Germany: Girl Fleeing Migrant Attackers
Run Over By Bus
DAN LYMAN
A 17-year-old girl was run over by a bus in Minden, Germany, as she attempted to flee migrant attackers, according to police and media reports.
The victim and her 14-year-old companion were being harassed by two migrant men who were both under the influence of alcohol.
The teens attempted to jump aboard a slow-moving bus with the assistance of a driver who had noticed their plight, but a pursuing assailant reportedly wrenched the girl back into the street by her hair.
"The driver noticed that the teenagers were in trouble, opened the doors of the bus and let them on the vehicle - but one of the men also jumped on board," HLN reports. "The Afghan dragged the girl out of the moving vehicle."
The girl's legs were run over by the front wheel of the bus before the driver managed to stop.
"While witnesses took care of the injured, the bus driver followed the men and wanted to take a picture of them as evidence," a police report explains. "Noticing this, the younger male stopped and slapped him."
"The young woman was admitted to the Minden Clinic with serious injuries after receiving emergency medical treatment."
Both suspects fled the scene but were later apprehended. One has since been released.
Former GAA coach arrested on 394 child sex charges breaks down at New York extradition hearing
By Sylvia Pownall, Dublin Live
A former GAA coach arrested in New York on almost 400 child abuse charges is accused of grooming one of his victims by taking him on trips.
GAA - The Gaelic Athletic Association is an Irish international amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes.
In 2017, a GAA caretaker from the Irish Midlands was charged with 144 child sex abuse charges (3rd story on link).
Another coach, Ronan McCormack, and a sports reporter and former athlete, Tom Humphries (7th story on link), were also involved at some level with GAA and child sex abuse. It would seem an inquiry is overdue!
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is wanted by gardai in connection with a probe into crimes committed in the Midlands between 2004 and 2009.
Court documents seen by the Irish Sunday Mirror state he is accused of abusing one male victim between the age of 11 and 16 and a second from the age of 13 onwards.
Homeland Security officials arrested the Irishman in New York last week and an extradition hearing on Friday heard he was accused of “protracted sexual abuse”.
He “coached and groomed” his victims, the court document said, describing the abuse as “relentless”.
One victim told gardai the assaults occurred “multiple times” a week at a sports ground where the alleged abuser coached underage teams, in the man’s home and in hotel rooms.
The document stated he gave one victim “a job, gifts, money and trips away from a difficult life” but this “evolved into a pattern of isolation, sexual assault and physical abuse”.
The two victims came forward in 2012 and 2013 at which time the man went to the UK. He later moved to the US where a close associate lives. It is understood he was traced and gardai requested the assistance of the FBI last September.
Authorities used utility bills and postal records to track the former coach to his new address. He was found living in an apartment in a small town (Guilderland) in upstate New York and all utility services were registered in his name.
At an extradition hearing on Friday it was determined after a discussion behind closed doors the case would be postponed to Friday.
Throughout the one-hour court appearance the man could be seen crying into his hands, reports said.
Remorse for being caught!
He was remanded into the custody of the US Marshals Service after the defendant’s request for a postponement was granted.
Death Penalties in India in 2018 - 50% Higher Than Last Year Due To Changes in Rape, Child Sex-Abuse Laws
by Swarajya Staff
There has been a sharp increase in the number of death sentences awarded in India by trial courts in 2018, reports The New Indian Express, citing a report from the National Law University, Delhi.
According to the ‘Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report 2018’, the 162 death penalties awarded in 2018 have been the highest number awarded in a calendar year since 2000. In 2017, the number was 108 and the Supreme Court had also commuted 11 of 12 cases of death sentence to life sentence.
Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura did not record a single death sentence. The report argues that the increase in death sentences is a result of the legislative amendments which extended capital punishment to non-homicide crimes.
In August 2018, Parliament amended the Indian Penal Code (IPC) adding death penalty in cases of rape as well as the gang rape of girls under the age of 12. Further, the government also introduced a bill which allows punishment by death or life imprisonment for crimes involving piracy at sea.
Out of the states invoking the IPC amendment, Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of death sentences in cases of child sexual assault in 2018, totalling 22. Seven of them had been sentenced for sexual assault of girls under 12 without murder. Comparatively, in 2017, only six death sentences were awarded by sessions courts in the state. The MP government has also introduced a scheme rewarding public prosecutors who seek the death penalty.
Further, India also voted against the UN General Assembly’s draft resolution proposing a ban on the death penalty.
UK paedophile reconnected with old friend
so he could rape her young daughter
Zoe Drewett, Metro
A convicted paedophile who got back in touch with an old friend so he could rape her daughter has been jailed for the second time.
David Carroll, 28, filmed himself sexually abusing the friend’s little girl as she slept, just months after being released from prison. He was jailed for two years in March 2016 for possessing indecent images, but told the old friend he had been in prison ‘for computers and hacking’.
Carroll persuaded her to let him stay at her home overnight last February, just months after his release. While he was there, he crept into her daughter’s bedroom and abused her while she slept. He filmed the attack and took 10 indecent pictures of his young victim.
In a statement read to court, where Carroll was jailed for 19 years on Friday, the girl’s mother said she was ‘physically sick’ when she discovered the abuse.
Judge Simon Carr told him: ‘You had been friends with the woman for many years but drifted apart before some time later the friendship restarted. ‘I have no doubt a significant part of the reason was so you could have access to children.
‘She was wholly unaware of your offending and the photos show an 18 minute assault on a child who appears to be asleep. ‘You filmed all of this happening as you wanted to be able to relive what you had carried out.
‘You flagrantly breached your notification requirements by staying in this woman’s house with her children. ‘It is perfectly clear you have an entrenched sexual interest in children and this explains your befriending of the mother and the filming of the abuse you carried out.’
Prosecutor Philip Lee said Carroll was cautioned in 2011 for making indecent images of children and possessing prohibited images of children.
He said police visited Carroll once more in April last year after an allegation he was using a friend’s computer to contact children. ‘When the police arrived the defendant appeared to be deleting material,’ Mr Lee said.
Carroll was jailed at Truro Crown Court (Picture: PA)
‘An examination of his phone revealed not only indecent images of children but also photos of a child being abused by the user of the device taken in February 2018. ‘The girl being abused was the daughter of an old friend. The mother had been close with the defendant but they drifted apart.’
After the case, an NSPCC spokeswoman for the South West of England said: ‘Carroll betrayed the trust his friend placed in him, abusing her daughter for his own sordid sexual gratification. ‘Calculated and predatory behaviour like his can ruin childhoods. ‘Carrol’s perverted sexual interest in children is evident and he belongs behind bars, prevented from targeting another innocent child. ‘This case is a clear reminder that behind indecent images of children are human victims of child sexual abuse.’
Faking a relationship with a mother to access her children is a frequently reported MO by paedophiles. I wish mothers were a lot pickier about who they let in their homes.
Pakistani police arrest alleged child abuser
with connections, in Taunsa Sharif
DERA GHAZI KHAN (Dunya News) – Police have arrested a suspected child abuser after Dunya News uncovered the scandal (4th story on link) in Taunsa Sharif district of Dera Ghazi Khan on Saturday.
According to Chief Minister (CM) Usman Buzdar's spokesperson Shahbaz Gul, the CM's controversial picture with suspect Adnan Zafar which went viral on social media was not taken recently and the matter "is about two years old".
"Often, people take selfies with the CM," he went on to say.
He further stated that police have lodged an FIR against the suspect by contacting the victims families.
According to district police officer (DPO), Dera Ghazi Khan's Superintendent of Police (Investigation) would lead further investigation into the matter.
The horrendous incident has occurred in the native area of CM Usman Buzdar.
It has been revealed that the suspect was blackmailing the families of the children through their pornography videos.
The family members of affectees have claimed that the accused Adnan Zafar had been threatening them while showing them his photograph with CM Usman Buzdar.
They have claimed that the suspect had made videos of at least 19 children and also took extortion money from them.
Moreover, the father of the suspect had been serving in Punjab police force as a head constable and according to sources, he has been suspended on the orders of DPO after reporting of the matter.
Distraught woman details sexual abuse allegations
in Northern Ontario
by: Linda Richardson, SooToday.com
The Sault Ste. Marie Courthouse is pictured in this file photo. Michael Purvis/SooToday
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following story contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault that may by triggering
After spending Thursday on the witness stand detailing the sexual abuse she says she suffered as a child at the hands of David Wayne McKinnon, a woman's emotional pain erupted to the surface.
Sobbing, and in the judge's words "obviously distressed," she was trying to tell the court why she had decided to go to police two years ago with allegations that date back decades.
She described to assistant Crown attorney Heidi Mitchell how the decision "broke me."
"Nothing good has come out of it for me," the former Sault Ste. Marie resident said. "I don't know if I could do it over again that I would say anything."
The woman testified that she thought this would help "get it off my chest," that it would assist others and would make sure such a thing didn't happen to her daughter. But since making her report to police, the complainant said she got into drugs, attempted suicide, overdosed and doesn't get to see her daughter very much.
"It's been nothing but bad since I came forward."
McKinnon has pleaded not guilty to six sex-related offences, stemming from incidents that are alleged to have occurred between 1991 and 2003.
He pleaded guilty, that means you can drop the 'alleged' adjective!
The charges are sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon, threatening, invitation to sexual touching to a person under the age of 14, and two counts of touching a person under the age of 14 for a sexual purpose.
A court order prohibits reporting any information that could identify the complainant.
Superior Court Justice Ian McMillan heard that the alleged abuse began when the complainant was five years old.
She described McKinnon putting his hands in her pants and touching her.
"I was afraid that I would get in trouble if I said anything so I stayed quiet."
Over the years, this progressed to digital penetration when she was about eight, and then to the accused performing oral sex on the girl and eventually her doing the same to him.
The woman told the court she remembered the accused "taking my virginity" when she was 12.
McKinnon sexually assaulted her with a carved wooden stick, she said, crying as she recalled how it hurt and that she was bleeding and scared.
After that incident, he began having sexual intercourse with her, the woman said, indicating it subsequently happened frequently, at least every week. There were no occurrences after she turned 16, the court was told.
The witness said that from the beginning, McKinnon had drilled into her head not to say anything because "he would hurt me."
The first time she told someone what had happened was to a partner in 2005, after she had moved to another province, she testified. But she said she ultimately came forward to police after she had a really bad nightmare about McKinnon.
"I couldn't sleep, was having night terrors and sweats," the woman said. "I wasn't able to work because of that."
The witness said her boyfriend told her that she should speak to someone to maybe help her, as well as possibly assist anyone else. It was only a dream, but it was causing her a lot of anxiety and depression, she said, explaining she began seeing a counsellor, and then went to police.
The trial got underway Thursday, after McMillan rejected a Crown request to bring an application to permit a second out-of-province witness to testify via video link.
In a written decision, the judge said he wasn't inclined to grant leave at this stage of the proceedings (at the trial), and without any meaningful notice.
"If the courts are not to adhere to governing timelines as they apply to the pre-trial process, the administration of justice and timely scheduling, would, I suggest fall into significant disarray."
It already is in significant disarray. IMHO.
UK Police find 2.2mn child sex abuse images
on pensioner’s computer, wife devastated
By Richard Moriarty and Mike Sullivan, The Sun
POLICE who raided a pensioner’s home found a stash of 2.2million child sex abuse images.
Geoffrey Crossland, 70, downloaded the pictures on his computer at the £750,000 farmhouse where he lives with wife Anne, 61.
She was said to be “tearful and devastated” when she was told of her husband’s appalling secret. She told her neighbour: “It’s horrible.”
The neighbour added: “She couldn’t believe it at first when the police told her what her husband had been doing. She hadn’t a clue. She has been in tears. They seemed such a lovely couple who were very friendly and happily married.”
Former company director Crossland was arrested at Heathrow airport as he returned from a clay pigeon shooting competition in America following a tip-off.
Officers then raided his home in Padside, North Yorks. They also discovered an underground bunker containing at least nine prohibited firearms and ammunition plus an elaborate security system.
Another neighbour said: “He didn’t really mix with people but always seemed a good neighbour. We were completely stunned when we discovered what he’d been arrested for. It is horrific and really scary.”
Crossland admitted making indecent photographs of a child.
He will be sentenced at York crown court today.
Padside, N Yorks
Ex-Mountie who won first sexual harassment
suit against the RCMP says little has changed
By Jane Gerster, Global News
Alice Clark wanted to be a Mountie before women were even permitted to join the force.
But when she joined in 1981, it wasn’t the honourable job she was expecting. After experiencing years of harassment, Clark left the force and became the first woman to successfully sue the RCMP for sexual harassment.
It’s been 25 years since, and while she’s grateful that more women are coming forward to support one another, she hasn’t seen the change she was hoping for.
“It’s disgusting that things haven’t changed,” she says.
Whether the recently announced civilian advisory board will be able to address the scourge of sexual harassment in the RCMP remains to be seen. However, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said its first priority will be addressing internal bullying and harassment. Since Clark first came forward, more than 3,100 sexual harassment claims have been made under the Merlo-Davidson class-action settlement alone.
“I earned my right to wear that serge,” she says, decades later, her voice breaking. “I knew they were doing this to other people, too, and it had to stop.”
It didn’t. The RCMP settled the Merlo-Davidson suit for $100 million in 2016. Former commissioner Bob Paulson offered an unequivocal apology: “We failed you.”
Alice Clark, pictured at home in Nanaimo, B.C., with her RCMP graduation photo from 1981.
Jane Gerster/Global News
MOUNTIES GET THEIR MA’AM
Clark looked at the red serge and saw honour and integrity. And then: “Mounties finally get their ma’am,” read the caption in the March 4, 1975 edition of the Toronto Star. The picture shows the first, stern-faced women Mounties in skirts and fancy red shirts, arms swinging straight as they marched.
Clark joined their ranks in 1981; she is beaming in her graduation photo. She started in Bonnyville, Alta., as the detachment’s first woman, and another followed soon after.
When Clark was transferred southwest to Red Deer in September 1981, the harassment began.
There were plastic breasts left on her desk, she says, and a supervisor who called every man by his name but patted her shoulder and called her “dearie.” There were the men who told her to go home, have a baby and be a “real woman,” other men who called her foul words and others still who insisted she was a “waste of a uniform.” Then, there was the Mountie who asked her to have sex with him in the back of his squad car while she was guarding a dead body. An RCMP spokesperson said the force would not provide specific comment on Clark’s case.
The stress started to get to her. Clark could barely get through a single workday so she thought in 15-minute increments: 15, deep breath, another 15, deep breath, half-hour gone.
“It was horrible,” Clark says.
When she could no longer bear to go to work, Clark filed an internal harassment complaint and took a transfer north to Beaverlodge. Work was starting to get better, she says, and then within a span of weeks, she got a note saying her harassment complaint was unfounded. Soon after, her sergeant told her the RCMP had laid assault charges against her in connection with old arrests.
It was unexpected, Clark says. In one case, she had been tasked with dealing with a drunk woman who refused to take off her jewelry and “things kind of went downhill from there.” Clark characterizes it as “hair-pulling” incident (she pulled the woman’s hair) in which her colleagues watched rather than assisted. In the second case, she says, she had pulled over a drunk driver after a high-speed chase. She didn’t realize the woman was quite small when she pulled her out of her car, Clark says, but as soon as she did she adjusted her hold.
Clark was done.
She quit in 1987, thinking the Mounties would drop the charges and finally leave her alone. They didn’t. After she was acquitted of the charges, Clark sued. She maintains that the force only charged her because she never shied away from speaking up about sexual harassment. An RCMP spokesperson said the force would not provide specific comment on Clark’s case.
“I put so much of myself into that job, into that serge,” Clark says, her voice almost breaking.
“I gave them a piece of me, a big chunk, and it was not easy for me to lay that harassment complaint. It wasn’t easy to turn in my red serge.”
FROM ONE WOMAN TO THOUSANDS
Janet Merlo remembers the nasty comments from people on the internet when she took her story public: She can’t take a joke, she has no place in the force, I bet she wishes she’d been harassed, she’s a shitty cop, she’s probably a terrible mother.
She was there in 2016 when Paulson, the former RCMP commissioner, apologized on behalf of the force to its women members.
Now and then, Merlo says, women send her copies of the statements they plan to submit as part of their application for compensation under the $100-million settlement.
The women detail sexual assaults and unlawful confinements and other similarly serious charges, Merlo says. She reads the statements, which independent investigators are still combing through, evaluating and — when deemed credible — assigning a monetary value. So far, investigators have opened more than 3,100 claims.
RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson, left, answers a question during a news conference, as plaintiffs Janet Merlo, centre, and Linda Davidson look on, in Ottawa Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016. Paulson has apologized to hundreds of current and former female officers and employees for alleged incidents of bullying, discrimination and harassment. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
The public likely won’t hear those stories, even the ones deemed credible. The information they submit is not shared with the force. Per an RCMP spokesperson, the force only reviews information if a claimant “chooses to bring [it] forward” and it concerns a serving member.
“We’ve had a public apology, they’re paying all these RCMP female victims money,” says Dr. Greg Passey, a psychiatrist who has worked with Mounties for more than two decades. “But how many of the accused, how many of the harassers have actually come forward and there’s been any accountability?
RCMP spokesperson Daniel Brien said the RCMP “does not have the authority to provide information on specific conduct files to the public and media” due to privacy legislation but that employees are “expected to conduct themselves in a manner that meets the rightfully high expectations of Canadians.”
Without those stories, Passey says, the country “truly doesn’t understand the extent of this problem.”
While the RCMP has acknowledged that it failed its female members, Merlo says she’s still waiting for accountability.
“What other organization in Canada can have a lawsuit so big, and yet nobody has ever been investigated?” she says. “Nobody is charged. Nobody is reprimanded. Nobody is fired. We’re not talking bad jokes here. We’re talking sexual assaults and unlawful confinement. All kinds of serious charges.”
Brien said the force is “focused on taking any steps possible to ensure a safe and respectful work environment” and noted that the RCMP has “enhanced and updated established policies and programs” in support of that goal.
‘YOU GET SO BEATEN DOWN IN THIS PROCESS’
Deciding to speak publicly against the RCMP isn’t easy, says Alice Fox, a former Mountie discharged in late 2017.
Fox has fought her own battles with the RCMP and is fighting one now with PTSD. She’s trying to articulate why the Mounties — women in particular — haven’t seemed to be able to make a difference, even decades after women like Clark made national news by going public with the sexual harassment they faced.
“You get so beaten down in this process,” Fox says. Her voice is slow and her words carefully chosen, in part because she has a non-disclosure agreement with the force as the result of a harassment lawsuit she settled with them in November 2017. Many Mounties, past and present, are careful with their words for similar reasons; some won’t even talk, the risk feels too great.
“Being silenced is a difficult place to be,” Fox says, “but it’s the best place to be if it means you get to live.”
The RCMP did not respond to requests for comment about its use of non-disclosure agreements.
That women who were harassed in the 1980s and into the 21st century say there has been no internal accountability should be cause for concern, says Passey, the doctor who works with Mounties and specializes in PTSD.
The federal government has had years and years to deal with this, he says — a 2013 Senate report urged federal leadership to act, noting there is “little margin for error” — but instead, Canada has gone from a handful of women like Clark to thousands, not including the thousands of men coming forward with their own $1.1-billion class-action harassment lawsuit.
“The whole culture is used to this whole idea of being able to abuse power without any accountability, without any responsibility,” says Passey.
RCMP spokesperson Brien noted that the force’s “members are subject to the same laws as all Canadian citizens.”
People would face repercussions for their actions if there was accountability, both Clark and Passey agree. And yet, Passey says, when allegations are made public, there don’t seem to be any consequences.
Clark remembers watching the formal RCMP apology. She was insulted. What did leaders of the force do when they saw women being harassed? Did they step up or speak out? She wants to know. It’s a question many have asked: how many of the harassers or those who witnessed harassment but said nothing have come forward, have been held to account?
Brien said the force is bound to an extent by privacy legislation but that it “addresses conduct issues in a timely, efficient and fair manner.”
Clark is still waiting for an answer.
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