Two former UK Tory mayors found guilty of child-sex offences in just 48 hours
Two former Tory mayors have been convicted of multiple child-sex offences in just 48 hours. One of them has been found guilty of raping a young girl, while the other admitted to over 20 counts of child abuse.
Former mayor of the Welsh county town of Pembroke, David Boswell, 57, was found guilty of rape (6th story on link) and three other indecent assaults against two girls at Swansea Crown Court on Monday.
The jury heard that he raped a nine-year old and indecently assaulted another girl aged around 13 between 1990 and 1994.
Boswell, who is a still Pembrokeshire county councillor, was cleared of another three indecent assault allegations by two complainants.
He denied the allegations, which he described as “complete lies” and said they “made me feel sick.” He volunteered to take a lie detector test to prove he was telling the truth.
“I can put my hand on the Bible and say I have never sexually assaulted that girl,” Boswell said. “If I had done something, why has it taken so long for it to come out?”
That's the nature of child sex abuse. Children are voiceless!
He was remanded in custody by Judge Keith Thomas, who told him he should expect a lengthy jail sentence.
Separately, former councilor and Conservative mayor of Godalming, Simon Thornton, pleaded guilty on Monday to 22 child-sex offences and was subsequently jailed for nine years at Guildford Crown Court.
Thornton, whose offences include possession of indecent photographs and videos, had been in a sexual relationship with a 13-year old.
When he was arrested on October 24 last year at his butcher's shop in Godalming, Thornton reportedly told police: “You know I'm the mayor of Godalming, you know I have a 10-year-old daughter.”
Investigating officer Police Constable Tamzin Ede said: “Simon Thornton displayed predatory behavior to abuse a child for a prolonged period. He clearly believed he would get away with this offending, given how long it carried on, and has now rightly been jailed for his abhorrent crimes,” Get Surrey reports.
“Simon Thornton’s crimes have impacted the victim through her childhood and into adult life, the offending against her have caused low confidence, depression and difficulties in building new trusted relationships.
"The victim in this case has shown real courage in reporting and supporting the police investigation,” Ede added.
Thornton, of Abraham Way in Borden, Hampshire, will be placed on the Sexual Offenders Register and will also be indefinitely subjected to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
B.C. Crown says polygamous leader took 15-year-old girl across border for sex
Laura Kane · The Canadian Press A special prosecutor has urged British Columbia's Court of Appeal to overturn the acquittal of a polygamous leader who was accused of taking a 15-year-old girl across the border for a sexual purpose.
A prosecutor told an appeal hearing on Thursday that Warren Jeffs, prophet and president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the U.S., called Oler in 2004 when he was the presiding elder and bishop of the community in Bountiful, B.C.
Jeffs told Oler to bring the girl to the U.S. to be married and, because followers of the religion believe Jeffs has a "direct connection to God," Oler swiftly complied, Peter Wilson argued.
"That's the hierarchy. God speaks to the prophet, Warren Jeffs," he said.
A woman originally from Bountiful testified at the trial that she was 16 when she and two adults crossed the border into Idaho a day after Jeffs called Oler in 2004, Wilson said. The trio stopped at a wooded rest area just off the highway, he said.
Wilson said the woman testified that a second van arrived containing Oler and the 15-year-old girl Jeffs had ordered him to bring to the U.S. The woman who was 16 at the time and the two adults with her piled into the second van, Wilson said.
Marriage records show the 15-year-old girl married a 24-year-old man, with Jeffs performing the ceremony and Oler acting as a witness, the prosecutor argued.
"This was not simply a circumstantial case. There was direct evidence," said Wilson.
'This was an error of law'
The trial judge acquitted Oler because he was not convinced Oler did anything within Canada's borders to arrange the girl's transfer. There was no evidence confirming Oler's location when he received the phone call from Jeffs and no record of either Oler or the 15-year-old girl crossing the border.
But Wilson said proof of wrongdoing inside Canada is not necessary to convict the man.
The law against removing children for a sexual purpose is designed to protect youth who are taken to another country and subjected to an offence that would be a crime under Canadian law, he argued. It therefore applies to Oler's actions in the U.S., Wilson said.
"This was an error of law," he said. "But for the error, Mr. Oler would have been convicted." Wilson asked the appeal court judges to either convict Oler or order a new trial.
Oler sat in the courtroom on Thursday. He did not have a lawyer at the hearing, so an impartial adviser has been appointed to assist the court and provide balance.
The adviser, Joe Doyle, disputed Wilson's interpretation of the law. The section of the C "It's impossible for him to commit the offence because he can't remove her if she's already out of the country," he said.
Oler declined to speak at the hearing.
Following the same trial that led to Oler's acquittal, the judge found Emily Ruth Gail Blackmore and her estranged husband Brandon Blackmore guilty of bringing a 13-year-old girl to the U.S. to marry Jeffs.
Emily Blackmore, also known as Gail, is appealing her conviction and her lawyer told the appeal court on Wednesday that she likely didn't know about the planned marriage when she accompanied her husband on a trip to the U.S. The panel of three judges reserved their decisions on both appeals on Thursday.
In a separate case, a B.C. Supreme Court judge found Oler guilty of polygamy last July for marrying five women and he'll be sentenced on that conviction next week.
Police scandal over child left in Manchester
paedophile’s home
paedophile’s home
Officers acted to protect covert operation
Fiona Hamilton, Crime EditorThe Times
Senior police officers allowed a 13-year-old boy to spend nearly two hours in the home of a known paedophile and gangster to protect a covert operation, The Times can reveal.
Police who were carrying out surveillance of Dominic Noonan contacted their superiors when they saw the boy enter his home, shortly before the curtains and windows were closed. However, they were told not to act by senior staff at the Greater Manchester force.
One officer has since described being “haunted” by the failure to intervene. Some of those involved in the operation believed that the force had failed in its safeguarding duties.
Dominic Scally, the officer in overall charge, has since been promoted to head of counterterrorism policing for the northwest.
NSW government reforms sentencing laws on
child sexual abuse
By Emily Bourke on AMchild sexual abuse
The New South Wales government has created new laws around sentencing and the criminal justice process in cases of child sexual abuse.
There will be tougher penalties for those who fail to report or protect against child abuse, and possible life sentences for abusers.
And legal loopholes that have made it hard for survivors to sue institutions will be closed off.
But the government is not moving on the vexed issue of breaking the Catholic seal of the confessional, saying it requires a national response.
Vatican jails priest Carlo Alberto Capella for possessing and sharing child pornography
David RankinThe Times
Carlo Alberto Capella, left, changed his plea to guilty yesterday and was jailed today - REUTERS
Monsignor Carlo Alberto Capella pleaded guilty on Friday, the opening day of the court hearing, saying that he had gone through a “personal crisis” and felt “useless” as a counsellor at the embassy.
The 51-year-old told the three lay Italian judges at the tiny courtroom in the Vatican City that he had started looking at child pornography online on Tumblr in July 2016 and exchanged pictures with other users. He was jailed for five years but had faced up to 12 years behind bars and a fine up to €50,000.
The Vatican gendarmerie said more than 40 pornographic photos and videos, some showing sexual contact between adults and pre-pubescent children, were found on the priest’s mobile phone.
Lawyer fights for child sexual-abuse victims in Viet Nam
Lawyer Tran Thi Ngoc Nu in court, representing a child who was allegedly sexually assaulted.
Photo provided by lawyer Do Ngoc Thanh
For the last five years, as head of the city’s the Association for Protection of Children’s Rights’ lawyers’ division, Nu has provided free legal help for victims of child abuse.
Known for her proactive approach, she knocks on doors of government agencies and searches for evidence to present to the court.
She has even petitioned Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam for his help in several cases when the police did not recommend criminal proceedings against alleged abusers.
“Every day, the lawyers’ division receives four to five calls and letters asking for help,” the 62-year-old said. “The number is higher than in the past because more people are aware of criminal proceedings against abusers. Also, the new Law on Children came into effect in June last year.”
Parents of the abused children who speak out are “brave”, Nu said, adding that emotional scars from sexual and physical abuse can last a lifetime, and some children commit suicide.
Whenever Nu speaks about abused children whose cases are not referred by police to the courts, she is often moved to tears.
Every abuse case is important, but she is especially concerned with sexual abuse of girls with disabilities.
Her concern led her and several friends in 2013 to establish the Association for Protection of Children’s Rights and its lawyers’ division, which seeks justice for the victims by filing lawsuits.
“Before this was established, victims and their parents did not know where to go for help,” she said.
She began with 10 lawyers at a time when the public was wary of seeking help. But now, after winning cases that have sent sexual offenders to prison, parents and children trust Nu and the lawyers’ division, which has grown to 30 lawyers.
They provide free legal assistance for victims and their parents in the city and provinces in the country.
A father in Binh Thuan Province, 200 kilometres from HCM City, for example, came to the lawyers’ division to ask for help after his daughter was sexually assaulted by a 28-year-old man.
The investigation police did not commence criminal proceedings against the man because of insufficient evidence. Nu returned to his hometown to seek evident and force the investigation police to start criminal proceedings. Finally, the man was sentenced to two years in prison after Nu filed a lawsuit.
Even though Nu has at times been physically attacked by relatives of alleged abusers in the courtroom and received threatening phone messages, she has not allowed this to deter her from seeking justice for the children.
“My colleagues and I sometimes want to give up, but when we think about the children who need protection, we want to pursue our path for justice,” Nu said.
Do Ngoc Thanh, a lawyer with the lawyers’ division, said that Nu was a role model and inspired him in his work. “She is both a colleague and a mentor who provides guidance on collecting documents and finding evidence to win in court,” Thanh said.
Nu and the other lawyers often carry out mock trials in residential areas in the city and provinces to educate parents and children about sexual abuse and assault. They also provide information to them on what they can do after the abuse occurs. At the mock trials, the Law on Children is also discussed.
Nu, who also works on domestic abuse cases, received merit certificates from the Viet Nam Fatherland Front Central Committee in 2016 and from the Viet Nam Association for the Protection of Children’s Rights last year.
Besides work on her current cases, Nu is trying to improve the laws that protect children. She has asked the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs’ Department of Child Care and Protection to streamline the process needed to prosecute child sexual and physical abuse cases so that abusers would be punished as soon as possible.
God bless you, Nu, you are doing a great thing.
Church of England’s inquiry into child sex abuse ‘flawed’
It did not give a comprehensive picture of the problem and those conducting it refused to speak to survivors who wanted to tell their stories, said Sir Roger Singleton, who was asked by the Church to review its 2010 investigation.
“Attempts really to make the survey absolutely complete were flawed,” he added.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that in public statements the Church “downplayed negative aspects” of the Past Cases Review’s findings.
But former Barnardo’s boss Sir Roger, whose report is due out next month, said he found “no evidence whatsoever of a deliberate attempt to mislead”.
These criticisms have been taken very seriously and acted upon, and the House of Bishops have offered full support to implementing the recommendations in the report and any subsequent actions.
Rev Peter Hancock
The review looked at more than 40,000 case files relating to allegations of abuse dating as far back as the 1950s and concluded just 13 cases of alleged child sexual abuse needed formal action.
However, survivors complained the report was inadequate and the Church commissioned Sir Roger’s independent investigation.
The Rt Rev Peter Hancock, Bishop of Bath & Wells, and the CofE’s lead on safeguarding, said: “These criticisms have been taken very seriously and acted upon, and the House of Bishops have offered full support to implementing the recommendations in the report and any subsequent actions.”
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