Sexsomnia case: Ontario dad who molested young teen daughter found not criminally responsible
GARY DIMMOCK
An Eastern Ontario father who molested his 14-year-old daughter in 2016 has been found not criminally responsible because he was “suffering” from sexsomnia at the time.
His daughter had just moved back in with her father only for him to molest her in her bedroom at night.
The father, 39, was found not criminally responsible for sexual assault, touching for a sexual purpose, and touching a child for a sexual purpose after two psychiatrists concluded he had sexsomnia.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Michel Z. Charbonneau recently delivered his ruling after also hearing evidence of a sleep study that showed the father became sexually aroused while sleeping. (OK, who doesn't?) (The electroencephalogram, or EEG, indicated he was asleep during the sexual activity, thereby eliminating any possibility that he was faking it, L’Orignal court heard.)
It’s not the first time he’s been in criminal court. He pleaded guilty for trying to have sex with a sleeping woman back in 2003.
In a bid to win his sexsomnia defence, he took the stand during his trial earlier this year in May, and offered past examples to support his claim that he was suffering from the sleep-sex disorder when he molested his daughter. He didn’t dispute the sexual assaults but maintained that he had no memory of them after falling asleep next to his daughter one night back in 2016.
It appears he knew he had this disorder and still allowed himself to fall asleep next to his daughter! What kind of father is that?
He testified that his wife has told him that he used to touch her sexually in his sleep only for him to have no memory of it.
He also said he has sleep apnea and had trouble getting a good sleep at the appropriate time. He told court his sleep has greatly improved since using a CPAP machine.
His wife also took the stand in his defence and testified that her husband — for years — used to perform sexual acts on her while he was asleep. She said it hasn’t happened since he started using a CPAP machine in 2017.
Her testimony was supported by a second sleep study conducted after he started using a CPAP machine. (The breathing problem had been corrected and no parasomniac behaviour was noted, court heard.)
In the July 18 decision, Charbonneau noted that the accused had a hard childhood. He was sexually abused by adults. He went on to sexually abuse some of his siblings and worked as a teen prostitute. He has been diagnosed with ADHD, anti-social personality disorder and depression.
Dr. Paul Federoff, an expert psychiatrist, has been treating the man for years and says his risk to re-offend is nil, court heard. The man now sleeps only with his wife, has installed hand alarms on his bedroom door and sleeps with his CPAP machine which has cured his sleep apnea, court heard.
The Crown urged the judge to reject the accused’s evidence, saying it lacked credibility — notably contradictions and discrepancies between his trial testimony and what he told investigating Ottawa police back in 2016.
His defence lawyer, Michael Crystal, said at trial that his client — described in court as unsophisticated — had not yet had a chance to review the statement he gave to police some three years earlier before he took the stand.
The judge ruled that most of the accused’s contradictions raised by the Crown were not significant before ultimately finding him not criminally responsible.
The judge made the NCR finding on consent from both the Crown and defence.
Because he was found not criminally responsible, the Ontario Review Board (ORB) will now decide his future and the conditions that come with it. The man is not in custody and is awaiting an unscheduled ORB hearing.
Sexsomnia is a disorder that causes people to engage in sexual behaviour — everything from touching to intercourse — while still asleep. It was added in 2013 to the DSM-5, the American Psychiatric Association’s authoritative classification of mental disorders. Defence lawyers have mounted sexsomnia defences only a handful times, with varying degrees of success, over the past 15 years, according to a review of the Canadian legal database, CanLII.
The man’s identity is shielded by a publication ban to protect the identify of his victim.
His lawyer told this newspaper on Friday that he was pleased the girl was spared the hardship of a trial in light of the successful NCR defence.
Calls for Scottish child abuse inquiry to open up phase
on travellers (gypsies)
STV
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has heard evidence of abuse suffered by youngsters in care.
Calls have been made for a child abuse inquiry to open up a new phase which focuses on the experience of Scottish Travellers.
Scottish Travellers, or the people in Scotland loosely termed gypsies or travellers, consist of a number of diverse, unrelated communities that speak a variety of different languages and dialects that pertain to distinct customs, histories, and traditions.
There are four distinct communities that identify themselves as Gypsies/Travellers in Scotland: Indigenous Highland Travellers, Romani Lowland Travellers, Scottish Border Romanichal Traveller (Border Gypsies) and Showman (Funfair Travellers). - Wikipedia
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) has heard evidence of emotional, physical and sexual abuse suffered by youngsters in care, first hearing statements in 2017.
Its review is split into separate case studies and it announced on Friday it would investigate boarding schools and foster care in later proceedings.
Campaigners are now calling for the experience of Travellers to be investigated in its own phase.
Davie Donaldson, a Traveller rights activist, said: "A phase focusing on the experience of Travellers would be progressive.
"The experience of Travellers was socially unique as our children were being taken as a direct attack on our culture, similar to how we see history of children being taken during colonialism - this was to try and get rid of our way of life."
In 1895 government recommended children could be removed from the community and placed in homes or shipped to British colonies. Campaigners claim this was used to employ practices which would erode their culture.
Mr Donaldson said: "It was believed there was no hope for the adults of the Traveller community - stuck in their primitive way of life - but did have for the children.
"They set in social policy where children were taken away from their parents, basically because they were Travellers. That went right on until the early 1970s - I'm yet to find one Traveller family that doesn't have an example of this happening to them."
Author Jess Smith, a Scottish Traveller, added: "It's very easy to go into a camp and say 'these children are malnourished, this tent is leaking - we are going to take them off you'.
"Police were coming to take their children away. That was commonplace. They were treated as if they weren't worth anything - how devastated, how worthless must they have felt.'
Martha Stewart (not The Martha Stewart) was removed from her family camp in Aberdeenshire as a six-month-old in 1958.
Her parents returned to their tent at night to find their two daughters, who were being looked after by an auntie, had been taken by police.
The 61-year-old said: "They were treated as if they weren't worth anything - how devastated, how worthless must they have felt.
"All their stuff was there still, but there were no children. We were never allowed contact with our family again - we never saw our parents again."
Ms Stewart and her sister were taken into foster care, where she said they had a good upbringing.
She added: "They thought they were doing good for the children, but the way they went about it wasn't good. I have missed out, I have always wanted to know where I get some of my wanderlust from. You can take the Traveller out of the camp, but you can't take the camp out of the Traveller."
Organisations working with Travellers believe the population in Scotland is between 15,000 to 20,000 people.
Members of the community have already taken part in the inquiry and a SCAI spokesman encouraged more people to get in touch with them. He added: "The SCAI has been taking and continues to take evidence from many individuals through private sessions and is also taking evidence from other witnesses with valuable information.
"In addition, the inquiry has gathered, and continues to gather, a wide range of documentary evidence about the abuse of children in care. This includes children whose care was arranged in Scotland.
"The inquiry has invested in a wide-ranging public information campaign and is working closely with various organisations to encourage those with relevant information to come forward. This includes engaging with members of the Travelling community."
Australia's Geelong College warns of more court cases
over child sex abuse
By Erin Pearson
The Age
A civil trial involving Geelong College and an alleged victim of child sex abuse is set to begin in the Supreme Court on Monday.
In a letter sent to the college community last week, the private school detailed how an apology to victims of sexual abuse had failed to stop civil legal action set to begin this week.
It also warned of “a small number of cases" expected to follow.
The letter also revealed that the school has recently signed on to the National Redress Scheme, which gives sexual abuse victims greater access to compensation.
“We have written to the college community on a number of occasions throughout this period to raise awareness of this important issue, to apologise publicly to those who have been harmed, and to demonstrate a willingness to support survivors towards redress, in all its forms,” the school wrote.
“Some matters have not been resolved using this approach. This means we are expecting a small number of cases to escalate to the court system in the coming weeks and months.”
The trial involving a former student and Geelong College is set to begin in the Supreme Court on Monday and is expected to run for up to seven days.
The applicant has previously spoken about the abuse he suffered, allegedly at the hands of a former school employee, and his concerns about how the school handled his complaints.
In 2015, the man told The Age he was abused in his first year as a boarder in the junior school in 1968 when he was 12.
He went on to report the case to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.
Former Geelong College employees have previously been convicted over historic child sexual abuse during their time at the prestigious school, including ex-teachers Colin McPherson and Jeremy Longley in the 1960s and 1970s.
Former rowing coach David Whitcroft is currently serving a minimum three-year jail sentence for abuse of students in the 1980s.
Scottish rape suspect, who was reported drowned in California, is arrested in Colorado
Apparently, he was only mostly dead!
By: The Associated Press
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – A Scottish man who authorities say faked his death off California's Carmel coast to avoid rape charges back home has been arrested, authorities announced Friday.
Kim Vincent Avis, 55, also known as Ken Gordon-Avis, was arrested in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last week and is being held by the U.S. Marshals Service, Cmdr. Kathy Pallozolo with the Monterey County Sheriff's Office said. The Associated Press has identified him as Kim Gordon.
Gordon's 17-year-old son reported that his father vanished Feb. 25 after going for a nighttime swim in treacherous waters in Monterey. Searchers found no trace of Gordon at Monastery Beach, sometimes dubbed "Mortuary Beach" for its deadly reputation.
After three days of intense searching, detectives began to suspect a hoax.
They say the son's account lacked crucial details, and he couldn't explain how the two got to California's central coast after traveling by air from Scotland to Los Angeles.
"There was a lack of detail," sheriff's Capt. John Thornburg said at the time. "The son, who reported it, couldn't even tell us where he went in under the water."
Gordon's son was returned to Scotland with the help of Monterey County Child Protective Services. He did not face charges for filing a false report.
Gordon, who is from the Edinburgh area, is wanted on 24 counts of rape in Scotland.
"When that came up, we start to wonder if this is a hoax, and he's trying to escape these charges out of Scotland," Thornburg said.
A spokesperson for Police Scotland told the BBC: "Police Scotland is aware of reports from the USA regarding Kim Gordon or Avis and is liaising with the relevant authorities."
Telford abuse victims' fury after council refused £150k
that could have saved hundreds
Officials were concerned that accepting the funds would bring shame on the town by highlighting the grooming problem, an insider claims
By Geraldine McKelvie
Mirror
Council chiefs in Telford turned down a £150,000 grant that could have saved hundreds of child sex abuse victims, it has emerged.
A furious insider claimed officials were worried that accepting the funds would bring shame on the town by highlighting its grooming problem.
Victims slammed the move to scrap the initiative, which aimed to help professionals spot the signs of exploitation and trafficking.
The money was offered in 2010. Since then 268 local children have been referred for support after they were exploited.
One victim, first targeted in 2014 at the age of 15, was assaulted so violently her ribs were broken. She was trafficked to other towns across the Midlands to be raped by dozens of men.
The victim, now 20, said: “I’m really angry that the council turned this money down. It could have helped me a lot.
“Why would the council not want to do something like this? I was being abused for two years before any professional got involved with me.
“If people had been trained properly, they might have started asking why I wasn’t turning up to school and why I was going to nightclubs.
“I’ve been through hell and it could have been stopped if someone had just asked the right questions.”
A council source told the Sunday Mirror: “It was a real missed opportunity. Telford was screaming out for this project but we felt some people didn’t want to highlight the town as a problem area.
They would rather it be a problem area than to be seen as one. Astonishing! #PCMadness
“Our greatest sadness is that we could have stopped some victims from being abused.”
A Mirror exposé last year revealed that as many as 1,000 girls could have been abused and trafficked by Telford gangs over four decades.
By 'Telford gangs' they mean Pakistani Muslim men!
The Labour-led local authority was forced to agree to a public inquiry after our revelations.
But the grant – worth £151,983 – was rejected when the council was under Tory control.
At that time a police probe found 100 girls could have been targeted in just two years.
Staff were advised that the EU would contribute 80 per cent of the project’s costs after the local authority successfully applied for funds in 2009.
The bid came three years before the mass abuse of girls was highlighted by the conviction of nine men in Rochdale – in the first UK prosecution of its kind.
Our source said: “This project was a real chance to lead the way. We were excited about what it might achieve.
“We knew child sexual exploitation was about to become known as a huge issue across the UK. The whole country could have learned from us.”
The grant was part of the Daphne project, a European initiative aimed at combating violence against women and children.
The council would have had to fund 20 per cent of costs, though a leaked memo seen by the Mirror shows experts advised the authority that seconding existing staff to work on the programme would cover the cost.
But the council withdrew its bid in late 2010, devastating dedicated staff. One professional was so determined for the project to succeed she offered to work for free.
Others feared the council was scared to upset minority groups, as a large number of perpetrators came from the Pakistani heritage community.
Our source said: “Many people were desperately upset when the bid was withdrawn. The grant was a complete gift. The excuse given by the council was money, but it wouldn’t have cost a penny, so that didn’t make sense.
“We feel they thought it would bring shame on Telford by admitting there was a problem but the same issues were being faced in other places, like Rotherham and Derby.
“We also feared they didn’t want to highlight certain ethnic minority groups as perpetrators, as multicultural relations in the town had historically been very good.”
Yeah! As long as the Pakistani men could rape and traffic little British girls, everything was fine.
The project was set to be named SITEMAP, which stood for Stopping Internal Trafficking and Exploitation Through Multi Agency Partnership. It would have involved council staff visiting police, NHS and schools to help staff spot early signs of child sexual exploitation. Staff would be trained on how to intervene and signpost kids to relevant services.
The source said: “One key strand was getting into residential children’s homes because children in care were seen as being particularly vulnerable. But that was only one part of it. This training could have been rolled out to hundreds of professionals, from teaching assistants to police community support officers.”
Since turning the funding down, Telford and Wrekin Council has received hundreds of child sexual exploitation referrals. Its specialist abuse project supported 268 young people between 2011 and 2018 and has been forced to recruit extra staff due to the volume of work.
And files uncovered by the Sunday Mirror show professionals repeatedly failed to spot signs of abuse after the project was canned. Shockingly, girls were blamed for their own ordeals and described by council staff as “prostitutes” in documents from 2013.
Others were made to sign “behaviour contracts” which asked them to accept responsibility for symptoms of being groomed.
Raped UK vicar reveals tragic tale of sex abuse
in the church
Abandoned as a child, Matthew Ineson fell into the clutches of sex-fiend priest before uncovering more abuse as a vicar three decades later
By Nick Lavigueur
Examiner Live One Survivor's Story
The Dewsbury born vicar at the centre of the Anglican Church's sexual abuse scandal has told how the alleged abuse of schoolchildren in his Rotherham parish sparked his battle to get justice for himself and others.
Staincliffe's Matthew Ineson has hit the headlines in recent weeks after he lashed out at Church of England (CofE) leaders during an independent inquiry into sexual abuse.
He has waived his right to anonymity in order to share his story.
Mr Ineson was raped by a Bradford priest in 1984 - and told the inquiry senior Church of England clerics ignored his claims. He has strongly criticised the church's lack of action at his multiple disclosures.
He said senior bishops and the archbishops of York and Canterbury all sat on their hands in a bid to cover up the historical abuse report.
Now he has revealed how he came to be a vicar, despite his rape ordeal as a child, and what prompted him to come forward to try and expose the historical sexual abuse some 28 years later.
His crusade to tackle the hush-hush culture of ignoring abuse within the church began after a vulnerable parishioner came to him for help.
He said: "I got a note pushed through the door (from a mum) who said the caretaker at school had been touching her boys. She told me the boys came home saying the caretaker had been putting his hands down their underpants - these are primary school kids.
"She'd been to the school and she felt fobbed off so she'd rung the police but had been left waiting ten days and nothing had happened. So as a vicar I went to see the headteacher and executive head.
"I said: 'I do know, you know - mum's been to see me.' I was told it had been sorted but I said, 'I don't believe you.'"
Mr Ineson escalated the complaint to the area's church council but he felt they were also trying to sweep it under the carpet. He said it appeared no one reported the allegations to the police or social services so he reported it himself through the NSPCC.
At a meeting with his superior shortly after, Mr Ineson, said he was "furious" and it was then that he revealed his own childhood agony. Confronting him, he said: "Do you know why I'm so damn furious? Because it happened to me and I've never told anyone in 28 years.
"A priest abused me when I was a kid, now I'm the vicar and if you think I'm standing by and letting this happen to other children, you've got another thing coming."
Mr Ineson later found out that not one part of the church had called the police about his disclosure or the alleged abuse at the school.
At a later meeting of church clerics he said to all present: "You lot make me sick. I've disclosed to you all my abuse and you've done nothing."
Following the bad tempered meeting he resigned as a vicar. He says he no longer believes in God and wants nothing to do with the CofE.
Mr Ineson has also spoken for the first time about how he fell into clutches of Bradford priest Trevor Devamanikkam, who took his own life rather than face trial for three counts of rape and three counts of indecent assault against Mr Ineson.
Which proves my assertion that pedophile priests don't actually believe in God. If he did, he would not be in such a hurry to stand before Him.
Trevor Devamanikkam was accused of raping Matthew Ineson of Heckmondwike in 1984. Devamanikkam took his own life on the day of his trial.
Son of a nurse, he was abandoned as a child, and left with his very elderly grandmother, who struggled to cope.
He said: "My mum didn't want me so my gran brought me up.
"My mum was a nurse at Staincliffe Hospital, but she just took off to Abu Dhabi, disappeared off the face of the earth for four or five years. She walked out the front door and left it wide open.
"The family just fell apart, my nan wasn't coping and I was probably a proper stroppy teenager. So she went to see the vicar of Carlinghowe and he recommended a priest friend I could stay with to give her a bit of respite."
Soon after Trevor Devamanikkam came and picked the then 16-year-old Mr Ineson up, and took him to his vicarage in Buttershaw, Bradford.
A few nights into his stay Devamanikkam came into his bedroom to see if he was okay. The youngster was shocked when he groped him under the bed covers.
"I just froze," he said. He said, 'Don't you like that?' and I said 'No', and he left." Undeterred, the priest repeated his abuse the following night before things became even more horrific.
"He said there were visitors coming to the vicarage and he needed my room, so I would have to share his room," recalled the 51-year-old Mr Ineson. "They never turned up these folk by the way.
"That night I turned away from him and he came up behind me and that's when he did it." The horrific rapes occurred several more times as Mr Ineson had nowhere to go. "I didn't tell anyone as I thought who would believe me," he said. "I was just a kid against a vicar and a bishop."
A few weeks later he was turfed out of the vicarage by one of Devamanikkam's superiors, ending up on the streets for two nights.
Amazing! The superior throws the kid out onto the streets and keeps the paedophile priest.
He found himself a job in a Bradford hotel and although estranged from his family for seven years, managed to make ends meet, working his way up to be reception manager.
His dad eventually traced him after he was featured in the Bradford paper, the Telegraph and Argus, and over the years he continued to be a churchgoer.
He was encouraged to put himself forward to become a vicar and ended up studying at Mirfield Monastery, being ordained in 2000. He kept his silence about the crimes he'd suffered all along. "I knew if I told them what happened I'd never be ordained," he said.
"I didn't blame the church for what happened, I blamed him. It was an individual that was doing it and because I had always gone to church it was just what I did. To be honest you push it to the back of your mind.
"It was only when it was coming out about what happened to those kids that I blurted it out, unintentionally at first. But now they're just covering it up."
When asked if he still believes in God, Mr Ineson said: "No. It's totally gone," he said.
"That took a long time to say that - if there was (a God) the church wouldn't behave like that."
Unfortunately, for a vicar Mr Ineson doesn't seem to know much about the Bible. If he did he would know that the Hebrews constantly behaved deplorably even while God was in their midst. Man will almost always fail God. That is the price God pays for giving man free will.
Teen who accused Indian legislator of rape
seriously injured in ‘suspicious’ crash
FILE PHOTO Protest demanding the arrest of Kuldeep Sengar in Lucknow, India, 2018 © Reuters / Pawan Kumar
An Indian teenager who accused a lawmaker of rape in 2017 has been seriously injured in a ‘suspicious’ car crash that killed two of her relatives, her family said. It’s the third fatal incident since the case came to light.
The Uttar Pradesh girl accused the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) MLA Kuldeep Sengar of raping her, and tried to self-immolate outside Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s residence to bring attention to her case.
How dreadful that she had to go to that extreme to even get the attention of police and prosecutors.
Sengar, a member of the Legislative Assembly, has been charged with criminal conspiracy, abduction of minor, rape, and threat and is currently in jail.
The teenager was travelling with her family and her lawyer on Sunday when their vehicle was hit by a speeding truck in Rae Bareli. Her aunt and her sister were killed in the collision and she was critically injured.
The truck involved in the crash had a blackened number plate, images shared on social media show.
The truck driver fled the scene but he was later caught, and was the owner of the truck.
Police have confirmed that
the security detail the family had been provided with was not with the girl at the time of the accident. “The reason behind it is being probed,” Lucknow Police Director General Rajeev Krishna said. He suggested that the family may have asked the security detail not to accompany them as there was no room in the car.
The girl’s mother has accused Sengar of being behind the crash, saying that he “might be in jail but he has a phone,” and “commands his goons from inside prison.”
“We want justice. Whenever we used to go to court, [he] would threaten to kill us and look it has now happened,” she added.
Sunday’s crash is the latest deadly incident to occur to witnesses or the teenager’s family since the rape was revealed. In 2018, her father died after he was beaten by Sengar’s brother and his aides. He was jailed on alleged false charges after the beating and died in jail.
Yunus Khan, a witness to the father’s death, died in 2018. Congress President Rahul Gandhi and others said his mysterious death & hurried burial without an autopsy suggested conspiracy.
Opposition politicians expressed frustration at the latest incident on social media and demanded answers.
Indian MP Derek O'Brien recounts child sex abuse trauma
Yes, Indian, not Irish
By Geeta Pandey
BBC News, Delhi
An Indian MP who spoke in parliament about how he was sexually molested as a child has forced into the spotlight a topic that is still widely considered taboo.
Derek O'Brien of the
Trinamool Congress (TMC) party recounted the incident in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house, on Wednesday while participating in a debate to amend the Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) law.
Mr O'Brien, who is 58 years old, said
the incident took place when he was 13.
He said it happened when
he had boarded a "crowded bus" in Kolkata after tennis practice and that he was "wearing short pants and T-shirt".
He recalled:
"I was sexually molested. Someone ejaculated on my shorts. I don't know who."
The MP said
he didn't speak to anyone about it for "six, seven years" before finally telling his parents.
Indian laws protect the identity of victims of child sexual abuse, but there have been instances where survivors have waived the right to anonymity and spoken about their trauma in public.
Mr O'Brien, however, is perhaps the first Indian MP to speak publicly about his personal trauma, and he is certainly the first to do so within parliament and while its proceedings were being shown live on national TV.
The MP has been praised for his "courage" on social media and his comments have made national headlines.
They have also firmly brought into focus the huge problem that child sexual abuse is in India.
According to the only Indian government study on the topic done in 2007,
53% of children surveyed said they had been subjected to some form of sexual abuse.
This study revealed a higher percentage of boys admitting child sex abuse than girls. I have no doubt that the boys numbers are are low and that the girls numbers are very low. I believe close to 75% of girls are sexually abused in India, and that may be a conservative estimate.
The government crime figures year after year show
tens of thousands of reported cases - according to the latest figures available, for 2016, a child was abused every 15 minutes.
Campaigners say
the actual numbers are even higher, as the stigma that surrounds sexual crimes means many cases don't even get reported.
In 2012, India introduced Pocso and on Wednesday, the upper house passed the amended bill which offers stricter punishments, including the death penalty for aggravated sexual assault on children.
Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani said the government would also be setting up 1,023 fast-track courts to clear the backlog of 166,000 pending Pocso cases. The bill needs to go through the lower house to become law.
The MPs who participated in Wednesday's debate in the Rajya Sabha mostly talked about punishment - they said the death penalty would act as a deterrent and go a long way in curbing such crimes, and one even suggested chemical castration for those found guilty.
But, as Mr O'Brien pointed out, focusing on punishment alone is like missing the wood for the trees.
"All my colleagues have spoken about punishment, but it's not about punishment. The courts will do their job of punishment, but how do we prevent this from happening?" he asked.
The biggest hurdle in the fight against child sex abuse in India, say campaigners, is the secrecy that surrounds the issue.
Children rarely report abuse and there are a number of reasons why -
sometimes they don't understand what's happening to them, or they keep quiet because they are either ashamed or think they themselves are at fault. When they do report it, there's mostly disbelief, denial and cover up. It's worse in cases of incestuous abuse.
Sometimes they simply want to protect their family and heroically, sacrifice themselves so their father or uncle doesn't have to go to jail. Sometimes they are threatened into submission.
Although Mr O'Brien's abuser was a stranger, statistics show that
most are "persons in trust and caregivers", including parents, relatives and school teachers.
"It's very clear where the abuse starts, it starts at home - mine, yours and everyone else's," the MP said,
urging people to "speak up".
He added:
"I urge people, especially those in public life, celebrities like cricketers, actors and actresses and MPs to speak up. The more we talk, the more children would be saved."
It would be a good start, for
the first step to solving any problem begins with acknowledging it.
And then making it mandatory to teach safe/unsafe touch in elementary schools.
Sydney Police release CCTV over alleged
child sexual assaults
Anyone who recognises this man should contact police immediately. (Supplied: NSW Police)
Police seek information over alleged sexual assaults
Police have released CCTV footage of a man they want to speak to over alleged sexual assaults of a teenage girl in south-west Sydney.
In March a
15-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted in Belmore and Campsie by a man she had met briefly on a previous occasion.
Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad Commander, Detective Superintendent John Kerlatec, said despite extensive inquiries, detectives have not been able to identify the man.
"I urge members of the community to look closely at the image and if you recognise the man, please contact police," he said.
Justice for Victoria: 'Nursery rape' of toddler
leaves Myanmar reeling
By Nick Beake
BBC News, Myanmar
Rallies have been held around the country calling for justice AFP/Getty
We don't see her photo on our social media. We don't read her real name in the papers. But the whole country is talking about her and the sickening crime she's said to have suffered.
The case of "Victoria" has stopped Myanmar in its tracks.
On the morning of 16 May,
a two-year-old girl went to her private nursery in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw. At some point before she returned home that evening, according to her family and the local police, she was raped.
By law, her identity can't be revealed. But campaigners have given her the name "Victoria".
Now three, she will have no idea that her ordeal has raised profound and disturbing questions about child welfare and sexual assault in the country in which she will grow up.
'Ko Ko did it at school'
The only suspect charged in the case is back in court on Wednesday, when Victoria's family are expected to address the judge. But from the start this case has been thin on evidence and clouded by contradiction.
Police say
a medical examination carried out after Victoria's mother had noticed her injuries and taken her to hospital showed the girl had been sexually assaulted.
Victoria's father told BBC News Burmese that when he showed her CCTV footage from outside the nursery,
she pointed out the man who assaulted her, unprompted.
"Ko Ko did it at school," her father claims she said, using the common Burmese term for a young man.
CCTV footage obtained by BBC Burmese shows the suspect outside the nursery
Officers say they were initially unable to talk to Victoria, because of the medication she had been given, although her dad says she was interviewed later on.
And the police quickly got their man. Or so they told us.
On 30 May
a 29-year-old school driver called Aung Kyaw Myo, or Aung Gyi as he's more commonly known, was arrested. But he was released because of a lack of evidence.
When some Facebook users found out about the alleged rape, they demanded justice. The case picked up attention.
Two weeks later, a senior official at the Ministry of Health and Sports, Win Ko Ko Thein, set up a "Justice for Victoria" campaign and outlined the perceived inconsistencies in the case.
He was arrested and is facing defamation charges, but nonetheless, his words resonated.
Celebrities backed the movement. Thousands of Facebook users changed their profile to the emblem of the campaign. Stickers of support appeared on car windows.
The case has galvanised the country into demanding action
On 30 June the spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi's government revealed it had been inundated with public messages and that the
police had now been instructed to "investigate the case until the truth comes out".
Justice or a scapegoat?
But in a country where corruption and incompetence are the public's chief expectations of their law enforcers, anger grew.
Theories circulated online. New figures were implicated.
But when Aung Gyi, the original suspect, was re-arrested on 3 July public anger reached a new level. Many believed he'd been made a scapegoat so that the authorities could claim they'd done their job.
That weekend, an estimated 6,000 people, dressed in white and carrying banners saying "We Want Justice", marched to the Yangon headquarters of the Central Investigation Department (CID) who had, by now, taken over the case.
People are demanding police look into an alarming rise in reported child rape cases
Smaller demonstrations took place in other parts of the country. The protesters were not just calling for justice for Victoria, they were calling for wider action to arrest an alarming rise in reported sexual assault, particularly towards children.
Government figures were unearthed suggesting
the number of all reported rapes in Myanmar had increased by 50% in the past two years. In 2018, there were said to be 1,528 attacks. Shockingly,
in nearly two-thirds of the cases the victim was a child.
Some charities questioned whether an increased confidence to speak out was behind the rise, but
many campaigners felt Victoria's story had exposed a deeply worrying trend in a country where domestic violence is still seen as a private matter. The shame heaped upon survivors of sexual abuse means many remain silent. Some victims are bribed, others intimidated so they take back their allegations.
A new child law is set to be introduced in Myanmar which would allow police to open investigations even if nobody presses charges, but there are serious doubts about the skills and suitability of the officers who will be doing such sensitive work.
In some communities in Myanmar - still a predominantly rural country - village elders oversee complaints and the alleged victim can even be encouraged to marry her attacker. As for male rape, that is not even a recognised crime.
Despite the suspect in Victoria's case now being charged with child rape, many believe he's been framed.
They point to CCTV footage obtained by my colleagues at BBC News Burmese which shows him going into the nursery on the day of the alleged attack and apparently waiting in the reception area.
It's claimed the video shows he had insufficient time to go and find Victoria and then attack her.
A teacher, Hnin Nu, told the BBC she'd been questioned by detectives nine times and was adamant Aung Gyi could not have committed the crime. She said: "It is impossible that he did it. We, all the teachers, were with the students all the time. It is impossible."
Another teacher, Nilar Aye, said Victoria had never left her sight that day. The administrator of the nursery also denied to the BBC that any sexual assault took place on the premises.
'I want to see the truth'
In the days after the alleged rape, Victoria's nursery was closed and six other private kindergartens in Nay Pyi Taw shut temporarily. Victoria's father says no offer of counselling or apology has been forthcoming from the management.
As for the police investigation, Victoria's father is anxious not to directly criticise the police, but told the BBC that
other CCTV footage had been lost and that the inquiry was "not working". He said the past two months had been a nightmare for his family - a nightmare they just wish would end.
"I want to see the truth," he said. "I will never give up no matter how long it takes. This is a crime against a young, innocent child. I'm not hopeful that this case will be solved with accurate evidence and the facts. So far, what I see and hear are not right."
In a sign of how prominent this case has become, a well-known lawyer who doesn't normally take on rape cases is now defending Aung Gyi. Khin Maung Zaw represented the two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar last year in a trial which drew fierce international condemnation.
Corrupt Justice System
Aung Gyi will also stand trial in a legal system that has been widely rejected as flawed.
International observers believe it remains corrupt with judges still taking bribes and instructions from senior police and army officials - a hangover from five decades of military dictatorship in which the weight of rank and money crushed the scales of justice.
Now, once again the creaking, rusted wheels of Burmese justice are turning. A protracted court case seems inevitable.
Much less inevitable is whether there will ever be justice for Victoria.
'The most important non-fiction book in Poland' right now is about a Labrador residential school survivor
Bookstores are selling out of 27 Å›mierci Toby’ego Obeda
Katie Breen · CBC News
Toby Obed has never met the author in person. They conducted all of their interviews over Skype. (Submitted)
Poland is half a world away from the legacy of residential schools, but to the author of a new book chronicling that part of Canada's past, "it's a universal story of sin and a crime without punishment."
27 śmierci Toby'ego Obeda, or The 27 Deaths of Toby Obed, is selling out of bookstores in Poland according to author, Joanna Gierak-Onoszko.
"It's been out for six weeks now and it's already been hailed the best or the most important non-fiction book in Poland this year because it carries a story that's been totally unknown here in this part of the world," she said in a phone interview from Warsaw.
"She didn't lie to you," Polish literary critic, Michał Nogaś, confirmed.
He's a super hero that Canada can be proud of
- Joanna Gierak-Onoszko
"It is really one of the books I will remember of 2019. It's an overwhelming debut and really one of the best books written by a Polish author and published here."
But, how?
Gierak-Onoszko was thumbing through a newspaper while working for a weekly Polish magazine in Toronto when she came across a photo of Toby Obed on stage with Justin Trudeau.
It was November 2017 and
the Prime Minister was in Happy Valley-Goose Bay apologizing for Canada's role in residential schools in Newfoundland and Labrador. Obed, the lead plaintiff on the case that led to a settlement for Labrador survivors, was accepting Trudeau's apology.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomes residential survivor Toby Obed to the stage after delivering an apology on behalf of the Government of Canada to former students of the Newfoundland and Labrador residential schools. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)
Gierak-Onoszko had never written a book before, but knew she wanted to share Obed's story with her country after seeing that picture.
"When she messaged me I wasn't quite sure who she was, or what was going on, or why she was asking," Obed said.
Gierak-Onoszko had written Obed on Facebook, but he didn't answer right away. She eventually tracked him down by calling around Hopedale, where he lives.
The pair would spend hours on Skype, poring over all of Obed's past.
They talked about how
he was taken from his parents in Hopedale and shipped to residential school in North West River at age four, about the abuse he suffered at school, and about his time in foster care afterwards.
Author Joanna Gierak-Onoszko, sitting, says 4,000 copies of her book were printed originally but some stores have already sold out. (Edyta Wojciechowska)
"My book's title is The 27 Deaths of Toby Obed which represents the 27 curves and obstacles he's had to overcome in his lifetime," Gierak-Onoszko said.
She interviewed survivors from other parts of Canada as well, but Obed is the book's main character.
"To me Toby is kind of an invincible figure. He's like a phoenix, he's always rising from the ashes," she said.
"He's a super hero that Canada can be proud of."
A quiet popularity
NogaÅ›, the critic, said the book has a quiet popularity in Poland.
It didn't make a big splash right away because it's Gierak-Onoszko's first book and she isn't a household name, he said. But people are recommending it to their friends and sharing it on social media.
People have been posting photos on Instagram, using the book's title as a hashtag. (Instagram)
He said The 27 Deaths of Toby Obed caught his eye because it was published by a small but important publishing house that prints books by journalists.
He contributes some of its success to shock value. According to him,
Poles think of Canada as a smart and liberal country with a "handsome Prime Minister." He said people didn't know about Canada's dark past.
'We also have our own stories'
The author figures relatability played a factor too. Poland is largely Roman Catholic and similar clergy abuse has recently come to light there.
"We also have our own stories of kids being incarcerated in schools and being victims of different priests and nuns abusive actions so the history of Toby and other survivors that's moved from being a victim to being a survivor — that have moved from being a helpless child to being a courageous adult — is something we can all learn from and grow from," Gierak-Onoszko said.
"So I think that although it's a very local story, it's a very Canadian story, it's also a great handbook for Poland and other European countries on how to embark on reconciliation."
Gierak-Onoszko sent Obed a copy in the mail, even though the book hasn't been translated into English, and Obed can't read Polish.
"When I did get it, it was like 'I have it in my hand.' I'm actually holding it and this is written by a woman who is way across on the other side of the world, who I've never met. We've never met each other," he said.
"We don't know each other but to have her write the book, it was exciting."
Gierak-Onoszko said Poland isn't in a place where it's willing to accept the church has wronged some people.
She hopes the country can get there in her kids' generation. She said she talks about Obed with her sons, because she feels "he's a figure my kids can learn from. To be resilient and to be courageous."
It will always stay with us ...
It's how we deal with it and how we cope.
- Toby Obed
When asked what he thought about people connecting to his story from their own experience of abuse, Obed said recognition from religious leaders and the state would bring closure, for some.
"I hope that they get the help they deserve. I hope they get the answers that they hope to get," he said.
"It will always stay with us ... It's how we deal with it and how we cope."
The book is 370 pages, or 14 chapters, long.
Gierak-Onoszko isn't sure how many copies have been sold but she said about 4,000 books were originally printed and her publisher has been selling copies online because of demand.
Her publisher is exploring the possibility of translating the book into English.
If that happens, Obed said he'd be taking it in cover to cover. There have been numerous news articles about his experience. But this is the first book.
"I would really like to read it."
So would I. I have been introduced to the horrors of Canada's residential school way back in the mid-1980s. Also, I have done something very similar with a child sex abuse survivor in Australia, half a world away, when I offered to tell more of her story on this blog. She was an important witness in the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.
It turned out there was enough material for a small book which we wrote together. Unfortunately, she suffered some severe symptoms, not unfamiliar to CSA survivors, just before the book was finished. It is waiting for her to get better to finish, or to determine if she still wants to publish.
There are so many stories out there that may never be told. Far too many stories for a society that calls itself civilized.
Australian paraglider charged over
child sexual abuse in Nepal
By South Asia correspondent Siobhan Heanue in Nepal
An Australian man has been arrested and charged over child sexual abuse in one of Nepal's most popular tourist spots.
Police say 63-year-old
Thomas Alfred Berryman has lived in Nepal for 3 years, working as a paragliding pilot for a local company.
He was arrested in his rented flat in the town of
Pokhara,
201 kilometres west of the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.
Police say
they rescued two boys aged 12 and 14 from his flat during the operation and will be
looking for other victims (11th story on link) as part of their investigation.
Pokhara is a hub for adventure sports among visiting tourists.
Child sexual abuse is rampant in Nepal, with the authorities making efforts to tackle the problem by working with civil society groups and aid organisations.
Between 2016 and 2018, just 10 foreign nationals were arrested for child sexual abuse, according to Nepalese government data.
Lax legal frameworks and law enforcement as well as reluctance to talk about child sexual exploitation in Nepal have been blamed for the lack of prosecutions.
Several high-profile cases of foreign sex offenders being caught and punished have required the involvement of overseas agencies and police forces.
In 2010, Australian Federal Police charged Australian man Geoffrey John Prigge for
child sex offences in Nepal, under laws that allow overseas child sex-tourism offences to be prosecuted in Australia.
Earlier this year a former United Nations employee, Canadian
Peter Dalglish,
was sentenced to 9 years in jail and fined more that $10,000 by a Nepalese court for sexually abusing boys in Nepal.
Welshman accused of Child Sex Abuse
'claimed to be paedophile hunter'
In the courtroom
A man accused of paying to watch parents make their children perform sex acts said he was a paedophile hunter, a court heard.
Jonathan Kay, 54,
is accused of paying parents in the Philippines so he could watch the acts via webcams.
Mr Kay made 190 bank transfers to the families but said it was to stop children being exploited, Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court was told.
Mr Kay, of King Henry V Drive, Monmouth,
denies eight charges.
These are arranging the commission of a child sex offence and perverting the course of justice by throwing away an iPad which was never recovered.
After returning from the Far East, he admitted paying Chinese women to perform sex acts on webcams. Prosecutor Clare Wilks said Mr Kay told police
he felt sorry for children he saw in the background.
The court was told
he made extra payments of between £20 and £40 urging them to stop them prostituting their children.
Ms Wilks said:
"Kay said he was a paedophile hunter who was trying to trap people exploiting children."
Did I mention that I have a tropical island off the coast of Labrador for sale, cheap?
The defendant claimed he had written to the UK's National Crime Agency about his concerns over child exploitation abroad, but no record of the letter was found.
'As young as three'
While the contents of his iPad was never seen, cybercrime officers found on other devices the negotiations between Mr Kay and adults in the Philippines, the court heard.
Ms Wilks added:
"He was in effect ordering child abuse online. Once he had paid his money he would instruct a third party to abuse the child in the way he wanted.
"Every time Kay transferred money to the Philippines it was to watch the abuse of children, some as young as three."
Mr Kay admitted paying women in the Philippines to perform "depraved" sex acts as he watched online, but said the women were always over 18.
He told the jury:
"I'd always check to make sure the children were safe and at no point did children enter the room when live sex shows were going on with adults."
What happened to 'children in the background'?
He said the payments were for food, rent and birthday gifts.
"It [the money] was to help keep a roof over their heads. To protect the children and discover more about the network - the paedophile ring," he said.
Mr Kay told the court he engaged in "pretty gross" text discussions online about the availability of watching sexual activity with under-aged children in order to "entrap" others.
He added: "Inside this nest of vipers, I had to become a viper in order to provide evidence for the police."
He said he believed he was under police surveillance but wanted the police to be knocking his door, adding: "This was my 'help get me out of here cry'."
The trial continues
Welsh serial paedophile back in jail for
third child abuse images conviction
By Iwan Gabe Davies
A SERIAL sex offender is back behind bars after he was caught with child abuse images for the third time.
Christopher Norris, from Cwmbran, was locked up again at Cardiff Crown Court after he used his wife’s laptop to search for them.
The 66-year-old paedophile
admitted having the sick pictures on a USB stick and deleting internet data which he was prohibited from doing after a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) was previously imposed.
In 2008 he was jailed for six years for indecently assaulting a girl under 14 and for possessing and distributing indecent images of children in a case that involved 47 different offences.
And
in 2015 Norris, of Fields Road, Oakfield, was jailed for four years for further crimes involving child abuse images.
He was sent to prison for a further 16 months by the Recorder of Cardiff, Judge Eleri Rees.
That should cure him! 10 years didn't do him the least bit of good, but, I'm sure, these 16 months will change his life around. Good grief!
Prosecutor Hashim Salmman said Gwent Police became aware of his latest offending after gaining intelligence from child protection software during an operation.
Officers raided Norris’ home in May and a USB stick was found which contained five indecent images of children, including two category A films representing the most extreme form of sexual abuse.
Mr Salmman added: “On a laptop, torrent files indicative of indecent photographs of children were found and files in the recycling bin had been deleted.”
Hywel Davies, mitigating, said:
“The defendant has attended numerous courses without benefit. He told me he had accessed these recent images out of curiosity and that there was no sexual gratification.”
Did I mention my tropical island???
Mr Davies further added that his client had entered an early guilty plea and had not distributed the images. Jailing him, Judge Rees said his offending was aggravated by his previous convictions.
He has to register as a sex offender for life and was made subject of a new SHPO for an indefinite period.
Welsh man, 31, sat naked in front of laptop while casually discussing child abuse images
But Edward Lloyd Davies didn't realise he was actually chatting to an undercover officer from the USA
A man who was casually discussing child abuse images while naked in front of his laptop didn't realise he was chatting to an undercover officer from the USA.
Edward Lloyd Davies, 31 of New Street,
Mold,
admitted two counts of possessing indecent images of children from September 2015 and December 2017.
A third charge relating to his conversation with the undercover officer was left on file.
Mold Crown Court heard
the defendant had a sexual interest in pictures of young boys being abused, so after the conversation ended officers in the US brought his name to the attention of their UK counterparts.
Prosecutor Simon Mintz told the court that on December 20, 2017 a warrant was executed by North Wales Police at Davies' address and
laptops and other devices were seized. They revealed he was using video conferencing sites such as Skype and Zoom to pursue his interest in watching children being sexually abused.
He said:
"Conversations were recovered that demonstrated indecent images were being viewed. He had a conversation with another Skype user where they both made comments on child abuse material they were both watching at the same time. He was watching penetration of young boys with clear pleasure in doing so.
"On Zoom with other users the language was suggestive of penetration with a very young girl. On December 20, 2017, he was arrested and made no comment at interview."
Mr Mintz said
the aggravating feature was the interest in penetration of young boys.
Louise Cowen said that pre-sentence reports suggested Davies was suitable for a community sentence. He had shown "deep remorse". Right, for being caught!
She added:
"He has been very clear he needs help and would engage with help. In admitting theses offences and being honest with himself he has demonstrated real insight. He knows the position he is in today and he knows the seriousness."
Judge Niclas Parry said he was sure the defendant now understood "what these child victims had endured".
He added:
"This kind of offence involves exploitation, violence, threats. That's what goes hand in hand with sexual abuse and you know you understand you're contributing to that supply and demand.
"I accept that you feel great disgust at your behaviour and you must have a sexual interest in male children."
He said
reports said he was capable and suitable of undergoing work to rehabilitate him. There had been no offending for seven years and no previous sexual offending.
He said matters such as this must be addressed by a custodial sentence and
he jailed Davies for six months on each count to run concurrently. However, he would suspend that term for two years so he could engage with services.
He was ordered to attend an accredited programme for 26 sessions, he would also have to complete a rehabilitation requirement and unpaid community service.
In addition
Davies would have to register as a sex offender for seven years and a sexual harm prevention order was made for the same period. The order means he can have laptops, mobile phones and tablets that access the internet but they must contain a history that can be viewed on demand by officers.
The equipment seized by officers would be destroyed and Davies was ordered to pay £1,200 in costs at a rate of £50 per month.
