Second Aussie man charged over rape of
2-year-old girl in Tennant Creek
The Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek with a population of just under 3000. Violence is rampant in the town. Photo / GettyThe Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek with a population of just under 3000. Violence is rampant in the town. Photo / Getty
news.com.au
By: Megan Palin
A second person has been charged over the rape of a 2-year-old girl in Tennant Creek earlier this year.
The accused 25-year-old man was yesterday charged with sexual intercourse without consent relating to the incident on February 15, according to Northern Territory Police. It comes after a 24-year-old man was also charged with the same offence, in relation to the same incident, in February.
An independent report by NT Children's Commissioner Colleen Gwynne into the alleged rape of the little girl found she suffered "significant and painful" injuries and required a blood transfusion. After the alleged rape, the child was medically evacuated to Alice Springs before being transferred to Adelaide Women and Children's hospital the next day.
The heavily redacted version of the 102-page report, tabled in Parliament earlier this month, revealed harm was a foreseeable risk that could have been managed or mitigated.
The NT Children's Commissioner report found there had been 35 domestic violence incidents recorded against the parents, including eight aggravated assault convictions for one of them, and more than 150 recorded interactions with police.
The toddler and her four siblings had been the subject of 16 years of investigations into physical and sexual abuse and neglect, in the lead-up to the alleged rape.
The girl, who is now 3 years old, and one of her siblings were removed from their mother's care by the Department of Child Protection South Australia on April 5.
Fifty-two child protection notifications relating to the child or her siblings were documented between 2002 and 2018, according to the report.
Police "had also conducted investigations in relation to sexual and physical abuse upon her siblings" prior to the alleged sexual assault.
"Prior to the birth of C1 [the child], Territory Families had available to it an abundance of evidence relating to the substantial neglect and numerous harms suffered by all of her older siblings," the report read.
"This included the fact that they themselves sought safety and regularly self-placed with different extended family to avoid return to the care of P1 [a parent].
"All possible harm types have been identified for these children", including exposure to domestic violence and parental substance abuse, lack of education, neglect, emotional harm, physical harm and sexual abuse.
During the time 52 child protection notifications had been recorded, the NT had gone through two major child protection reports, the royal commission into youth detention and child protection and the federal intervention.
One of the notifications — received just four months before the alleged rape — related to one of the girl's sisters and alleged a man aged between 40 and 50 was "buying young girls clothes and taking them to a hotel room".
"This investigation has identified that agencies and service providers continue to work in silos to the detriment of the safety and wellbeing of children," the report said.
In its response to Ms Gwynne's report, Territory Families wrote it "refutes the finding that 'it was foreseeable that (the girl) was at risk of sexual assault'".
In a shocking admission, Territory Families claimed the risk faced by the little girl before the alleged rape was "not dissimilar" to many other open child protection investigations.
If the approach suggested in the report was used that would result in more kids being taken from their families, it said.
In February, Territory Families reported "no specific concerns that came to Territory Families about particular harm to this child of a sexual nature".
The 25-year-old man charged today over the alleged assault has been remanded in custody to face court on July 26.
"Sex Crime Detectives are carrying out an ongoing investigation into the incident," an NT Police statement read.
Sexual abuse against children is increasing in Turkey
The number of child abuse victims in Turkey has increased 33 percent in the last four years and increased human trafficking has led to a rise in child prostitution according to a recent study on child abuse, Milliyet newspaper reported on Sunday.
More than 21,000 children were referred to Child Monitoring Centers in Turkey between January 2011 and May 2016, 85 percent of them girls. According to the report, prepared by Oğuz Polat from Acıbadem University, between 2016 - 2017 2,487 female and 124 male children aged under 11 were victims of sexual violence. Among older children, aged between 12 and 14, abuse victims numbered 3,688 girls and 563 boys.
Polat told Milliyet that Syrian refugee girls were being sold to older man in return for a dowry. “In Turkey, human trafficking and consequently child abductions and child prostitution have been increasing. The data on child abuse is quite limited. There is no data available for some cases,” Polat said.
He added that organised human trafficking was one of those cases and as a result it was difficult to access data on Syrian child abuse victims.
In January 2018, news reports on child pregnancies sparked outrage, largely reflected in social media, in Turkey. According to reports, 115 girls, including 39 from Syria were treated in a single hospital in Istanbul in less than five months.
Scottish paedophile downloaded horrific child porn and animal sadism images
Graham Murray, 33, searched for images of pre-teens and bestiality on the internet, Ayr Sheriff Court heard.
By Sarah Hilley
A paedophile downloaded child sex abuse images and files featuring animals.
Graham Murray, 33, searched for images of pre-teens and bestiality on the internet, Ayr Sheriff Court heard.
Murray smiled as he left court despite being added to the sex offenders’ register in the dock.
Police raided his home in Church Court, Ayr, and seized computers as part of an investigation.
Officers found horrific child porn and depraved images depicting animal sadism among a stash of 2,067 indecent files.
Murray possessed three images of animal sadism in the most serious A category. They involved animals being hurt for sexual pleasure.
A total of 1,682 images were unique.
Depute fiscal Jason Bell said cybercrime experts discovered Murray had searched for bestiality and pre-teen youngsters as he binged on abusive images. Mr Bell said pictures showed “extreme pornography”.
The content was found on two hard drives and two computers seized from his home in 2015. After the seizure, Murray was taken to a police station and replied ‘no comment’ to every question put to him.
Sheriff Desmond Leslie ordered the preparation of a criminal justice social work report to find out more about his background.
The sheriff told Murray: “You are registered as a sex offender on an interim basis.”
He is due back in court next month for sentencing and was released on bail.
The 33-year-old pled guilty to possessing indecent photographs of children between January 11, 2011 and March 15, 2015.
He admitted possessing extreme pornographic images between March 2011 and March 2015 showing sexual activity with animals.
The door-knock that brought back years of abuse
One Survivor's Story
By Andrew Bomford
Mark's first day at Grafton Close, a council-run children's home, was in December 1980
A knock on the door by two detectives changed everything for Mark, bringing back the horrors of sexual abuse he had suffered as a child. Like other survivors of child abuse, he says he found it hard to get any support afterwards.
The black and white photo of Mark was taken in December 1980 on his first day at Grafton Close, a council-run children's home in south-west London. Weighing just 5st 8lb (78 lbs) and measuring just 5ft 2in tall, he looks younger than his 14 years. His young life was already troubled and it was about to get a lot worse.
Now, 38 years later, Mark is still dealing with the consequences.
"When I was a kid, I was as kind-hearted a child as you can possibly imagine," he says. "What happened to that child is so horrendously wrong, and it's horrendously wrong that it should just be allowed to continue."
Mark was sexually abused by a manager at the children's home. Other children were abused there too and some were taken elsewhere to be abused.
Although he was small and vulnerable, Mark was a very bright and articulate boy, who managed to cope by outsmarting people. "I used language as a weapon," he says.
He had few qualifications but in his 20s and 30s made a successful career for himself working in commercial radio sales.
He explains his coping strategy as managing to lock away his terrible childhood traumas in a box marked: "Do not open ever." But it all came crashing to a halt in January 2013 when the police came knocking on his door.
As Mark re-lived the traumatic events of his youth, he became very anxious and suffered panic attacks
At the time, the UK was going through a collective panic over child abuse.
It was not long after the revelations about Jimmy Savile, and the police were investigating a series of allegations about high-profile paedophiles operating in Westminster during the 1970s and 1980s.
The visit, by two officers from the Metropolitan Police, to Mark's house in the Manchester area came out of the blue. During the visit - and in a subsequent formal interview - they asked about the abuse he suffered.
Mark said his carefully constructed mental box was now in ruins - its dark secrets scattered over the floor for everyone to see. He says the police left him to deal with the consequences, and offered no support.
"I went through 18 months to two years of deep, deep depression," he says. "It's like you're gradually walking through a tunnel, and your friends become further away - they visit less.
"You've got a choice - a choice to either fight to get back to the light, or let it drift away. I fought to get back to the light."
Mark says he suffered from suicidal thoughts, and became very anxious. He suffered panic attacks in public places, and was terrified of people even walking past his front door.
Shortly after the police visit he discovered to his horror that someone had posted the names of a list of child abuse victims online, and that his name was listed among them. Another post described him wrongly as a "rent boy".
Mark became embroiled in a long battle with the police to get them to force the websites to remove the postings, but the police failed to act. He eventually managed to get them removed himself.
The man who abused him was charged with sexual offences, but he died shortly before the case came to court. Mark would have been a victim and witness at the trial but never got his day in court.
Clinical psychologist Vanesssa Fay says she helped Mark work through some "very self-critical beliefs"
He has recently completed a 24-week course of Cognitive Analytic Therapy, delivered by clinical psychologist Vanessa Fay, of the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.
"That knock on the door from the police changed everything for Mark. He couldn't push it down anymore, and how painful it is. He wasn't aware of how complicated and nuanced that impact can be on relationships, and how he related to himself," she says.
Mark has been diagnosed as suffering from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), also known as Complex Trauma. He says he managed to access a course of treatment only after a relentless struggle with his GP for support.
Complex Trauma is poorly understood, rarely recognised, and few psychologists are trained to treat it. The condition is not even officially recognised but is expected to be included as a distinct category of PTSD in an international classification system known as ICD-11, published by the World Health Organization.
Bryony Farrant, chief psychologist to the independent Child Abuse Inquiry, said official recognition will make a big difference to survivors of abuse and therapists.
"It would mean professionals will need to be trained and have an understanding of complex trauma - what it looks like, what causes it, and identified treatments and support. But for victims and survivors it would be particularly important because often with the abuse they have experienced, part of it is about secrecy, about that person being silenced, and disempowered."
Mark blames the police for "re-traumatising" him and failing to offer support. He is most upset with their failure to deal with the online postings naming him publicly as a child abuse victim.
He made a series of complaints to the police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and the Metropolitan Police eventually apologised. They admitted their systems were at fault and he should have had more support. But they said no individual officer was at fault and there was no police misconduct.
The Met said in a statement to the BBC that officers are trained to be sensitive to victims, and they are directed to support agencies.
11 million survivors in the UK
Napac - the National Association for People Abused in Childhood - says there are more than 11 million adult survivors of child abuse in the UK, and they deserve much better specialist support.
Research by the NSPCC in 2011 found that 25% of 18-24 year olds suffered severe maltreatment including sexual abuse as children.
Mark Samaru believes his therapy has helped him process the ordeal he went through. He is also very aware that most survivors get nowhere near the support he has fought to get.
"It's a measure of our society how we treat the most vulnerable," he says. "Nobody who's been abused in childhood deserves it, and yet they all deserve as much support as society can give them. And they're not getting it."
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