Child Sexual Abuse: The Extremely Frustrating Case against Aijaz Sheikh in Kashmir
3rd world judicial system does nothing to protect children from monsters
FB Update: Tired of posting updates about the hearing not taking place. Both of the witnesses, who were going to depose against #AijazSheikh (3rd story on link), were present at the court. However, the judge didn’t show up. Apparently, she had to attend some program on women’s day/issues. This was the 4th hearing in a row that didn’t take place for one or the other reason.
The helplessness we experienced due to this frustrating situation was beyond imagination. Both of us (the witnesses) kept looking at each other without uttering a word. Our expressions were clear, and all we could do was to take a deep breath and feel pity on the judicial system of Kashmir. We complained to our lawyer of an approach made by one of the Sheikh’s accomplices, who wanted to use our phone to make a call. We also noticed, a couple of other people from Sheikh’s side were keeping an eye on us. We didn’t feel safe while leaving the court premises. Thanks to our lawyer, who gave us safe passage by taking us out in his personal car.
If anyone wonders why CSA victims don’t speak up and fight against their abusers, the case against Sheikh is the best example of how law operates in Kashmir and how it discourages victims from coming forward by prolonging the trial for years. All I can say is that the process of attaining justice for CSA survivors in Kashmir is more painful and traumatising than the actual abuse. This is the reason, the majority of rape victims in Kashmir don’t speak up about the abuse and instead try to make peace with their past.
The next hearing of the case has been scheduled for 12th of April 2018.
People - please pray that there will be no obstacles to this hearing and pray for the safety, resolve and courage of those testifying. This monster has to be stopped.
Telford killer faces fresh child sex abuse allegations after girl claimed he groomed her at 14
Azhar Ali Mehmood was caged for life for the murder of Lucy, her sister and mother in a fire – but has never been prosecuted for child sex crimes
By Geraldine McKelvie, Nick Sommerlad
Lucy Lowe died in a horrific arson attack
The killer of Telford schoolgirl Lucy Lowe today faces fresh child sex abuse allegations after a girl claimed he groomed her at 14.
Azhar Ali Mehmood was caged for life for the murder of Lucy, her sister and mother in a fire – but has never been prosecuted for child sex crimes.
He made Lucy pregnant when she was just 14, then killed her two years later by torching her family’s house.
Now another alleged victim has spoken out after the Sunday Mirror revealed up to 1,000 victims could have been abused in the Shropshire town over four decades.
One victim cruelly dubbed “Lady Telford” by sex gangs claims she was just 14 when taxi driver Mehmood – then 10 years older – groomed her, triggering a decade-long abuse ordeal at the hands of dozens of men.
Azhar Ali Mehmood killed Lucy, her sister and mum in fire blitz (Image: Handout)
At 15, she says, Mehmood plied her with alcohol until she agreed to sex.
Lucy’s uncle Ed Lowe said: “I’m stunned. That would have made his crime even more serious and perhaps he wouldn’t have the chance he has now of getting out on parole.
“Police didn’t handle it right. They could have stopped more victims.”
Ed claims he asked West Mercia Police to investigate Mehmood for abusing Lucy in 2000 – and the family now want the case re-opened.
One Survivor's Nightmarish Story
The new allegations come from a woman we are calling Louise to protect her ID.
In grim detail, she told how car loads of men would go to her house demanding sex.
Louise claims some, armed with guns and knives, would kick in her door, saying they had paid for her address – and called her Lady Telford.
Louise, who says police, teachers and her GP knew she was having sex, told the Mirror: “Azi began phoning me when Lucy wasn’t there and eventually I had sex with him. I didn’t really understand what was going on, but soon I felt under pressure to do things with lots of older men."
“I felt young for my age because most girls I knew had been ‘going with Asians’ – as we called it then – since they were about 12. It was only when I was much older that I properly realised I was a victim of abuse.
Victim Becky Watson, 13 (Image: Collect Unknown)
“One girl I knew got with a much older man at 12 and there were rumours he’d been convicted of rape. He tried to set her house on fire.
“Another friend had her first abortion at 12 and a few more before 16.”
Officers investigated Louise’s abuse in 2010 – a decade after she first reported it – and launched Operation Thesis into her claims.
Over 21 days of interviews, Louise recounted 92 incidents of rape and sexual assault. Detectives focused on eight cases involving 16 men where they could back up Louise’s claims with diary entries.
But after she picked out her alleged abusers in ID parades in 2012, Louise suffered threats.
Police dropped the case after the CPS said there was no realistic prospect of a conviction.
Louise, now a mum who lives under witness protection with CCTV cameras and a panic alarm, has obtained her police files and handed them to the Mirror. They confirm Louise’s claim that, eight days after the fire which killed Lucy in 2000, she told police that she and the tragic teen were being abused by Mehmood and other men.
A statement confirms Louise gave officers her phone, which she claims contained names and numbers of 130 men and a string of explicit messages.
She described one balding man with “scary eyes” aged around 40. Louise told officers: “He frightens me... he tells me I’ve got to meet him and his friends or I’m ‘done for’. He knows where I live, rings me and says he knows what I’m wearing and he’s not afraid of my dad.”
Louise also claims she was told by someone linked to the abusers that they are prepared to “make the girls pay” for giving evidence against seven paedophiles convicted under Operation Chalice in 2012. She also alleges Mehmood may not have been acting alone over the fire deaths.
Louise says another Asian man phoned her that night to warn her to “stay away from Lucy and the house”.
Louise knew Becky Watson, who had endured years of abuse and later died in a car accident aged 13.
She also knew Vicky Round, 20, who died in a drugs incident after being hooked on cocaine and heroin by her abusers.
West Mercia’s Assistant Chief Constable Martin Evans said: “We have worked extensively with this victim and carried out investigations both in 2000 and 2010. Counsel decided not to pursue prosecution due to concerns over available evidence."
“I have put in place resources to make sure allegations are subject to a detailed investigation, with a view to ensuring those who carry out horrific crimes can be brought to justice.”
Jerusalem court hears case of convicted child abuser suing for defamation
BY YONAH JEREMY BOB
CHILDREN PARTICIPATE in technology-related activities during Scientists’ Night at the University of Haifa in 2016. (photo credit: Courtesy)
Pac-man? Seriously?
The bizarre and convoluted story of a convicted child abuser suing a public campaigner against pedophilia for defamation opened before the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.
In one corner is the convicted child abuser, and the plaintiff for the purposes of this case, Yona Weinberg, seeking NIS 200,000 in damages.
In the other corner is Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, the defendant, who has campaigned publicly against Weinberg on social media, saying that he presents an ongoing danger to children in his Har Nof neighborhood and urging parents to keep watch.
There is no dispute that Weinberg was convicted of sexual abuse in the second degree in New York in 2009 and that he is registered as a level thee sex offender in the US. Even Weinberg’s lawyer, Eytan Lehman, admitted to The Jerusalem Post that his client, “is no saint.”
However, Weinberg has sued Horowitz for what he says are defamatory, unproven and false allegations and exaggerations both about his conviction and about his conduct after that conviction.
Horowitz maintains that Weinberg has continued to sexually abuse children and is not only a past convict, but a present threat.
On Thursday, Horowitz presented a letter in court from the New York Police Department confirming that Weinberg is wanted for new and open sexual abuse charges and would be arrested if he returns to the US.
The letter also says that Weinberg fled the US to Israel in order to escape arrest for the new allegations.
This seems to be an increasingly more common theme. Israel must do something to stop becoming a haven for paedophiles. It's disgraceful!
But Lehman points out that no complaints have been filed in Israel, and offered a counter-letter from Weinberg’s New York lawyer that says that he met with the police in charge of Weinberg’s file and that they contradicted the letter produced by Horowitz.
Furthermore, Lehman’s lawyer attacked the police letter as not being verified by an Israeli consular official and only by a New York apostille official – a mechanism for verifying international documents in other contexts that is comparable to a notarization in domestic law.
A spokeswoman for Horowitz said that the police letter speaks for itself and proves that Horowitz has been speaking the truth.
She said the entire lawsuit is absurd as Weinberg, the offender, is trying to penalize Horowitz, the man trying to save others from becoming new victims of Weinberg.
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