Netherlands 'hosts most child sex abuse images'
An emergency department doctor in Australia has been suspended by the medical board for six weeks after he repeatedly called online for women to be raped.
Dr Christopher Kwan Chen Lee, 31, was suspended by the Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal after being found guilty of “professional misconduct” for making egregious and racist comments in a Singaporean online forum.
An investigation into Dr Lee’s conduct was launched by the Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal in December 2016 after online posts that were “readily identifiable from his own words and photographs as an Australian medical practitioner” were discovered.
In one particularly offensive post, Dr Lee wrote: “This kind will NEVER learn. She needs to be abandoned in India and repeatedly raped in order for her to wake up her idea.” Lee revealed in other posts that his wife also worked in the hospital, and once wrote that “If my marriage fell apart, it would not end in divorce. It would end in murder.”
In the tribunal, Lee admitted writing the posts, but said he was “relatively young and inexperienced” at the time and “did not full appreciate” their impact on his medicine career. The doctor also claimed that despite his comments, he had not let his personal views affect his work.
In other words, he doesn't regret saying the idiotic things he said, he only regrets that it might adversely affect his career. How can such an attitude possibly not affect his work?
The posts were deemed socially unacceptable with “extreme sentiments which are disrespectful of women and comment upon violence towards or sexual abuse of women,” tribunal chair Robert Webster wrote in his decision.
Lee, who was previously cautioned for accessing a patient's health records unnecessarily and without their permission 21 times between 2015 and 2016, was suspended for six weeks from May and ordered to undergo training in ethical behavior, communications and use of social media.
Some Australians have taken to Twitter to criticize the punishment as too lenient and are calling for the national health service to inform the public exactly where Lee will be employed so patients can decide whether or not to be under his care.
Too lenient is an understatement! He should have been fired and refused the right to ever practice medicine in Tasmania again. The reason why he was fired should follow him wherever he goes. But, no, in 6 months he will be back practicing on women even though he hates them so much.
I think the Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal needs some people with some courage and moral outrage.
Thousands marched in the streets of Istanbul in protest on Wednesday night after the reported rape of a child in the Küçükçekmece district.
The five-year-old girl was found by her family in a pool of blood outside her home on Monday, Turkish news outlets reported.
The girl was taken to hospital and is still receiving treatment, secularist daily Cumhuriyet reported.
Another girl aged seven was targeted in her home in Küçükçekmece on Wednesday, Cumhuriyet reported. The attacker entered the home when the girl’s mother left to buy bread, but fled when the girl screamed as he attempted to remove her clothes, the report said.
No suspect for either attack has yet been found.
Marches and protests were held around the city on Wednesday night, with women’s groups coming out in force to demand action against sex offenders.
A women’s platform staged another demonstration in the western Turkish city of Izmir.
Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has also spoken out against the attack on Monday.
The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services released a statement promising to provide support to the victim and her family, while the Istanbul governorate strongly condemned the attack in a statement on Wednesday.
The governorate, however, warned that “fake news” about the attack had been spread via social media, and said “some circles” had attempted to use the incident to provoke social chaos.
The AKP government has come under fire for its response to a series of child sex abuse cases in recent years.
The government was accused of protecting the Islamist education foundation Ensar after imposing a broadcast ban preventing reporting on 45 cases of child sexual abuse by an Ensar employee in children's dormitories run by the foundation.
Ensar Foundation has close connections with the AKP party and Erdogan.
The Leader
AN ISOLATED, disabled man contacted girls and boys and engaged in highly sexualised conversations with them.
Lee Challinor, 47, from Wrexham, sent videos of himself engaging in a sexual act upon himself and asked the children to send him images of themselves. Mold Crown Court heard he even asked a boy of 13 to meet at a hotel in London for sex to take place.
What he did not know was that in two cases he was speaking to under cover police officers, one from the Metropolitan Police and the other from the North Wales force.
Police found evidence that he had been in touch with 10 others who said they were children, including one abroad, but despite a police investigation it could not be established that they were in fact children.
When arrested at his Wrexham home he was found to have indecent images on his phone and computers and there was evidence that some had been distributed, said prosecuting barrister Myles Wilson.
Challinor, of Queensway in Caia Park, who suffers from cerebral palsy, was jailed for 32 months.
He was ordered to register with the police as a sex offender for life and a life-time sexual harm prevention order was made.
Judge Niclas Parry said the reality was that over a two-and-a-half year period he engaged in "highly sexualised, crude and vulgar" social media conversations with at least 12 individuals he believed to be children aged between 12 and 15.
The contact and the sexual communication was initiated by him and the amount of communication was substantial. It involved him encouraging them to engage in sexual acts on themselves and caused them to watch himself engaging in sexual acts.
One suggestion was that a child should engage in sexual acts with her grandfather who had dementia.
He exposed himself to those he believed to be children and he suggested to a boy of 13 that they met up in a hotel for penetrative sexual acts. There was a significant disparity in ages because he was aged between 43 and 45 at the time.
Two of the "children" he was communicating with turned out to be police officers and it could not be established to the required proof that the 10 others who said they were children actually were. He would therefore be sentenced on the basis that there were not children.
"You should understand that if these were real children, and it could be shown that they were real children, then the starting point would be five years and the sentence could go up to 10," the judge warned. Mercifully, therefore, no real children were involved.
It was a disturbing case and Judge Parry said Challinor would have continued to offend until he was stopped.
However he was a man of effectively good character, he had shown genuine remorse and the judge said he could not ignore his medical condition. He suffered from cerebral palsy and his first custodial sentence would be difficult for him.
Challinor admitted 26 offences – attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual activity, attempting to arrange the commission of a child sex offence, attempting to cause a child to look at images of himself indulging in an indecent act, and attempting to have sexual communication with a child.
He admitted making 14 category A images of child sex abuse, 20 at category B and 92 at category C.
And he admitted possessing a prohibited image of a child, possessing four extreme images involving humans and animals, and three charges of distributing indecent images of child sex abuse.
Defence barrister Sion ap Mihangel said Challinor was apologetic. He had stopped using on-line chat rooms.
The barrister said: "He felt lonely and isolated. It was suggested by others that he should get on to Facebook to broaden his outlook and that spiralled out of control."
He used other social media outlets and at the time of the offending was said to be "in a dark place" and struggling to come to terms with bereavement. At the time he had no real appreciation of the full implications or the seriousness of what he was doing or how prolific he was.
There had been a lack of structure within his home which led to him committing the offences. Issues in his life could be tackled in custody and there would be a sexual harm prevention order in place on his release.
His over-all sentiment at present was one of shame.
A former British Army officer has admitted live-streaming sick images of children being abused in the Philippines.
Andrew Whiddett, 70, spent over £8,000 on the pictures (pictures is probably a poor choice of words here) between January 2015 and July 2017.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) revealed that he had discussed wanting ‘to sexually abuse a child when he visited the Philippines that October’.
According to the NCA, the former lieutenant colonel began offending after leaving the Army and returning home from his work as head of security at the British Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
From that point in early 2015 until his arrest in Heathrow for sending payments to the Philippines, he was in regular contact with ‘known Filipino child sex abuse facilitators’.
In November 2015, Whiddett, who won an MBE for service in Northern Ireland, paid £31.41 for access to footage of a nine-year-old girl being abused, and a year later he even flew to Manila, the Filipino capital.
Investigators were able to prove 49 illegal payments, but when he was arrested in October 2017, he admitted to making 158 payments.
Whiddett, of Portsmouth, Hampshire, said these were for live adult sex shows and declined to answer any questions in a further interview in March 2018.
The NCA said the information it handed over to Filipino officials led to one further arrest and six children aged three to 14 being protected.
The publication of photos following the case were briefly banned by Judge Ainley, but he quickly rescinded this, telling the court the order had been made ‘in error’.
NCA senior investigating officer Gary Fennelly said: ‘Andrew Whiddett was directly responsible for the soul-destroying abuse of children thousands of miles away from him.
‘He thought he could get away with abusing Filipino children from the comfort of his own home.
‘Anyone like him should realise the NCA and UK police will never give up our pursuit of offenders who commit these horrific crimes.
‘The NCA does important work with international law enforcement partners in the Philippines to combat these sorts of crimes.’
With no previous convictions, Whiddett is currently on bail and will be sentenced at Croydon Crown Court on May 22.
By John McDougall Matt Simpson Senior Live Reporter
StokeonTrentLive
A Royal Stoke University Hospital doctor downloaded and viewed thousands of images of children being sexually abused.
Cardiothoracic surgeon Cristian Bogdan was arrested by Cheshire Police's Paedophile and Cyber Investigation team in 2017, as officers began a search of his home.
The search revealed a number of IT devices which stored more than 22,000 still images, videos and cartoons depicting child sexual abuse.
The 42-year-old initially made no comment following his arrest, but on January 9 this year he handed himself in at Macclesfield Police Station with a prepared statement admitting searching for, downloading and viewing the indecent images.
Bogdan today pleaded guilty to the offences at Chester Crown Court, reports CheshireLive.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) authorised the charges based on the discovery of 13,096 still pictures, two videos and 9,742 cartoons of child sex abuse on computers at his home.
A CPS spokeswoman said further investigation proved he had actively searched for the images.
Speaking after the guilty pleas were entered, Damion Lloyd of Mersey Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service said: "At work Bogdan held down a difficult and respected job.
"At home he was searching for and downloading thousands of images of children being sexually abused.
"In interview he tried to downplay the amount of images he had, claiming he’d downloaded them in bulk and deleted most of them but it was clear that he was continually actively seeking out these dreadful images of abuse.
"He had no previous convictions and had a responsible job yet he risked all of that in the pursuit of these crimes.
"Sexual abuse has a dreadful impact on victims and the sexual abuse of children can have long lasting effects for the rest of their lives.
"To view the images of this abuse and to make images of it is a crime and the Crown Prosecution Service , working with the police, will do all we can to bring the perpetrators to justice."
The Independent Tech
WhatsApp users in India are using chat groups to share child sexual abuse images and videos within the popular messaging app, an investigation has revealed.
Researchers at online security think tank Cyber Peace Foundation (CPF) uncovered dozens of WhatsApp groups with hundreds of members viewing and sharing the content.
The groups have since been shut down after the researchers alerted WhatsApp, but while active they were reportedly operating as public groups discoverable by anyone.
CPF's investigation, which took place over two weeks in March, is not the first time WhatsApp has been linked to the transmission of child sexual abuse material.
In December, Israeli researchers revealed that WhatsApp groups with up to 256 people were openly sharing videos and pictures of children subjected to sexual abuse. In 2017, an investigation led by Spanish police led to the arrest of 38 people in 15 countries suspected of using WhatsApp to circulate child sexual exploitation materials.
A WhatsApp spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent on what measures it was taking to shut the groups down following the latest investigation. The firm has previously said it has a "zero-tolerance policy" for accounts sharing "this vile content".
A comment provided to Indian daily newspaper The Economic Times stated: "WhatsApp cares deeply about the safety of our users and we have no tolerance for child sexual abuse."
It continued: "We rely on the signals available to us, such as group information, to proactively detect and ban accounts suspected of sending or receiving child abuse imagery. We have carefully reviewed this report to ensure such accounts have been banned from our platform."
According to WhatsApp's own figures, the Facebook-owned app bans around 250,000 accounts each month for sharing child abuse images and videos. With an estimated 1.5 billion monthly active users, this represents around 0.01 per cent of worldwide users.
MANILA, Philippines — Fourteen-year-old Chang cried as she took off her clothes in front of a webcam. On the other side of the world, paying pedophiles watched the "sex show" in real time.
Chang had entered the house with the bamboo fence in her fishing town, believing she would smile, say "hi" to the camera and earn enough pesos for a new pair of pants. Once inside, Chang's neighbours coerced her into exposing herself to pedophiles in places like Canada, Australia or the United States.
"They threatened me that if I did not do what they asked, they'd tell my parents," Chang told HuffPost Canada.
She ignored her father's warning to avoid the house, where everyone in the community seemed to know bad things happened. Instead, she told him she was hanging out with friends. "I was so nervous and scared," she said.
Chang was groomed and sexually abused for three months in 2015, facilitated by five adults on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao. She kept going in part because her best friend, who lived there, said she would be physically abused or kicked out of the home if Chang didn't show up.
"I feel pity to her and I go there," Chang said.
One day, police officers stormed the house and arrested the suspects. Chang sat frozen on a bed in one of three rooms, watching it unfold. She remembered what a teacher had once told her: In stressful situations, don't react. Stay calm.
"I see my perpetrator. They handcuff him," she said. "I just did nothing."
Social workers rescued Chang, her best friend and 10 other victims who were in the house at the time of the raid; the youngest was six years old.
Police seized computers and hard drives, sex toys and condoms, and remittance receipts, according to local media. Two men and three women later pleaded guilty to child pornography-related charges. All were sentenced to prison for 20 years, except for one offender who received a life sentence.
Chang, now 18, lives in a shelter for victims of violence near Manila. Chang shared her story with journalists at a private location near the shelter where she lives.
She agreed to share her story to raise awareness about the global crime that irreversibly changed her life, and is affecting an unknown number of other Filipino children.
Sitting on a chair on a veranda grasping a plastic bottle of water, her sneakered feet did not quite touch the floor. Her voice was quiet but she spoke clearly, with determination.
"I deal with my anger through crying because I can't fight with (the perpetrators)," she said. "I was just a child and they're adults."
A humanitarian crisis
The police bust was an early indication of a disturbing trend emerging in the Philippines. Four years later, police and experts say online sexual exploitation of children is now a full-blown humanitarian crisis, and they need help.
"This crime is fuelled by demand from western countries," said Sam Inocencio, the Philippine national director of International Justice Mission, an organization that works closely with police, prosecutors and the government to rescue, protect and rehabilitate victims.
The kind of online abuse that Chang experienced is orchestrated by pedophiles, who dictate to offenders and their victims what kind of sexual acts or abuse they want to watch.
"It's one of the most evil abuses committed against children .... And the idea that perpetrators from abroad don't even have to leave their own homes to direct the live abuse of children located in the Philippines, that's just mind-blowing," Inocencio said.
UNICEF described the Philippines as a "global epicentre" for the livestream child abuse trade, and among the top 10 countries for producing sexual content of children. It also found that almost one in five children had been sexually violated.
"The Philippines is gaining prominence for this vicious online activity," said anti-trafficking Philippine National Police (PNP) Col. Sheila Portento. "Vulnerable and innocent children are most likely the target of thousands of foreign customers and buyers of sexually explicit materials exploiting the cyberspace."
There is much more to this article here at Huff Post.
“Jan said ‘Surin’ often took her daughter to his home. When the girl was seven years old, however, it was revealed that ‘Surin’ had allegedly molested or raped her over the previous five years.”
In the latest in a string of serious child abuse cases, relatives of the alleged victims, in this case three girls aged 6, 10 and 14 and a 9 year old boy from the same family, fear they won’t get justice.
The male suspect, allegedly the head of a rubber plantation in Chumphon’s Lang Suan district, is now on bail and is accused of threatening the family.
The 14 year old victim’s 52 year old mother Jan (not her real name) also claimed that the 50 year old suspect – identified only as ‘Surin’ – has threatened her family after he was was earlier arrested for allegedly raping and sexually molesting the children over a number of years, but later was released on bail.
Chumphon police chief Pol Maj General Sajarat Saksilpchai, said he had instructed the case investigator to proceed with legal action against the suspect for the alleged victim intimidation and to gather tighter evidence to prosecute him for the alleged sex crimes.
Jan said that she, her husband and their teenage son and two-year-old daughter, moved from Sakhon Nakhon in 2007 to find rubber tapping jobs in Sawi district. They got to know plantation owner Surin who was kind to the family and invited them to build a shack on his land in tambon Bang Maphrao of Lang Suan district, she said.
Jan said Surin often took her daughter to his home. When the girl was seven years old, however, it was revealed that Surin had allegedly molested or raped her over the previous five years.
Jan said that Surin then offered 20,000 baht to hide the scandal and she accepted as her family lived on Surin’s land and she tried to block Surin from taking advantage of the girl again.
The girl claimed, however, that she continued to be a target of Surin’s alleged sexual advances.
In February this year, Jan said she found out that her 9 year old nephew had allegedly been raped and her two grand-daughters had allegedly avoided Surin’s sexual advances on multiple occasions.
Because of the latest incidents, Jan said she filed a police complaint. She said a medical examination of all four children backed her allegations. She said her family has now moved out of the area to stay on another community leader’s land.
Jan claimed that she decided to come forwards to tell the story to Thai journalists this week because Surin allegedly had some men, driving in a van, shown the four children’s photos to the villagers in her new neighborhood earlier this week, as to ask for a direction to the family’s new home – which was a threatening gesture that made the family worried they might not get justice.
They might get more than injustice.
Lynn Curwin (lynn.curwin@trurodaily.com)
TRURO, N.S. — Tracey Dorrington-Skinner first experienced sexual abuse while at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children.
It didn’t end there.
“I experienced years of verbal, emotional, physical and sexual abuse and I had a lot of issues because of it,” she said. “if I hadn’t had children, I don’t think I’d be here today. I had to survive for them.”
Dorrington-Skinner was born in 1965 and spent the first years of her life in Truro, where her alcoholic father often beat her mother. After her parents separated she and her siblings, along with her mother, lived with their grandmother. Once, when her mother was away, her grandmother had to go into hospital, so she called social services.
“They took us to the Home for Colored Children, and what was supposed to be a weekend ended up bring years,” she said.
She was seven years old when she went into the home, where she experienced abuse from staff and other residents.
Staff members fondled her at first, and as she grew they moved on to rape and used sexual abuse as a punishment. They made sexual comments and set up female residents to have sex with the adolescent males. Sexual favours were often required in exchange for a drive in the home’s van.
Children were also told they were stupid and would amount to nothing, she said.
“I felt obligated to have sex and was constantly walking around in a state of heightened anxiety,” recalled Dorrington-Skinner. “Even after I left, when I was about 20 years old, one of the men from the home came, saying he was there to check up on me. He wanted sex and I didn’t feel I could refuse.”
She became involved with drugs and experienced depression, leading her to seriously consider suicide. Eventually, she connected with a therapist who was able to help her.
“She helped me understand how I was treated as a child affected me as an adult,” she said. “I still feel anger but I’m able to enjoy my life and help others.
“The biggest thing I’m able to help people understand is that they’re going to be okay. I can validate what they’re feeling is normal."
Jasmine Stole Weiss, Pacific Daily News
A 59-year-old former Baptist pastor for the Living Lighthouse Church accused of molesting a girl was found guilty on Thursday of all counts.
Renato Capili Bosi was charged after a then-14-year-old girl said he touched her inappropriately while she lived with him.
Jurors deliberated for about an hour.
According to the Office of the Attorney General, Bosi was convicted of:
two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct as first-degree felonies;
two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct as misdemeanors; and
and child abuse as a misdemeanor.
Information gathered from the Judiciary of Guam website: www.guamcourts.org. If you believe you have been the victim of sexual assault, contact police as soon as possible. Pacific Daily News
Child porn capitol of the world
Almost half of the child sexual abuse images reported to the Internet Watch Foundation last year were hosted in the Netherlands, the organisation says.
It confirmed more than 105,000 web addresses were connected to illegal images in 2018, with 47% of the content hosted in the Netherlands.
It warned that the country was becoming a "safe haven for child sexual abuse".
The Dutch government has acknowledged an increase in reports of child abuse images and has pledged to tackle it.
Such material should be "expunged from the internet," it said in a report early in 2018.
What was in the report?
The IWF is an independent organisation that lets people report illegal child sex abuse images that they spot online.
The organisation works with websites, social networks and law enforcement to have the images taken down and investigated. Since 1996, it has assessed more than a million reports.
In its annual report, the IWF said 105,047 web addresses were hosting child sexual abuse images in 2018.
That is a large increase compared with 2017. The IWF said that improvements in its technology had helped it detect more illegal images.
Susan Hargreaves, chief executive of the IWF, said the UK had created a "hostile environment" for people wanting to share illegal images.
Just 0.04% of the images reported in 2018 were hosted in the UK, the report said.
If the UK can clean it up, all countries can do the same if they had any real desire to save children from being destroyed.
But Ms Hargreaves said the Netherlands needed to "stand up and do what's right".
A majority of the reported photographs - 82% - were found on image-hosting services, rather than on social networks or private websites.
Some of these services are based in the Netherlands due to the low cost of web-hosting there.
The IWF declined to name any of the image-sharing sites that had been found hosting child abuse images. It told the BBC it works with companies to make sure that content is removed.
It said it had also offered its support to the Dutch organisation responsible for dealing with illegal images in the country.
One of the reasons the number of images hosted in the United States was lower is because US tech giants such as Facebook are quick to remove them before reports reach the IWF.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid welcomed the IWF's report. He said tackling child sexual abuse imagery was one of his "personal missions".
I like that guy!
Doctor in Tasmania suspended for 6 weeks
after calling for rape of women
An investigation into Dr Lee’s conduct was launched by the Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal in December 2016 after online posts that were “readily identifiable from his own words and photographs as an Australian medical practitioner” were discovered.
In one particularly offensive post, Dr Lee wrote: “This kind will NEVER learn. She needs to be abandoned in India and repeatedly raped in order for her to wake up her idea.” Lee revealed in other posts that his wife also worked in the hospital, and once wrote that “If my marriage fell apart, it would not end in divorce. It would end in murder.”
In the tribunal, Lee admitted writing the posts, but said he was “relatively young and inexperienced” at the time and “did not full appreciate” their impact on his medicine career. The doctor also claimed that despite his comments, he had not let his personal views affect his work.
In other words, he doesn't regret saying the idiotic things he said, he only regrets that it might adversely affect his career. How can such an attitude possibly not affect his work?
 |
| Royal Hobart Hospital |
Lee, who was previously cautioned for accessing a patient's health records unnecessarily and without their permission 21 times between 2015 and 2016, was suspended for six weeks from May and ordered to undergo training in ethical behavior, communications and use of social media.
Some Australians have taken to Twitter to criticize the punishment as too lenient and are calling for the national health service to inform the public exactly where Lee will be employed so patients can decide whether or not to be under his care.
Too lenient is an understatement! He should have been fired and refused the right to ever practice medicine in Tasmania again. The reason why he was fired should follow him wherever he goes. But, no, in 6 months he will be back practicing on women even though he hates them so much.
I think the Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal needs some people with some courage and moral outrage.
Thousands protest against child sex abuse in Istanbul
after rape of 5 y/o girl
Thousands marched in the streets of Istanbul in protest on Wednesday night after the reported rape of a child in the Küçükçekmece district.
The five-year-old girl was found by her family in a pool of blood outside her home on Monday, Turkish news outlets reported.
The girl was taken to hospital and is still receiving treatment, secularist daily Cumhuriyet reported.
Another girl aged seven was targeted in her home in Küçükçekmece on Wednesday, Cumhuriyet reported. The attacker entered the home when the girl’s mother left to buy bread, but fled when the girl screamed as he attempted to remove her clothes, the report said.
No suspect for either attack has yet been found.
Marches and protests were held around the city on Wednesday night, with women’s groups coming out in force to demand action against sex offenders.
A women’s platform staged another demonstration in the western Turkish city of Izmir.
Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has also spoken out against the attack on Monday.
The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services released a statement promising to provide support to the victim and her family, while the Istanbul governorate strongly condemned the attack in a statement on Wednesday.
The governorate, however, warned that “fake news” about the attack had been spread via social media, and said “some circles” had attempted to use the incident to provoke social chaos.
The AKP government has come under fire for its response to a series of child sex abuse cases in recent years.
The government was accused of protecting the Islamist education foundation Ensar after imposing a broadcast ban preventing reporting on 45 cases of child sexual abuse by an Ensar employee in children's dormitories run by the foundation.
Ensar Foundation has close connections with the AKP party and Erdogan.
Welsh man with cerebral palsy jailed for
32 months for child sex offences
By Court ReporterThe Leader
AN ISOLATED, disabled man contacted girls and boys and engaged in highly sexualised conversations with them.
What he did not know was that in two cases he was speaking to under cover police officers, one from the Metropolitan Police and the other from the North Wales force.
Police found evidence that he had been in touch with 10 others who said they were children, including one abroad, but despite a police investigation it could not be established that they were in fact children.
When arrested at his Wrexham home he was found to have indecent images on his phone and computers and there was evidence that some had been distributed, said prosecuting barrister Myles Wilson.
Challinor, of Queensway in Caia Park, who suffers from cerebral palsy, was jailed for 32 months.
He was ordered to register with the police as a sex offender for life and a life-time sexual harm prevention order was made.
Judge Niclas Parry said the reality was that over a two-and-a-half year period he engaged in "highly sexualised, crude and vulgar" social media conversations with at least 12 individuals he believed to be children aged between 12 and 15.
The contact and the sexual communication was initiated by him and the amount of communication was substantial. It involved him encouraging them to engage in sexual acts on themselves and caused them to watch himself engaging in sexual acts.
One suggestion was that a child should engage in sexual acts with her grandfather who had dementia.
He exposed himself to those he believed to be children and he suggested to a boy of 13 that they met up in a hotel for penetrative sexual acts. There was a significant disparity in ages because he was aged between 43 and 45 at the time.
Two of the "children" he was communicating with turned out to be police officers and it could not be established to the required proof that the 10 others who said they were children actually were. He would therefore be sentenced on the basis that there were not children.
"You should understand that if these were real children, and it could be shown that they were real children, then the starting point would be five years and the sentence could go up to 10," the judge warned. Mercifully, therefore, no real children were involved.
It was a disturbing case and Judge Parry said Challinor would have continued to offend until he was stopped.
However he was a man of effectively good character, he had shown genuine remorse and the judge said he could not ignore his medical condition. He suffered from cerebral palsy and his first custodial sentence would be difficult for him.
Challinor admitted 26 offences – attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual activity, attempting to arrange the commission of a child sex offence, attempting to cause a child to look at images of himself indulging in an indecent act, and attempting to have sexual communication with a child.
He admitted making 14 category A images of child sex abuse, 20 at category B and 92 at category C.
And he admitted possessing a prohibited image of a child, possessing four extreme images involving humans and animals, and three charges of distributing indecent images of child sex abuse.
Defence barrister Sion ap Mihangel said Challinor was apologetic. He had stopped using on-line chat rooms.
The barrister said: "He felt lonely and isolated. It was suggested by others that he should get on to Facebook to broaden his outlook and that spiralled out of control."
He used other social media outlets and at the time of the offending was said to be "in a dark place" and struggling to come to terms with bereavement. At the time he had no real appreciation of the full implications or the seriousness of what he was doing or how prolific he was.
There had been a lack of structure within his home which led to him committing the offences. Issues in his life could be tackled in custody and there would be a sexual harm prevention order in place on his release.
His over-all sentiment at present was one of shame.
Ex-army officer spent £8,000 watching
live child abuse online
Andrew ShawA former British Army officer has admitted live-streaming sick images of children being abused in the Philippines.
Andrew Whiddett, 70, spent over £8,000 on the pictures (pictures is probably a poor choice of words here) between January 2015 and July 2017.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) revealed that he had discussed wanting ‘to sexually abuse a child when he visited the Philippines that October’.
According to the NCA, the former lieutenant colonel began offending after leaving the Army and returning home from his work as head of security at the British Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
From that point in early 2015 until his arrest in Heathrow for sending payments to the Philippines, he was in regular contact with ‘known Filipino child sex abuse facilitators’.
In November 2015, Whiddett, who won an MBE for service in Northern Ireland, paid £31.41 for access to footage of a nine-year-old girl being abused, and a year later he even flew to Manila, the Filipino capital.
Investigators were able to prove 49 illegal payments, but when he was arrested in October 2017, he admitted to making 158 payments.
Whiddett, of Portsmouth, Hampshire, said these were for live adult sex shows and declined to answer any questions in a further interview in March 2018.
The NCA said the information it handed over to Filipino officials led to one further arrest and six children aged three to 14 being protected.
The publication of photos following the case were briefly banned by Judge Ainley, but he quickly rescinded this, telling the court the order had been made ‘in error’.
NCA senior investigating officer Gary Fennelly said: ‘Andrew Whiddett was directly responsible for the soul-destroying abuse of children thousands of miles away from him.
‘He thought he could get away with abusing Filipino children from the comfort of his own home.
‘Anyone like him should realise the NCA and UK police will never give up our pursuit of offenders who commit these horrific crimes.
‘The NCA does important work with international law enforcement partners in the Philippines to combat these sorts of crimes.’
With no previous convictions, Whiddett is currently on bail and will be sentenced at Croydon Crown Court on May 22.
Royal Stoke University Hospital doctor guilty of downloading 22,000 child sex abuse images
StokeonTrentLive
A Royal Stoke University Hospital doctor downloaded and viewed thousands of images of children being sexually abused.
Royal Stoke U. Hospital
The search revealed a number of IT devices which stored more than 22,000 still images, videos and cartoons depicting child sexual abuse.
The 42-year-old initially made no comment following his arrest, but on January 9 this year he handed himself in at Macclesfield Police Station with a prepared statement admitting searching for, downloading and viewing the indecent images.
Bogdan today pleaded guilty to the offences at Chester Crown Court, reports CheshireLive.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) authorised the charges based on the discovery of 13,096 still pictures, two videos and 9,742 cartoons of child sex abuse on computers at his home.
A CPS spokeswoman said further investigation proved he had actively searched for the images.
Speaking after the guilty pleas were entered, Damion Lloyd of Mersey Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service said: "At work Bogdan held down a difficult and respected job.
"At home he was searching for and downloading thousands of images of children being sexually abused.
"In interview he tried to downplay the amount of images he had, claiming he’d downloaded them in bulk and deleted most of them but it was clear that he was continually actively seeking out these dreadful images of abuse.
"He had no previous convictions and had a responsible job yet he risked all of that in the pursuit of these crimes.
"Sexual abuse has a dreadful impact on victims and the sexual abuse of children can have long lasting effects for the rest of their lives.
"To view the images of this abuse and to make images of it is a crime and the Crown Prosecution Service , working with the police, will do all we can to bring the perpetrators to justice."
WhatsApp is hotbed for child pornography in India
Dozens of public groups with hundreds of members operated on the popular app
Anthony CuthbertsonThe Independent Tech
WhatsApp users in India are using chat groups to share child sexual abuse images and videos within the popular messaging app, an investigation has revealed.
Researchers at online security think tank Cyber Peace Foundation (CPF) uncovered dozens of WhatsApp groups with hundreds of members viewing and sharing the content.
The groups have since been shut down after the researchers alerted WhatsApp, but while active they were reportedly operating as public groups discoverable by anyone.
CPF's investigation, which took place over two weeks in March, is not the first time WhatsApp has been linked to the transmission of child sexual abuse material.
In December, Israeli researchers revealed that WhatsApp groups with up to 256 people were openly sharing videos and pictures of children subjected to sexual abuse. In 2017, an investigation led by Spanish police led to the arrest of 38 people in 15 countries suspected of using WhatsApp to circulate child sexual exploitation materials.
A WhatsApp spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent on what measures it was taking to shut the groups down following the latest investigation. The firm has previously said it has a "zero-tolerance policy" for accounts sharing "this vile content".
A comment provided to Indian daily newspaper The Economic Times stated: "WhatsApp cares deeply about the safety of our users and we have no tolerance for child sexual abuse."
It continued: "We rely on the signals available to us, such as group information, to proactively detect and ban accounts suspected of sending or receiving child abuse imagery. We have carefully reviewed this report to ensure such accounts have been banned from our platform."
According to WhatsApp's own figures, the Facebook-owned app bans around 250,000 accounts each month for sharing child abuse images and videos. With an estimated 1.5 billion monthly active users, this represents around 0.01 per cent of worldwide users.
Filipino Children Exploited Daily For Pedophiles In Countries Like Canada
Officials describe it as a humanitarian crisis.
By Samantha BeattieMANILA, Philippines — Fourteen-year-old Chang cried as she took off her clothes in front of a webcam. On the other side of the world, paying pedophiles watched the "sex show" in real time.
Chang had entered the house with the bamboo fence in her fishing town, believing she would smile, say "hi" to the camera and earn enough pesos for a new pair of pants. Once inside, Chang's neighbours coerced her into exposing herself to pedophiles in places like Canada, Australia or the United States.
"They threatened me that if I did not do what they asked, they'd tell my parents," Chang told HuffPost Canada.
She ignored her father's warning to avoid the house, where everyone in the community seemed to know bad things happened. Instead, she told him she was hanging out with friends. "I was so nervous and scared," she said.
Chang was groomed and sexually abused for three months in 2015, facilitated by five adults on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao. She kept going in part because her best friend, who lived there, said she would be physically abused or kicked out of the home if Chang didn't show up.
"I feel pity to her and I go there," Chang said.
"Chang" was rescued in 2015 from a neighbour's house where she was sexually abused for three months. She asked for her identity to be protected, so she can continue to heal free of stigma.
SAMANTHA BEATTIE/HUFFPOST CANADA
"I see my perpetrator. They handcuff him," she said. "I just did nothing."
Social workers rescued Chang, her best friend and 10 other victims who were in the house at the time of the raid; the youngest was six years old.
Police seized computers and hard drives, sex toys and condoms, and remittance receipts, according to local media. Two men and three women later pleaded guilty to child pornography-related charges. All were sentenced to prison for 20 years, except for one offender who received a life sentence.
Chang, now 18, lives in a shelter for victims of violence near Manila. Chang shared her story with journalists at a private location near the shelter where she lives.
She agreed to share her story to raise awareness about the global crime that irreversibly changed her life, and is affecting an unknown number of other Filipino children.
Sitting on a chair on a veranda grasping a plastic bottle of water, her sneakered feet did not quite touch the floor. Her voice was quiet but she spoke clearly, with determination.
"I deal with my anger through crying because I can't fight with (the perpetrators)," she said. "I was just a child and they're adults."
A humanitarian crisis
The police bust was an early indication of a disturbing trend emerging in the Philippines. Four years later, police and experts say online sexual exploitation of children is now a full-blown humanitarian crisis, and they need help.
"This crime is fuelled by demand from western countries," said Sam Inocencio, the Philippine national director of International Justice Mission, an organization that works closely with police, prosecutors and the government to rescue, protect and rehabilitate victims.
Children play where a fire recently destroyed a block of makeshift homes in a low-income area of Manila SAMANTHA BEATTIE/HUFFPOST CANADA
"It's one of the most evil abuses committed against children .... And the idea that perpetrators from abroad don't even have to leave their own homes to direct the live abuse of children located in the Philippines, that's just mind-blowing," Inocencio said.
UNICEF described the Philippines as a "global epicentre" for the livestream child abuse trade, and among the top 10 countries for producing sexual content of children. It also found that almost one in five children had been sexually violated.
"The Philippines is gaining prominence for this vicious online activity," said anti-trafficking Philippine National Police (PNP) Col. Sheila Portento. "Vulnerable and innocent children are most likely the target of thousands of foreign customers and buyers of sexually explicit materials exploiting the cyberspace."
There is much more to this article here at Huff Post.
Thai plantation owner faces accusations of
child sex abuse of 2 y/o
By The Thaiger & The Nation“Jan said ‘Surin’ often took her daughter to his home. When the girl was seven years old, however, it was revealed that ‘Surin’ had allegedly molested or raped her over the previous five years.”
In the latest in a string of serious child abuse cases, relatives of the alleged victims, in this case three girls aged 6, 10 and 14 and a 9 year old boy from the same family, fear they won’t get justice.
The male suspect, allegedly the head of a rubber plantation in Chumphon’s Lang Suan district, is now on bail and is accused of threatening the family.
The 14 year old victim’s 52 year old mother Jan (not her real name) also claimed that the 50 year old suspect – identified only as ‘Surin’ – has threatened her family after he was was earlier arrested for allegedly raping and sexually molesting the children over a number of years, but later was released on bail.
Chumphon police chief Pol Maj General Sajarat Saksilpchai, said he had instructed the case investigator to proceed with legal action against the suspect for the alleged victim intimidation and to gather tighter evidence to prosecute him for the alleged sex crimes.
Jan said that she, her husband and their teenage son and two-year-old daughter, moved from Sakhon Nakhon in 2007 to find rubber tapping jobs in Sawi district. They got to know plantation owner Surin who was kind to the family and invited them to build a shack on his land in tambon Bang Maphrao of Lang Suan district, she said.
Jan said Surin often took her daughter to his home. When the girl was seven years old, however, it was revealed that Surin had allegedly molested or raped her over the previous five years.
Jan said that Surin then offered 20,000 baht to hide the scandal and she accepted as her family lived on Surin’s land and she tried to block Surin from taking advantage of the girl again.
The girl claimed, however, that she continued to be a target of Surin’s alleged sexual advances.
In February this year, Jan said she found out that her 9 year old nephew had allegedly been raped and her two grand-daughters had allegedly avoided Surin’s sexual advances on multiple occasions.
Because of the latest incidents, Jan said she filed a police complaint. She said a medical examination of all four children backed her allegations. She said her family has now moved out of the area to stay on another community leader’s land.
Jan claimed that she decided to come forwards to tell the story to Thai journalists this week because Surin allegedly had some men, driving in a van, shown the four children’s photos to the villagers in her new neighborhood earlier this week, as to ask for a direction to the family’s new home – which was a threatening gesture that made the family worried they might not get justice.
They might get more than injustice.
Truro woman experienced sexual abuse at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children
Lynn Curwin (lynn.curwin@trurodaily.com)
Tracey-Dorrington Skinner experienced a variety of abuse as a child. Today, as the executive director of The Lotus Centre, she’s able to help other abused women. - Lynn Curwin
TRURO, N.S. — Tracey Dorrington-Skinner first experienced sexual abuse while at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children.
It didn’t end there.
“I experienced years of verbal, emotional, physical and sexual abuse and I had a lot of issues because of it,” she said. “if I hadn’t had children, I don’t think I’d be here today. I had to survive for them.”
Dorrington-Skinner was born in 1965 and spent the first years of her life in Truro, where her alcoholic father often beat her mother. After her parents separated she and her siblings, along with her mother, lived with their grandmother. Once, when her mother was away, her grandmother had to go into hospital, so she called social services.
“They took us to the Home for Colored Children, and what was supposed to be a weekend ended up bring years,” she said.
Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children
When I was a small boy I drove past this orphanage every week as my parents took me to Dartmouth for groceries. I always wondered about the place and who was in it.
I don't remember ever seeing kids playing around there.
She was seven years old when she went into the home, where she experienced abuse from staff and other residents.
Staff members fondled her at first, and as she grew they moved on to rape and used sexual abuse as a punishment. They made sexual comments and set up female residents to have sex with the adolescent males. Sexual favours were often required in exchange for a drive in the home’s van.
Children were also told they were stupid and would amount to nothing, she said.
“I felt obligated to have sex and was constantly walking around in a state of heightened anxiety,” recalled Dorrington-Skinner. “Even after I left, when I was about 20 years old, one of the men from the home came, saying he was there to check up on me. He wanted sex and I didn’t feel I could refuse.”
She became involved with drugs and experienced depression, leading her to seriously consider suicide. Eventually, she connected with a therapist who was able to help her.
“She helped me understand how I was treated as a child affected me as an adult,” she said. “I still feel anger but I’m able to enjoy my life and help others.
“The biggest thing I’m able to help people understand is that they’re going to be okay. I can validate what they’re feeling is normal."
Ex-pastor Renato Bosi found guilty in
child sex abuse case in Guam
A 59-year-old former Baptist pastor for the Living Lighthouse Church accused of molesting a girl was found guilty on Thursday of all counts.
Renato Capili Bosi was charged after a then-14-year-old girl said he touched her inappropriately while she lived with him.
According to the Office of the Attorney General, Bosi was convicted of:
two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct as first-degree felonies;
two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct as misdemeanors; and
and child abuse as a misdemeanor.
Information gathered from the Judiciary of Guam website: www.guamcourts.org. If you believe you have been the victim of sexual assault, contact police as soon as possible. Pacific Daily News
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