Brazil police conduct 266 searches in child porn crackdown; Arrest >100
By Renzo Pipoli
Brazilian police arrested more than 100 people in 133 cities as part of the crackdown.
File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
(UPI) -- Brazilian police conducted 266 search orders in 133 cities in a national crackdown on computer-related sex crimes against children, authorities said.
The orders allow police to search suspects' offices and homes if officials believe they've received, stored or shared illegal pornographic files. Officers arrested more than 100 people by Thursday, G1 reported.
Storing child pornography in Brazil is punishable by as many as four years in prison, six years for those who share them and eight years for those who produce them.
It should be 80 years for those who produce them.
Authorities said about 237,000 files were examined by police preparing for the third phase of the operation, G1's report said.
Nearly 100 searches were carried out in the Sao Paulo area, which was the largest part of what Brazilian authorities considered phase 3 of the Light During Infancy program. Last May, police arrested several hundred people in phase 2.
Police started the program in late 2017.
'The shame, the guilt, the pain': victims of Sydney high school teacher speak out
2 Survivors Stories
By Pallavi Singhal, Sydney Morning Herald
The first time Clint Churchyard, a GP and former detective, told anyone that he was sexually assaulted from the age of 12 by a Sydney high school teacher was 27 years after the assaults began.
Mr Churchyard had just turned 39. After giving up a career in the NSW Police Force to grapple with a decades-long alcohol addiction, he was ready to turn his life around and had started a degree in medicine.
Former Cromer High School students Clint Churchyard and Geoff McGuiness say they were sexually abused by convicted former teacher Peter Wayne Scott. CREDIT:LOUISE KENNERLEY
"I was sitting in a lecture in Darlinghurst reading The Sydney Morning Herald when I saw a story on one of [the teacher's] trials and saw that he had been charged [for abusing other students]," Mr Churchyard, now 45, says.
"I made contact with police in 2012 and it was the first time I'd told someone."
The teacher was Peter Wayne Scott, an art teacher at Cromer High School in Sydney's northern beaches, who has been convicted of 14 child sex offences in the 1980s at the school that has come under scrutiny for teacher-student relations.
Cromer High has received the most attention over the case of former physical education teacher Chris Dawson, who was charged last year over the disappearance of his wife Lynette Dawson. Lynette was last seen days before Chris Dawson's former student, Joanne Curtis, moved into his house.
A number of teachers who were at the school in the 1980s said in the popular The Teacher's Pet podcast they knew about relationships between multiple teachers and students.
Mr Churchyard began year 7 at Cromer High School in 1986, after Mr Dawson had left the school, but says there was still an acceptance of teacher-student relationships.
Mr Churchyard met Scott, his roll call teacher, on the first day of school. "Throughout the year, he took a particular interest in me, he recognised that I had an interest in music and he was teaching me how to play the guitar," says Mr Churchyard, who testified at three of Scott's trials. "He was engaging in what I recognise now as grooming behaviour."
Scott, or "Scotty" as he let students call him, directed rock videos for popular '80s bands including the Divinyls, Mental as Anything and the Choirboys and was one of the most popular teachers at Cromer High.
Scott would drive male students to the beach in his blue panel van, invite them to parties at his house and give them alcohol and drugs, including cocaine and heroin, before sexually assaulting them.
Another student, Geoff McGuinness, who started at Cromer High three years earlier in 1983, says he was first sexually assaulted by Scott in year 7.
McGuinness says a number of the assaults occurred on school grounds, in the back of Scott's panel van and, on one occassion, in the shower at Scott's Bilgola home.
"One of the assaults occurred at the school talent quest and I ended up upstairs with [Scott], it was the drama control room, and he pulled out a bag of speed and chopped up two lines and I had a line and then went and sat down and went 'What's just happened?' And that was the start of it," Mr McGuinness, now 48, says.
Peter Wayne Scott leaves Downing Centre Local Court in 2013. He has been convicted of multiple child sex offences. CREDIT:DALLAS KILPONEN
"After that, [Scott] was everywhere you'd turn, he'd drive some of us to sport, sometimes you'd be walking to school and he'd drive past and pick you up."
"When I look back I can see his patterns. He'd have a couple of us in his car and I knew it was happening to [another student] because he'd either drop him home first and I'd be trapped or he'd drop me off first and [the other student] would be alone with him.
"But it was never spoken about, it was like it was too embarrassing I guess, to talk to each other about it."
For Mr Churchyard, the first assault happened when he was in year 7.
Mr Churchyard remained in Scott's roll call class until Scott left Cromer High. Scott continued to work as a teacher at Mullumbimby High School and Kingscliffe TAFE and, after the first abuse allegations emerged in 1999, as an administrative assistant at Byron Bay High School.
A spokesman for the NSW Department of Education said Scott was removed as a teacher in 2010. "An investigation occurred in 1999 in relation to allegations to events in 1980 and Mr Scott was removed from teaching duties," the spokesman said. "He returned to duty as a teacher when those allegations were not sustained. Mr Scott was removed from duty in 2010 when further allegations were received. These matters became the subject of criminal proceedings. Mr Scott did not return from duty and ceased employment with the department."
In 2014, Scott was found guilty of child sex offences, and sentenced to a maximum of 14 years in jail, with a non-parole period of seven-and-a-half years. Scott denied all allegations against him and denied knowing some of the victims.
"These acts were carried out by a teacher who adults trusted and who students thought was 'cool and nice'," Judge Sarah Hugett said during sentencing. "He is appropriately described as a sexual predator."
Mr Churchyard says his experience led to alcoholism and drug addiction that lasted until his early 40s. "Almost immediately after the assaults started I began experimenting with alcohol and drugs, and that continued throughout high school," Mr Churchyard says. "The problem escalated over a period of time until my relationships were floundering, I had three young children under the age of 5 and I stopped drinking in [about 2006].
"I had a period of abstinence up until 2012 when the trials started and that's when I started drinking again. Then in 2013 I had a drug overdose and it was near fatal."
Mr Churchyard joined NSW Police after finishing the HSC and held various positions as a plain-clothes officer, a member of the counter-terrorist command and a detective in the homicide squad. He resigned when his alcoholism and drug abuse were getting out of hand.
"The reason I got to that point of having an overdose is the shame, the guilt, the pain. You want to be anywhere but sitting in that," Mr Churchyard says. "I resigned at the peak of my illness, I was very sick and a detective in the NSW Police Force wasn't a position I deserved to occupy at the time."
He has now finished his medical degree and recently started working as a general practitioner in Taree, and says he has been sober for several years.
"I think it's my obligation to tell my story so someone else might come into a healing space," Mr Churchyard says. "I just want to emphasise that if you're a victim, remember you did nothing wrong, seek help and get the support to get into a better space."
In Australia, nearly one in 10 girls and one in 22 boys have experienced sexual abuse before the age of 15. Two-thirds of sexual offence victims in NSW last year were children.
Many survivors of child sexual abuse have similar experiences, according to Daryl Higgins, director of the Institute of Child Protection Studies at the Australian Catholic University.
"Common themes are issues with substance misuse, problems with relationships, identity, difficulties with sexual relationships. Issues with mood and wellbeing, depression and anxiety are very common," Professor Higgins says.
"Often perpetrators will use their position of power and authority to reinforce that the event was shameful and had something to do with the young person themself, that they brought it upon themselves, and that stays in the mind of the victim."
Mr McGuinness says at least some of the teachers "had to have known that something was going on", including Scott's partner at the time, a part-time art teacher at Cromer High.
"I'd been surfing one day and there were a few of us there in [Scott's] house afterwards, and I was in his shower and he came in and sexually assaulted me. [Scott's partner] was pregnant at the time and when he walked out I heard them having a really big screaming match; it was in her face as well," Mr McGuinness says.
Professor Higgins says many of the institutions where there were recurring cases of sexual assault had structures where adults had plenty of chances to develop relationships with children away from other adults.
"So how does it happen? I think very easily. I don't think any organisation is doing enough and no organisation will arrive at a place where they're safe and there's nothing more they can do, it's a constant journey and about being constantly aware of risks."
The Department of Education spokesman said its sexual abuse reporting policies and investigative powers have changed significantly since the 1980s. While schools always had an obligation to report allegations of criminal conduct, the guidelines were much more detailed today.
Mr McGuinness says his mother suspected something was wrong, but he brushed aside her concerns. "What was I going to say? It was like you were ashamed of yourself for what had happened, like it was your fault."
The first time Mr McGuinness spoke about the assaults was to police in 2009 . He says Scott put him on the path to becoming a drug addict.
"He was the first one that gave me drugs, it's where it all started," Mr McGuinness says. "We'd smoke pot with him all the time and snort coke and snort speed on occasions, and then I think it was around my 15th birthday or just before that, he took me down to Jamieson Park in Narrabeen and rolled a joint and said he was putting cocaine in it, but I passed out after it, and the first time I had heroin after that I was like 'so that's what he put in there'.
"That certainly started me on the path to becoming a drug addict, that's where it all began, with him back in school. I'd been using heroin for nearly half my life when I stopped, since I was 18 years old."
Mr McGuinness says he didn't work for more than a decade but has recently opened a construction company and is working with his father and son.
Since the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered its final report in 2017, the NSW government has changed the way it handles such cases, including bringing in maximum life sentences for persistent child abusers. It has also joined the National Redress Scheme, which aims to "ensure that institutions take responsibility for the abuse that occurred on their watch". This has included reforms to civil litigation to make it easier for survivors to sue these institutions.
Mr McGuinness is glad that anyone found guilty of similar offences now would likely receive much more jail time than Scott.
"I've lived with it now for 35 years and I've got to live with it for the rest of my life, and he gets 11 years and seven-and-a-half on the bottom, it doesn't seem right," he says.
Alberta pediatrician charged with
sexual assault of child
Janice Johnston · CBC News
A St. Albert pediatrician has been charged with sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl.
Dr. Ramneek Mohinder Kumar, 48, is accused of sexually assaulting the child in August 2015, according to court documents.
The complainant was not a patient of Kumar's, and the alleged assault and sexual contact took place while the doctor was on a family holiday in Waterton Lakes National Park in southern Alberta.
Kumar also faces two charges of sexual interference with a person under the age of 16.
RCMP issued a warrant for his arrest on March 22. Kumar was taken into custody in the Edmonton area on March 27, an RCMP spokesman said.
A source told CBC News that Kumar was arrested at the Edmonton International Airport. It was not clear whether he was arriving at the airport or trying to leave.
Kumar practices at the Rivercrest Medical Clinic in St. Albert. He was not working at the clinic Friday.
The doctor was granted bail by a Pincher Creek justice of the peace on Wednesday. One condition of his bail is that he not be in the presence of anyone under the age of 16, RCMP said.
That will make it hard to practice!
On Friday afternoon, a spokesperson said the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta was aware of the charges and had asked Kumar to withdraw from practice on March 28. Kumar's status was listed as active on the college website on Friday.
"Should he not voluntarily withdraw, the CPSA will consider which practice restrictions under the Health Professions Act are required to ensure patient safety," said communications director Jessica McPhee.
"Generally, the criminal process takes precedent over any regulatory investigation; any CPSA investigation will be held in abeyance until the criminal process is complete."
Kumar is scheduled to make his next court appearance on April 16 in Pincher Creek.
Barbados School Board alarmed with
sexual activity among minors
Article by Emmanuel Joseph
Barbados Today
Child protection agency authorities here are scratching their heads over what they see as a disturbing trend of minors having sex with minors at school.
Coordinator of the Child Abuse Programme at the state-owned Child Care Board (CCB) Roxanne Sanderson-Weekes told Barbados TODAY this worrying development was particularly prevalent at certain schools outside of the St Michael catchment area. She did not name these schools.
Sanderson-Weekes said what was of even more concern is that the majority of children engaged in this activity at school and targeted by adults outside of these learning institutions, are under age ten.
“There was an increase in sexual abuse of young children under the age of 10 [2017-2018], both by adults and other minors. Minor on minor sex is a growing concern, especially at young ages. This is especially prevalent in the school environment,” the Child Care Board official said while providing overall child abuse statistics for the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 periods.
She revealed that the officers of the protection agency are also reporting a high rate of fondling of younger children, not only by adults, but also by older children.
Sanderson-Weekes identified primary schools as the place where much of this sexual deviancy was happening.
“What we are finding though is a lot of cases where there is minor on minor inter-sexual acts; and you are seeing a lot of them coming out of the primary schools. It is sexual abuse in a sense because they are either seeing it or hearing it or are exposed to it in some way. And you coming to school and you are now performing this act on somebody else…another child. So we see a lot of that, where you have to do a lot of counseling…and this is where you need to continue to reinforce this kind of discussion on proper sexual behavior within the school system,” she suggested.
Sanderson-Weekes went further to illustrate the ages at which minors are being sexually abused. The senior officer revealed that last year, one child between ages five and 11 was raped while the same thing happened to 20 children ranging in ages 12 to 16.
The Child Care Board official noted that seven children in the 5-11 age group reported being fondled and another was reportedly abused by the insertion of someone’s finger. Additionally, six children were subjected to inappropriate sexual exposure and two were the targets of sexual advances. She also lamented that one minor between ages five and 11 had oral sex performed on her while two – ages 12 – 16 – were on the receiving end of a similar act.
“The majority of perpetrators of sexual abuse cases continues to be persons known to the victims. These are usually family members, peers from school, neighbours or the girls’ boyfriend. In the case of a family member being the alleged perpetrator, this may necessitate the child being removed from that environment. There were also cases of children contracting various sexually transmitted diseases as a result of being sexually abused,” she added.
But while the authorities work to get a grip on the rising incidence of minor on minor sex acts in schools, they are reporting a gradual decline in the overall number of child abuse cases in the island.
“For 2017-2018, the statistics show that we had 716 child abuse cases which affected 947 children. Of that, we had a total of 526 new cases which impacted 669 new children,” the child abuse programme coordinator told Barbados TODAY.
She said that 2017-2018 figures showed a decrease over those for the 2016-2017 period. In the previous year, there were 206 cases more cases involving 265 more minors.
The Child Care Board official disclosed that girls constituted the more frequently abused gender across most categories. For example, she cited the latest data for 2018 which showed that 101 girls were physically abused compared to 96 boys; 114 girls were victims of sexual abuse as against 28 boys; and 52 females experienced emotional abuse, two more than the males. She stated that the males, however, were the ones more neglected by their parents (279/222) or abandoned (4/1).
In expressing concern over the “very” young ages at which children are being abused these days, Sanderson-Weekes reported that up to age four, there were 43 cases of physical abuse of minors recorded and 28 sexual abuse; 179 cases of neglect; 26 of emotional trauma and two cases of abandonment.
For those five years and under 12, some 84 were the victims of physical abuse; 40 sexual abuse; 176 were neglected; 34 emotionally abused and four abandoned while in the 12-16 age group there were 42 children who were physically abused; 71 sexually abused; 70 were neglected; 43 were subjected to emotional abuse and one was abandoned.
The spokesperson also said that despite a slight decrease in the reported cases of physical abuse, this still remains of major concern. She pinpointed the number of teenagers who are injured due to conflict between them and a parent contending that poor parenting, particularly by younger parents, was also contributing to physical abuse.
However, Sanderson-Weekes told Barbados TODAY that the Board had not gone asleep, when it came to reports of child abuse. She said the CCB continued to work with Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF) and its Sex Crime Unit to bring perpetrators before the law courts.
According to her, in 2017, some 15 accused child sexual abusers were arrested and charged, while the number was eight last year. Two were placed before the courts for physical abuse in 2016, but none for last year.
The figures supplied by the Child Care Board also showed that 20 of the 31 cases of sexual abuse reported to police were under investigation in 2018 along with one of the 17 cases of physical abuse turned over to the lawmen.
And what about the 11 cases that are not being investigated?
South Korea students call for dismissal of another professor accused of sexual harassment
By Elizabeth Shim
SEOUL, (UPI) -- Students at South Korea's top-ranked Seoul National University declared a hunger strike in a bid to have a professor, who has been accused of making sexual advances toward students, expelled.
The professor, who taught in the Spanish department, has been brought before the university's disciplinary committee for sexual misconduct, Yonhap reported Tuesday.
The professor may have been admonished after a former student came forward with sexual harassment allegations earlier this year.
In a written statement released in English, Spanish and Korean in February, the student said she had over the course of four years become a victim of "various forms of sexual violence and all kinds of human rights violations."
The student said that during a trip overseas, the professor "raised her skirt to feel her legs." She added he touched her hair and massaged her shoulders and arms without her permission when she fell asleep on a bus.
The professor was suspended, but students at the university are calling for an expulsion.
Lee Su-bin, a liberal arts student and chair of a student-led council, said the hunger strike would begin at noon Wednesday and continue until the professor is permanently dismissed.
Earlier, students voted unanimously in favor of the professor's expulsion.
The students also said there have been repeated cases of sexual abuse between professors and students. Previous professors received a three-month suspension but were allowed to return to teach, they said.
#MeToo movement in South Korea spreads to academic sector
The women-led #MeToo movement in South Korea has led to a surge of sexual assault accusations against powerful men by women.
The Korea Times recently reported Starbucks Coffee Korea is in the spotlight for mishandling sexual harassment complaints from women workers.
The plaintiff had reported incidents of inappropriate touching, but management ignored her complaints, according to the report.
Starbucks has yet to terminate the defendant and may have transferred him to another location.
South Korea not doing enough to protect women: Human Rights Watch (3rd story on link)
South Korean police looking into 55 people accused of sexual crimes in #MeToo movement (3rd story on link)
Sex abuse reports in Netherlands schools
highest in 15 years
By Janene PietersThe number of reports of sexual abuse and discrimination at Dutch schools increased last year. The Education Inspectorate received 134 reports of sexual abuse in the school year 2017/2018, the highest number in 15 years, NU.nl reports.
In nearly half of the reports about pupils being sexually abused, the accused perpetrator is someone who works at the school, such as a teacher or a member of the non-teaching staff, according to the Inspectorate. The number of reports about sexual harassment decreased, the Inspectorate said.
The number of reports about discrimination especially increased at primary schools. The number of incidents in which pupils were discriminated against due to their immigration background nearly doubled, from 25 percent in 2017 to 42 percent last year.
Like in previous years, the confidential inspectors noted that the reports made to the Inspectorate are increasingly complex, intense and urgent.
Earlier this week the Netherlands' child pornography hotline also reported an alarming increase in the number of reports it received last year.
Bishop Eamonn Casey's former lover Annie Murphy urges his child sex abuse victims to come forward
By Irishmirror.Ie
She broke her silence for the first time since child sex abuse allegations were made against the Bishop, who passed away in 2017.
Bishop Eamonn Casey (Image: Eamonn Farrell // Photocall Ireland)
Murphy told the Irish Daily Star: "I would never cross over them. Ever. It would be so wrong of me to do that."
Bishop Eamonn Casey's lover Annie Murphy pictured at the Eagle's Nest Mountain, Killarney in 1993. (Image: Don MacMonagle)
"Listen I would never say anything about their experiences, my God in heaven I wouldn't dare."
The love affair between Eamonn Casey and Annie Murphy – and the revelation he had a secret love child with her – rocked the country in 1992.
Former Bishop of the Diocese of Galway and Kilmacduagh, Casey passed away two years ago at the age of 89.
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