.
The final assault relating to the first victim was concerning a rape involving her being naked and him performed oral sex on her and then having sex with her.
Bennett warned the girl that if she told anyone then she would be locked up and taken away from her parents. She eventually reported the matter to police in 2016.
Unusually in the trial, the prosecution called a witness who had alleged, when she was aged under ten, that she had also been the victim of rape and sexual assault at the hands of the defendant in the late Eighties. Although Bennett was acquitted of these charges in 1998, details of the allegations were shared as part of a bad character application granted by Judge Robert Linford.
The court also heard from the victim’s father, prosecutor Fiona Elder saying that on one particular occasion he went to find his daughter and eventually spotted her with Bennett. The girl’s mother also told of how she once returned from a weekend in Tywardreath and complained of soreness below.
Bennett gave evidence where he admitted that he knew the little girl and did spend time with her but denied that he sexually abused the girl in any way and said the claims were all fabrication.
The charges relating to the first victim in time were counts of rape and two indecent assaults.
Judge Linford also sentenced him for two attempted rapes and three sexual assaults on a female by penetration, of which he was convicted at a trial in the summer.
The crimes detailed in the earlier trial also took place in the St Austell area, this time between 2009 and 2013.
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