Indian court upholds death sentence for infamous ‘Nirbhaya’ rape convicts, sets execution for March 3
FILE PHOTO © AFP / NOAH SEELAM
The men convicted of the rape and murder of a young student in 2012 will be executed in early March, an Indian court has ruled, striking down efforts to have their death sentences commuted.
Four of the men found guilty of carrying out the heinous crime will hang on March 3, the court ruled. A lawyer for one of the death row convicts said his client, Vinay Kumar Sharma, suffers from mental illness and should be spared. The judge rejected the last-minute plea – a decision which reportedly elicited applause from spectators in the courtroom.
After what they did to that poor girl, I'm convinced they are all insane, but, unfortunately, it seems to be an all-to-common affliction on the sub-continent.
The convicts are part of a group of men convicted of raping and murdering of a young student on a (New Delhi) bus, who later became known as Nirbhaya (“fearless” in Hindi), in 2012. The men were sentenced to death a year later, but remained in prison for some eight years before authorities finally set their execution for January 22. However, last minute appeals have dragged out their executions.
The mother of the murdered girl told local media that she was satisfied with the decision and hoped that the executions would finally take place.
Six were originally implicated in the high-profile case. One suspect was found dead in his jail cell, while the youngest of the group, who was a minor at the time of the assault, was released after three years in juvenile detention.
A complete tragedy of justice. He was the worst of the offenders and should be with them on March 3rd.
The murder caused an international outcry and inspired the Netflix miniseries ‘Delhi Crime’. In India, the case sparked protests against alleged government inaction over violence against women. Nirbhaya’s rape and murder is often cited as a major societal shift in India that led to the rise of vigilante justice.
And yet, there is still such a long way to go.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has taken steps to ensure that convicted rapists receive harsher punishments. In 2018, his cabinet approved the death penalty for those convicted of raping minors below the age of 12. The minimum sentence for those who rape children under the age of 16 was also doubled from 10 to 20 years.
Daycare owner, four other men arrested in big child porn bust in Gauteng, SA
Kaveel Singh
Five men – including a daycare centre owner – have been arrested for allegedly being in possession of explicit child abuse images and videos, police said on Sunday.
The men, aged between 30 and 62, were arrested between February 10 and Valentine's Day following the execution of search warrants, police spokesperson Colonel Brenda Muridili said.
'Operation Moonlight' was conducted by national and Gauteng members of a specialised section within the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit, along with United States Department of Homeland Security officers – who assisted with their expertise in crime scene forensic analysis.
Murildili said teams acted on information from the Crime Intelligence Cyber Crime Unit. "Several personal computers, hard drives, flash drives, tablets and cellphones which contain explicit child abuse material (child pornography) were seized during the operation for further investigation and as exhibits."
Muridili said a 30-year-old living with his parents in Rietfontein was arrested first on February 10, while a 42-year-old married father of three was arrested in Claremont, Pretoria, on the same day.
A 62-year-old pensioner who owns a daycare centre managed by his wife was arrested a day later and, on Thursday, a 42-year-old living with his parents was arrested in Daspoort, Pretoria.
The last man to be arrested, a 34-year-old from Kempton Park, had a previous conviction for rape and sexual assault – for which he received a five-year suspended sentence that will end on March 15.
Rape and sex assault and he got a suspended sentence. How did he manage that, or is that typical of South African justice. Maybe that's why it is one of the countries where a woman is most likely to be raped.
Muridili said another search warrant was executed in Garsfontein, Pretoria, but the suspect was not arrested. "The suspect was not arrested as there was no material found on his premises, but his electronic equipment was seized for further investigation."
She said the man had a pending 2012 case of bestiality and possession of child pornography due for judgment on April 20.
8 years and it's still pending? Wow! I'm more impressed with SA justice every minute.
"All the accused that have already appeared in court have been granted bail of R5 000. They cannot be named as the police are still conducting thorough investigations and cannot rule out the possibility that some of the children on the material that has been confiscated might be South African, and therefore their identity has to be protected."
Muridili appealed to parents to exercise strict measures to ensure their children do not fall prey to sexual predators lurking on the net. "It is recommended that parents supervise their children's access to the internet and social media."
She pointed out that no children under the age of 13 could use WhatsApp and Facebook in respect of their terms of service.
How St Kevin's College supported a child sex offender coach to the horror of his student victim in Melbourne
Four Corners By Louise Milligan, Mary Fallon and Lauren Day
A top Catholic boys' school is facing accusations of a culture of cover-up, after revelations its principal and dean of sport gave references for a now-convicted child sex offender but gave no support to the victim during the court process.
St Kevin's College in Melbourne hit the headlines last year when its students were filmed singing a sexist chant on a Melbourne tram. The incident tarred the reputation of the school and ignited wider debates about private boys' school culture.
In recent years, St Kevin's was also caught up in one of the biggest scandals to hit the Catholic Church. A jury found Cardinal George Pell guilty of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys at St Patrick's Cathedral. The two victims were on scholarships at St Kevin's.
The headmaster of St Kevin's College, Stephen Russell, declined to be interviewed. (St Kevin's College)
The school has found itself at the centre of a new scandal, after Four Corners discovered that in 2015 its current headmaster, Stephen Russell, wrote a character reference for former coach Peter Kehoe, which was given to the magistrate after Kehoe's conviction for grooming a St Kevin's student.
The dean of sport at the college, Luke Travers, also gave character evidence for Kehoe at the trial.
Facebook messages reveal grooming
The victim, Paris Street, was in Year 9 at the time of the offending and was just 15 when he gave evidence at Kehoe's trial.
Peter Kehoe was a life member of the St Kevin's Amateur Athletics club. (News Ltd/Newspix)
Kehoe, a St Kevin's old boy himself, had been coaching at the school over a 40-year period.
At the time of arrest, he was privately training some St Kevin's boys who were members of the athletics club attached to the school.
In 2014, Paris's mother, Caroline Redmond, raised concerns about Kehoe coaching her son alone.
She said she was reassured in a telephone call from the school that headmaster Stephen Russell wanted her to know that "Peter is a good person, of good character, and you have nothing to worry about".
Kehoe's behaviour towards Paris became disturbing.
There is much more on this story at ABC, although the story becomes graphic and even more disgusting.
Child sex abuse charges against operators of Katoomba circus school dropped by NSW Police
By Lucy Cormack
Sydney Morning Herald
NSW Police are seeking a review after seven people linked to a Blue Mountains circus school had more than 100 charges relating to the alleged sexual abuse of three boys dropped in a Sydney court.
Four adults and three young people were arrested in 2018, charged with 126 offences linked to the alleged sexual abuse of three young boys at The Arcade Circus at Katoomba over two years.
Police had alleged the boys were subjected to sexual abuse, kidnapping, intimidation, assault, made to abuse each other and forced to appear in child abuse material filmed by adults on their mobile phones.
Therese Ann Cook.
Some of the worst allegations involved defecation, that the child victims were cut with knives, their tongues were bitten and needles were stuck in their eyes.
All of the alleged victims were under the age of eight and undertook almost 40 hours of interviews with investigators.
More than two years later all 126 charges against the seven co-accused were dropped at Penrith Local Court on Friday, in a move their lawyer described as "total vindication".
Clarissa Meredith
"It was a total concoction. They were totally innocent and this is total vindication," defence lawyer Bryan Wrench told the Herald.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has not detailed the reason for the charges to be withdrawn.
Shortly after the court heard the charges would be dropped, a NSW Police spokeswoman said it was "the strong recommendation of the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad that the matters proceed before the court and a review has been requested."
Paul Cook
Therese Ann Cook, 58, her brother Paul Christopher Cook, 52, and 23-year-old Clarissa Meredith were arrested at a home in Katoomba in February 2018. Another woman, 29-year-old Yyani Cook-Williams, was arrested in Canterbury in Sydney's south-west on the same day.
A 17-year-old girl, an 18-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman were also taken into custody over the alleged child sex offences.
All pleaded not guilty in 2018 and have maintained their innocence.
During a bail application last year the defence tendered two videos depicting the co-accused on an outing with the children in an open park at the time of the alleged offending. One of the videos was filmed on Anzac Day, when police alleged two of the young boys were sexually assaulted and incited to have sex with one another.
Yyani Cook-Williams, in costume
Both videos (3rd story on link) were tendered to support the defence argument that there had been "no enforced conduct" towards the children.
Expert medical evidence also claimed the "impossibility and implausibility" of some of the alleged physical offences, suggesting that no evidence of claimed physical injury could be found on the boys during a medical examination, Mr Wrench said.
Yyani Cook-Williams, also known as Yyani Rose, had the charges against her dropped in Penrith on Friday.
He also pointed to a "record," of a conversation that had been kept by the mother of one of the alleged victims, which described an admission from the child that he had been "lying about the whole thing”.
A source close to the investigation said it was understood some issues had been raised as a result of contemporaneous notes kept by the mother of an alleged victim.
Yyani Cook-Williams
Both NSW Police and lawyers for the co-accused were informed the charges would be dropped late Thursday afternoon, which Mr Wrench described as "overwhelming" for his clients.
"There are very big questions to be answered by further proceedings in other applications down the track," he said. "We put in a no-bill application eight months ago and we've been waiting and waiting."
A no-bill application is a representation for a case to be dropped, arguing the prosecution is unable to prove one or more of the essential elements of a criminal offence.
"We argued implausibility, inconsistency. And we had independent video footage that supported our version of events," Mr Wrench said. "The adults in this case spent 206 days in custody. And then their restrictions on bail (3rd story on link) meant they couldn't talk to each other for almost two years."
On an online profile, Ms Cook said she started The Arcade Circus in 2009 and believed she was "tragically lost from the back of a travelling circus truck shortly after birth. After working in health and education Therese followed the striped and feathered path and discovered her circus community in 2005," the profile said.
The profile said she is a carer and teacher who works for the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre and was given a scholarship to train and attend the first National Indigenous and Social Circus Training and Conference.
King of Prussia man indicted for traveling to Philippines
to have sex with children
For MediaNews Group PHILADELPHIA -- United States Attorney William M. McSwain announced that Craig Alex Levin, 64, of King of Prussia was charged by Indictment with child exploitation offenses related to his travel to the Philippines. The Indictment was filed in December 2019 and unsealed today. The defendant is currently in custody in the Philippines and awaiting deportation back to the United States.
Levin was originally charged through a Criminal Complaint and Warrant in July 2019. The Indictment unsealed today alleges that the defendant used the internet to persuade, induce, entice and coerce a child into sex trafficking (count one), and that he travelled internationally from the United States to the Philippines for the purposes of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with minor children (count two).
“As alleged in the Indictment, the defendant is a dangerous predator who targeted vulnerable children in a foreign country. This is reprehensible,” said U.S. Attorney McSwain. “Indeed, at the time of the defendant’s arrest last year in the Philippines, he was escorting a 15 year-old girl to his hotel room. Holding child sexual offenders accountable, no matter where they prey on children, will continue to be a top priority of my Office and the entire Department of Justice.”
“Craig Levin felt safe in the Philippines. He traveled there repeatedly, stayed for months at a time, and sexually exploited numerous underage girls, as alleged,” said Tara A. McMahon, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division. “If Mr. Levin thought no one in the U.S. would know or care about the abuse because it took place on the other side of the world, he was badly mistaken. Child sexual exploitation is abhorrent anywhere, and the FBI won’t hesitate to go after these offenders wherever we find them. Protecting vulnerable underage victims and aggressively investigating predators who prey on them continues to be one of the FBI’s highest priorities.”
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of lifetime imprisonment with a mandatory minimum of ten years, lifetime supervised release, a $500,000 fine, and an additional $10,000 mandatory special assessment.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Daniel Velez.
Another Toddler Raped and Murdered in Pakistan
The police said Kashif allegedly sexually abused and murdered the minor, Saqlain, in Nabipur Warkan area.
The father of the victim alleged accused Kashif murdered his son after subjecting him to the inhuman act.
The police said the accused was taken into custody during a raid within the limits of the Factory Area police station.
This is the second case of child sexual abuse in less than a week as a nine-year-old girl was found raped and murdered on Sunday. (See below).
Man who raped, murdered 9-y/o girl
in Hangu, PK, arrested: police
I could be wrong, but one look at those eyes and I have to suspect this wasn't the first time she was raped.
HANGU: In a major development, police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested a key suspect in the case of the rape and murder of nine-year-old Madiha in Hangu district, reported ARY News.
The suspect, identified as Ilyas, sexually assaulted and murdered the minor after kidnapping her, the police said.
Later, they added, he dumped her body in a forest within the limits of the Hangu district.
The minor was reportedly found raped and murdered in Saro Khel village, Hangu district on Sunday. Initial investigation said she was brutally murdered after being subjected to sexual assault.
The horrifying incident of the brutal rape and murder of the minor in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Hangu district sparked uproar and protest on social media with people using #JusticeForMadiha to demand justice for the minor victim.
Earlier, the local police had rounded up 16 men on suspicion of their involvement in the case. A first information report (FIR) of the horrific incident was registered with the Doaba police station. The police said they will incorporate relevant provisions of sexual assault upon receipt of the minor victim’s post-mortem report.
Seven men convicted of sexually exploiting young girls in Huddersfield “robbed their victims of their childhood and abused them in truly appalling ways”, police have said.
The two teenagers were “systematically groomed and exploited” by the men, who “viewed the girls as merely objects, to be used and abused at will”, according to prosecutors.
The guilty verdicts at Leeds crown court brings the total number of men convicted following West Yorkshire Police’s Operation Tendersea investigation into child sexual exploitation in the town to 34. The trial, which came to an end on Tuesday, is the sixth to flow from the Operation Tendersea inquiry.
According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Usman Ali, Banaras Hussain, Abdul Majid, Gul Riaz and three other defendants, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were found guilty of a total of 10 counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault.
The charges related to the exploitation of two young girls in the Huddersfield area between 1995 and 2007, the CPS said.
After the convictions, DCI Richard McNamara, from West Yorkshire Police, said: “The men involved in these vile offences have robbed their victims of their childhood and abused them in truly appalling ways.
“During the trial, the court heard that one victim came to the attention of her abusers while she was on a paper round, which speaks volumes about the sheer depravity of this case.”
Michael Quinn, head of the Complex Casework Unit at CPS Yorkshire and Humberside, said: “This case involved the cynical exploitation of two young girls by a group of older men in the Huddersfield area who were targeted because of their vulnerability.
“These men systematically groomed and exploited the girls for their own sexual gratification.
“The girls were drawn into a dark and sinister world where they were passed around to men who used them sexually without any regard for whether they were consenting.”
Quinn said: “Sometimes the girls were plied with alcohol or drugs. They were unable to make truly free or informed choices about anything they did with these men. Their abusers viewed the girls as merely objects, to be used and abused at will.
“At the heart of this case are the two victims. They have suffered immensely as a result of their childhood abuse. We would like to acknowledge their great courage in coming forward to assist the investigation and then to support the prosecution.”
The 27 men already convicted in relation to Operation Tendersea have received jail sentences totalling 322 years.
The seven defendants will be sentenced on Wednesday, the CPS said.
Ali, 34, of Park Drive, Huddersfield, was found guilty on Tuesday of two counts of rape.
Hussain, 39, of Scarborough Road, Shipley, was found guilty of one count of rape.
Majid, 36, of Lightcliffe Road, Huddersfield, was found guilty of two counts of rape.
Riaz, 43, of Balmoral Avenue, Huddersfield, was found guilty of two counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault.
Three men in their thirties, who cannot be named, were each found guilty of one count of rape.
A total of 34 perpetrators in Huddersfield. All but one or two are Pakistani Muslims. A fact that the media likes to hide, as though it makes Britain safer to leave young British girls uninformed. What #PCMadness.
The "predatory and manipulative" child sex abuse inflicted on two young boys at the hands of a "trusted and responsible" Tasmanian high school teacher has left one of the survivors "shameful and broken", a Hobart court has heard.
Darrel George Harington, 68, was charged with historical child sex offences — some dating back decades — involving two counts of indecent assault and one count of maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person.
Today in the Supreme Court in Hobart, it took a jury less than two hours to find him guilty of all crimes. Harington closed his eyes and shook his head as the verdicts were read, while one of the abuse survivors and his family were seen crying at the back of the court room.
Harington was a teacher and sports coach at New Town High School when he indecently assaulted a 12-year-old male student on his east coast property in the late 1970s by suggesting they play a "masturbation game".
He later woke to Harington, then aged in his 40s, holding him down and molesting him — memories that still cause the abuse survivor to have regular nightmares where he "whimpers and thrashes around in his sleep".
Harington was also found guilty of engaging in "persistent sexual misconduct" with a 14-year-old boy in Lauderdale "on a weekly basis" between 1998 and 2000, where he gave the boy a gift of a box of coloured condoms, a pornographic magazine and a $100 note.
'Shame has gone so deep'
The court heard Harington engaged in lewd acts in front of the boy in a public shower of the aquatic centre and exposed himself to the boy and his friend on a beach at Lauderdale, east of Hobart.
Giving evidence, the man, now in his 30s, described the abuse as "terrifying" and said reading about Harington's court proceedings online gave him courage to tell his story.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the man expressed how the abuse had changed his life "totally and utterly," leaving him feeling "shameful and broken".
"Life has felt entirely worthless. I'm now so numb, I'm not just nonchalant and detached, I'm also awful to be around," the statement read.
"Shame has gone so deep, it's sabotaged my self-belief and self-worth," he said. "Every day I suffer and will continue to suffer." He told the court he lived his life in a "drugged-out haze" in an attempt to forget the abuse he suffered.
In her closing address, Crown prosecutor Jane Ansell told the jury Harington was a "trusted and responsible teacher" who "acted on his impulses". She described his offending as "predatory, predetermined and manipulative" and his efforts to groom young boys as "significant".
"Scratch the surface, look behind that door … you'll see Mr Harington is a man with a sexual interest in young boys aged 11 to 15," she told the jury. He gives them gifts, he tickles them … then he acts on his sexual interest."
Court told of prison threats
Earlier, the jury heard Harington previously pleaded guilty in 2015 to molesting several boys from the Lauderdale Football Club in the 1970s, when he was "an entrusted mentor, teacher and sports massage therapist", by offering boys massages.
Harrington, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for the Lauderdale offences, "will spend much of the remainder of his life in prison", his lawyer said.
Defence barrister Garth Stevens told the court his client pleaded guilty to those charges because he was remorseful for what he did and wanted to make a public acknowledgement of wrongdoing.
"I plead guilty because I was guilty … I was ill, I needed some help," the sex offender told the jury.
Harington took the stand last week and denied engaging in any sexual misconduct with the two abuse survivors, instead claiming one was taken home to his family, while the other had developed a sexual interest in him.
When asked if he touched them he replied, "No, that never happened".
In his closing address, Mr Stevens told the court prison was a "traumatic experience" for Harington who, due to the nature of his crimes, was threatened with injury and death, and had been "assaulted to the point of unconsciousness".
"This is a man who has contemplated his past, and has contemplated seriously," Mr Stevens said of his client, pointing to the exercise program he implemented in prison and the weekly prison newsletter he distributed.
No, I think he has contemplated his future more than his past.
Harington will be sentenced by Justice Michael Brett in March.
Andre Williams/Staff Reporter
Jamaica WI Gleaner
Jamaica - There is heightened concern for the Jamaican sex offender registry to be publicly accessible after three victims – a daughter, her aunt and, since Sunday, a six-year-old girl – have confessed to being sexually assaulted, years apart, by the same man.
This after the accused man, who is also a taxi operator and father to one of his victims and brother to another, has left a trail of mental scars in at least two Portmore, St Catherine, communities.
The perpetrator, whose name The Gleaner has not published because he has not been charged, is currently under police guard at hospital recovering from a mob attack. He was beaten Sunday afternoon after allegedly abducting a six-year-old neighbour and fondling her in a decrepit back room.
The Gleaner understands that further advances were thwarted after the child’s uncle realised something was amiss and made an alarm.
Yesterday, the child’s 28-year-old father was a portrait of pain, his face awash with tears and regret that he had not been able to prevent the abuse. His name has not been published to protect the child’s identity.
“My daughter tell me she was in her house sleeping and him come tek her out of her house and bring her over his house. Him all draw her on the ground. Him lock her up and put her on his bed and start rub her down and a tell her you know how long mi love yuh and a try kiss her,” he said.
“She a try fight him off and him draw down her shorts and her panty,” the child’s father said.
The accused man has reportedly known the child since birth.
The child was left under the watchful eyes of an adult as she slept in the room, The Gleaner understands, and that the incident took place when majority of the community folk had gone to the funeral of a respected elder.
“Is like him have the mentality long time and him just get the time fi do it. He went to my babymother bar (not far from the house) to buy half flask of rum and Boom to make sure she was out there and then go back a the house.”
The distraught dad said that he is concerned not only for his child but for others who may have been preyed upon by the accused.
“If me did know say that deh man deh a rapist, him couldn’t even talk to me daughter. … Him play with them and me never yet see him in a da meds deh or me never meds him, so because if nothing fi do mi daughter, him will mek mi know before all mi babymother, so mi frighten fi know say a him … ?”
Unfortunately, google won't translate this to English.
The girl’s dad, who said he blacked out on learning what transpired, speaks highly of his daughter, who he says is a promising academic and athlete.
At the Portmore home Monday morning, angry residents emptied the accused rapist’s dilapidated one-room structure where the child was assaulted and made a bonfire of his possessions on the road.
Further research led to the location of two other alleged victims, his daughter and his sister. They confessed to being sexually assaulted during their teenage years.
Our news team understands that he was locked away for close to three years for raping his sister, which occurred at the same location where he fondled the infant on Sunday.
Yesterday, the accused man’s 27-year-old sister recounted the terrifying night when she was assaulted. She was 12 years old.
“I was lying down on my back. I was in sixth grade. I saw a shadow and then feel something heavy on me. He put his hand over my mouth and started to rape me. When my mother came, I told her and she took me to the station. He was charged and we went to court and he did time for it.”
Having not received counselling, she says she is haunted by the memory of the ordeal.
“I thought he was changed because him go jail for it. When him rape me and then his stepdaughter,” the 27-year-old, whose name has also been withheld to protect the child’s identity, told our news team.
The Gleaner also visited another Portmore community where the accused man once lived. On reaching the location, a woman shouted, “[Name redacted] strike again!”
At that location, The Gleaner heard numerous alleged incidents involving the accused man and his victims, including his own daughter.
The accused man’s former lover said she was disturbed after viewing a video of the accused being beaten and thrown into a gutter before he was rescued by the police.
“Him name did call on that some years ago for a 13-year-old. When I met him, he was locked up in Hundred Man for two years, no court on it, for interfering with his sister,” his ex-partner said, referring to the Greater Portmore Police Station.
“Unnu fi just hang the man. I will drive now and go to the hospital and tell dem fi hang him. I used to do all the bookwork for him because him can’t read and write, but if him really do that, him can’t call my name to help him. Him have to go down this time. Him can’t get away,” she said.
Time Catch Up On Him, Says Woman
The woman confirmed that the man had been accused of sexually assaulting his daughter. “Time catch up on him,” she said.
Our news team then journeyed to the home of the accused rapist’s daughter, who lives in another Portmore community.
The 24-year-old daughter, who is now a mother of two, said she was sexually assaulted by her father when she was an infant - “Very small. I can’t remember everything. Probably ‘bout basic school” - and revealed the abuse to her stepmom when she was a teenager.
The daughter said her father offered her money for sex.
“He was giving me money to keep quiet or give him sex in return, but I wasn’t about that and I told the adult.”
Now she is as psychologically torn as other sex-abuse victims, wishing only to scrub his name and face from her memory forever.
“Better him just dead and done and mi just bury him. I don’t know what else to do or say. ... Mi nuh have the strength to even see him face. Me weak from morning, mi head a hurt me.
“If you push mi suh, mi might even drop. Mi think say him did change from dem time deh. Mi think him did learn,” she told The Gleaner.
The mother of the six-year-old, who was taken to hospital for medical checks yesterday, said she was shaken to her core when she heard of the abuse of her daughter.
“Mi run go straight home and I saw him in a car sitting down, bloodied. Mi nuh bother go up the house. Mi just start lick him up and him run out the car,” the child’s mother said.
The trauma of the event was exacerbated by the mother being sent from one police station to another and having to endure a lengthy wait at Spanish Town Hospital on Sunday night. The child’s mother said they returned to the hospital on Monday morning because the six-year-old did not receive medical attention.
The Portmore office of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse yesterday confirmed that a sex abuse report had been made. The Child Protection and Family Services Agency has been notified of the incident and will carry out investigations into the matter.
The Sexual Offences Act, 2009 allowed for the Establishment of a Sex Offender Registry in Jamaica and the Sexual Offences (Registration of Sex Offenders) Regulations, 2012 details its operation. The registry, which falls under the management of the commissioner of corrections, was established in July 2014 and is currently located at 12-14 Lockett Avenue (Kingston Gardens), Kingston 4.
The registry is headed by a registrar and it is the location from where the Sex Offender Register is maintained and the affairs of the sex offender registry registration centres are administered.
Unlike Jamaica, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, in a bid to deter, punish, and shame paedophiles and other perpetrators of sexual crimes, has made its sex offender registry public. The law went into effect on January 31.
It said that under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act, 2019, for the first time in the history of Trinidad and Tobago, information on sexual offenders can be shown on an online website for the public to access their names, addresses, photographs and offences committed.
The suspect, identified as Ilyas, sexually assaulted and murdered the minor after kidnapping her, the police said.
Later, they added, he dumped her body in a forest within the limits of the Hangu district.
The minor was reportedly found raped and murdered in Saro Khel village, Hangu district on Sunday. Initial investigation said she was brutally murdered after being subjected to sexual assault.
The horrifying incident of the brutal rape and murder of the minor in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Hangu district sparked uproar and protest on social media with people using #JusticeForMadiha to demand justice for the minor victim.
Earlier, the local police had rounded up 16 men on suspicion of their involvement in the case. A first information report (FIR) of the horrific incident was registered with the Doaba police station. The police said they will incorporate relevant provisions of sexual assault upon receipt of the minor victim’s post-mortem report.
Seven men convicted of grooming teenage girls
in Huddersfield
Victims ‘robbed of childhood’ say police after
sixth Operation Tendersea exploitation trial
PA Media
The charges related to the exploitation of two young girls in the Huddersfield area between 1995 and 2007. Photograph: Mark Waugh / Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Stock Photo
The two teenagers were “systematically groomed and exploited” by the men, who “viewed the girls as merely objects, to be used and abused at will”, according to prosecutors.
The guilty verdicts at Leeds crown court brings the total number of men convicted following West Yorkshire Police’s Operation Tendersea investigation into child sexual exploitation in the town to 34. The trial, which came to an end on Tuesday, is the sixth to flow from the Operation Tendersea inquiry.
According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Usman Ali, Banaras Hussain, Abdul Majid, Gul Riaz and three other defendants, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were found guilty of a total of 10 counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault.
The charges related to the exploitation of two young girls in the Huddersfield area between 1995 and 2007, the CPS said.
After the convictions, DCI Richard McNamara, from West Yorkshire Police, said: “The men involved in these vile offences have robbed their victims of their childhood and abused them in truly appalling ways.
“During the trial, the court heard that one victim came to the attention of her abusers while she was on a paper round, which speaks volumes about the sheer depravity of this case.”
Michael Quinn, head of the Complex Casework Unit at CPS Yorkshire and Humberside, said: “This case involved the cynical exploitation of two young girls by a group of older men in the Huddersfield area who were targeted because of their vulnerability.
“These men systematically groomed and exploited the girls for their own sexual gratification.
“The girls were drawn into a dark and sinister world where they were passed around to men who used them sexually without any regard for whether they were consenting.”
Quinn said: “Sometimes the girls were plied with alcohol or drugs. They were unable to make truly free or informed choices about anything they did with these men. Their abusers viewed the girls as merely objects, to be used and abused at will.
“At the heart of this case are the two victims. They have suffered immensely as a result of their childhood abuse. We would like to acknowledge their great courage in coming forward to assist the investigation and then to support the prosecution.”
The 27 men already convicted in relation to Operation Tendersea have received jail sentences totalling 322 years.
The seven defendants will be sentenced on Wednesday, the CPS said.
Ali, 34, of Park Drive, Huddersfield, was found guilty on Tuesday of two counts of rape.
Hussain, 39, of Scarborough Road, Shipley, was found guilty of one count of rape.
Majid, 36, of Lightcliffe Road, Huddersfield, was found guilty of two counts of rape.
Riaz, 43, of Balmoral Avenue, Huddersfield, was found guilty of two counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault.
Three men in their thirties, who cannot be named, were each found guilty of one count of rape.
A total of 34 perpetrators in Huddersfield. All but one or two are Pakistani Muslims. A fact that the media likes to hide, as though it makes Britain safer to leave young British girls uninformed. What #PCMadness.
Ex-Tasmanian high school teacher guilty of
historical child sex abuse
By Phoebe Hosier, ABC
Darrel George Harington was found guilty of all counts of child sex abuse. (ABC News: Phoebe Hosier)
The "predatory and manipulative" child sex abuse inflicted on two young boys at the hands of a "trusted and responsible" Tasmanian high school teacher has left one of the survivors "shameful and broken", a Hobart court has heard.
Darrel George Harington, 68, was charged with historical child sex offences — some dating back decades — involving two counts of indecent assault and one count of maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person.
Today in the Supreme Court in Hobart, it took a jury less than two hours to find him guilty of all crimes. Harington closed his eyes and shook his head as the verdicts were read, while one of the abuse survivors and his family were seen crying at the back of the court room.
Harington was a teacher and sports coach at New Town High School when he indecently assaulted a 12-year-old male student on his east coast property in the late 1970s by suggesting they play a "masturbation game".
He later woke to Harington, then aged in his 40s, holding him down and molesting him — memories that still cause the abuse survivor to have regular nightmares where he "whimpers and thrashes around in his sleep".
Harington was also found guilty of engaging in "persistent sexual misconduct" with a 14-year-old boy in Lauderdale "on a weekly basis" between 1998 and 2000, where he gave the boy a gift of a box of coloured condoms, a pornographic magazine and a $100 note.
'Shame has gone so deep'
The court heard Harington engaged in lewd acts in front of the boy in a public shower of the aquatic centre and exposed himself to the boy and his friend on a beach at Lauderdale, east of Hobart.
Darrel Harington is "a man with a sexual interest in young boys aged 11 to 15", the judge said. (LinkedIn)
Giving evidence, the man, now in his 30s, described the abuse as "terrifying" and said reading about Harington's court proceedings online gave him courage to tell his story.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the man expressed how the abuse had changed his life "totally and utterly," leaving him feeling "shameful and broken".
"Life has felt entirely worthless. I'm now so numb, I'm not just nonchalant and detached, I'm also awful to be around," the statement read.
"Shame has gone so deep, it's sabotaged my self-belief and self-worth," he said. "Every day I suffer and will continue to suffer." He told the court he lived his life in a "drugged-out haze" in an attempt to forget the abuse he suffered.
In her closing address, Crown prosecutor Jane Ansell told the jury Harington was a "trusted and responsible teacher" who "acted on his impulses". She described his offending as "predatory, predetermined and manipulative" and his efforts to groom young boys as "significant".
"Scratch the surface, look behind that door … you'll see Mr Harington is a man with a sexual interest in young boys aged 11 to 15," she told the jury. He gives them gifts, he tickles them … then he acts on his sexual interest."
Court told of prison threats
Earlier, the jury heard Harington previously pleaded guilty in 2015 to molesting several boys from the Lauderdale Football Club in the 1970s, when he was "an entrusted mentor, teacher and sports massage therapist", by offering boys massages.
Harrington, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for the Lauderdale offences, "will spend much of the remainder of his life in prison", his lawyer said.
Defence barrister Garth Stevens told the court his client pleaded guilty to those charges because he was remorseful for what he did and wanted to make a public acknowledgement of wrongdoing.
"I plead guilty because I was guilty … I was ill, I needed some help," the sex offender told the jury.
Harington took the stand last week and denied engaging in any sexual misconduct with the two abuse survivors, instead claiming one was taken home to his family, while the other had developed a sexual interest in him.
When asked if he touched them he replied, "No, that never happened".
In his closing address, Mr Stevens told the court prison was a "traumatic experience" for Harington who, due to the nature of his crimes, was threatened with injury and death, and had been "assaulted to the point of unconsciousness".
"This is a man who has contemplated his past, and has contemplated seriously," Mr Stevens said of his client, pointing to the exercise program he implemented in prison and the weekly prison newsletter he distributed.
No, I think he has contemplated his future more than his past.
Harington will be sentenced by Justice Michael Brett in March.
Mob Beats Accused After Alleged Sexual Assault of 6-y/o; His Sister and Daughter Also Claim Having Been Molested
Andre Williams/Staff Reporter
Jamaica WI Gleaner
This pair of shorts was being worn by the child at the time of the alleged assault.
Ricardo Makyn/Chief Photo Editor
Jamaica - There is heightened concern for the Jamaican sex offender registry to be publicly accessible after three victims – a daughter, her aunt and, since Sunday, a six-year-old girl – have confessed to being sexually assaulted, years apart, by the same man.
This after the accused man, who is also a taxi operator and father to one of his victims and brother to another, has left a trail of mental scars in at least two Portmore, St Catherine, communities.
The perpetrator, whose name The Gleaner has not published because he has not been charged, is currently under police guard at hospital recovering from a mob attack. He was beaten Sunday afternoon after allegedly abducting a six-year-old neighbour and fondling her in a decrepit back room.
The Gleaner understands that further advances were thwarted after the child’s uncle realised something was amiss and made an alarm.
Yesterday, the child’s 28-year-old father was a portrait of pain, his face awash with tears and regret that he had not been able to prevent the abuse. His name has not been published to protect the child’s identity.
“My daughter tell me she was in her house sleeping and him come tek her out of her house and bring her over his house. Him all draw her on the ground. Him lock her up and put her on his bed and start rub her down and a tell her you know how long mi love yuh and a try kiss her,” he said.
“She a try fight him off and him draw down her shorts and her panty,” the child’s father said.
The accused man has reportedly known the child since birth.
The child was left under the watchful eyes of an adult as she slept in the room, The Gleaner understands, and that the incident took place when majority of the community folk had gone to the funeral of a respected elder.
“Is like him have the mentality long time and him just get the time fi do it. He went to my babymother bar (not far from the house) to buy half flask of rum and Boom to make sure she was out there and then go back a the house.”
The distraught dad said that he is concerned not only for his child but for others who may have been preyed upon by the accused.
“If me did know say that deh man deh a rapist, him couldn’t even talk to me daughter. … Him play with them and me never yet see him in a da meds deh or me never meds him, so because if nothing fi do mi daughter, him will mek mi know before all mi babymother, so mi frighten fi know say a him … ?”
Unfortunately, google won't translate this to English.
The girl’s dad, who said he blacked out on learning what transpired, speaks highly of his daughter, who he says is a promising academic and athlete.
At the Portmore home Monday morning, angry residents emptied the accused rapist’s dilapidated one-room structure where the child was assaulted and made a bonfire of his possessions on the road.
Further research led to the location of two other alleged victims, his daughter and his sister. They confessed to being sexually assaulted during their teenage years.
Our news team understands that he was locked away for close to three years for raping his sister, which occurred at the same location where he fondled the infant on Sunday.
Yesterday, the accused man’s 27-year-old sister recounted the terrifying night when she was assaulted. She was 12 years old.
“I was lying down on my back. I was in sixth grade. I saw a shadow and then feel something heavy on me. He put his hand over my mouth and started to rape me. When my mother came, I told her and she took me to the station. He was charged and we went to court and he did time for it.”
Having not received counselling, she says she is haunted by the memory of the ordeal.
“I thought he was changed because him go jail for it. When him rape me and then his stepdaughter,” the 27-year-old, whose name has also been withheld to protect the child’s identity, told our news team.
The Gleaner also visited another Portmore community where the accused man once lived. On reaching the location, a woman shouted, “[Name redacted] strike again!”
At that location, The Gleaner heard numerous alleged incidents involving the accused man and his victims, including his own daughter.
The accused man’s former lover said she was disturbed after viewing a video of the accused being beaten and thrown into a gutter before he was rescued by the police.
“Him name did call on that some years ago for a 13-year-old. When I met him, he was locked up in Hundred Man for two years, no court on it, for interfering with his sister,” his ex-partner said, referring to the Greater Portmore Police Station.
“Unnu fi just hang the man. I will drive now and go to the hospital and tell dem fi hang him. I used to do all the bookwork for him because him can’t read and write, but if him really do that, him can’t call my name to help him. Him have to go down this time. Him can’t get away,” she said.
Time Catch Up On Him, Says Woman
The woman confirmed that the man had been accused of sexually assaulting his daughter. “Time catch up on him,” she said.
Our news team then journeyed to the home of the accused rapist’s daughter, who lives in another Portmore community.
The 24-year-old daughter, who is now a mother of two, said she was sexually assaulted by her father when she was an infant - “Very small. I can’t remember everything. Probably ‘bout basic school” - and revealed the abuse to her stepmom when she was a teenager.
The daughter said her father offered her money for sex.
“He was giving me money to keep quiet or give him sex in return, but I wasn’t about that and I told the adult.”
Now she is as psychologically torn as other sex-abuse victims, wishing only to scrub his name and face from her memory forever.
“Better him just dead and done and mi just bury him. I don’t know what else to do or say. ... Mi nuh have the strength to even see him face. Me weak from morning, mi head a hurt me.
“If you push mi suh, mi might even drop. Mi think say him did change from dem time deh. Mi think him did learn,” she told The Gleaner.
The mother of the six-year-old, who was taken to hospital for medical checks yesterday, said she was shaken to her core when she heard of the abuse of her daughter.
“Mi run go straight home and I saw him in a car sitting down, bloodied. Mi nuh bother go up the house. Mi just start lick him up and him run out the car,” the child’s mother said.
The trauma of the event was exacerbated by the mother being sent from one police station to another and having to endure a lengthy wait at Spanish Town Hospital on Sunday night. The child’s mother said they returned to the hospital on Monday morning because the six-year-old did not receive medical attention.
The Portmore office of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse yesterday confirmed that a sex abuse report had been made. The Child Protection and Family Services Agency has been notified of the incident and will carry out investigations into the matter.
The Sexual Offences Act, 2009 allowed for the Establishment of a Sex Offender Registry in Jamaica and the Sexual Offences (Registration of Sex Offenders) Regulations, 2012 details its operation. The registry, which falls under the management of the commissioner of corrections, was established in July 2014 and is currently located at 12-14 Lockett Avenue (Kingston Gardens), Kingston 4.
The registry is headed by a registrar and it is the location from where the Sex Offender Register is maintained and the affairs of the sex offender registry registration centres are administered.
Unlike Jamaica, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, in a bid to deter, punish, and shame paedophiles and other perpetrators of sexual crimes, has made its sex offender registry public. The law went into effect on January 31.
It said that under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act, 2019, for the first time in the history of Trinidad and Tobago, information on sexual offenders can be shown on an online website for the public to access their names, addresses, photographs and offences committed.
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