There have been too few stories about how a paedophile's family suffers when hubby, or dad, or grandad, or uncle, turn out to be monsters. The destruction such evil people cause is not limited to their direct victims, but also to the victim's families and their own families. Here is one such story:
How woman discovered her husband was a secret paedophile
Hope thought she knew her husband and father of their two children. Then she found something horrifying hidden in her own house.
Ginger Gorman
news.com.au
Early in the morning on Good Friday, 2017, 48-year-old Perth resident Hope* was sitting down to a cup of tea with her husband of nearly 30 years, Ryan*, when there was a knock at the door.
“There two were plainclothes detectives on the doorstep asking to speak to my husband,” Hope recalls.
The two police officers specialised in child sexual abuse and this was the start of a living nightmare – the unravelling of decades of her former husband’s dark secrets. And the destruction of life as Hope and her two adult daughters knew it.
“I remember at the time my whole body was physically shaking. My husband was being interviewed by the police for the most disgusting crime ever. I couldn’t think of a friend to call … I just sat alone.”
Hope’s husband then made a shocking confession.
“At the time of the arrest, he confessed to me he had been a sex addict for many, many years. He wasn’t just sexually interested in little girls, he was sexually interested in any female,” says Hope.
A year later, in 2018, Ryan was convicted of nine charges – three historical child molestation offences and three current child molestation charges. A further three charges related to his possession of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM.
Astonishing increase in CSAM
When it comes to CSAM, things are getting much worse in the pandemic – mainly because we’re all at home on our computers. New data from the Australian eSafety Commission shows that child sexual abuse material (CSAM) reports to their office increased by 82 per cent in May this year, 97 per cent in June and 129 per cent in July 2020 compared to the same months last year.
For Hope, she had no idea her husband was looking at CSAM in their own home.
They’d met when she was 14 and he was in his mid-20s. “His family came into our church and he pretty much set eyes on me from the day we first saw each other,” Hope recalls.
Hope’s mother was the product of a difficult wartime upbringing and lived with PTSD. She was not always a very nurturing to her seven children. For Hope, the lack of parental love gave her a message: You are unsupported and on your own in life.
“Because I was not happy in my childhood home, often feeling quite neglected, I was just ripe for someone like him to come along and say, ‘Oh, I’ll be your friend’,” Hope reflects.
“My parents weren’t pushing me into it (the relationship), but they weren’t doing anything to stop it either. It was just like, ‘Well, if she leaves and gets married, then that’s just one less child to feed.’”
Looking back at what attracted her to Ryan in the first place, she says: “We had a good friendship. We loved going on drives and picnics together. He was funny. I liked that he made me laugh.
“And in some kind of creepy way, I now see that all as just the perfect grooming for this ideal wife to cover up what was ultimately his first choice in life – and that wasn’t me. I know that now, but I didn’t know that then.”
A few days before Ryan was arrested, Hope had got a shocking call from her cousin, Sonia.* When Hope and Ryan had been newly dating, Sonia was just six years old. Sonia said Ryan had sexually abused her all those years ago. Now Sonia was a new mother herself she’d had a sick realisation.
“I don’t want him anywhere near my daughter,” Sonia told Hope on the phone. “She sounded very angry in her voice and I was just starting to get really confused,” Hope says.
Having just found out about her husband’s double life, Hope went on to make a shattering discovery. “On our computer I found a file which I’d never seen before, openly entitled ‘Kiddie nudes’,” says Hope. “I could just see all these pictures of little girls, the same approximate age as my cousin all those years ago.
“They were six, seven-year-old blonde little girls, all deliberately photographed full frontal nude. And at the time I thought, ‘Oh, there’s more to this. There’s more’,” she says, “And I still think about those girls now. Where are those girls today? How have they been affected by being abused like this?”
Hope took the brave step of immediately ringing the police, dobbing in a man she’d loved for decades. Law enforcement seized the home computer, hard drive and a pile of USBs.
“It was the hardest phone call that I’ve ever made in my life. The thing that rose up in me was, ‘I don’t care how much I love my husband. You can’t abuse other human beings,’” she says, her voice cracking.
After examining the evidence, that’s when police came to arrest Ryan.
What sticks most clearly in Hope’s mind from the day her world imploded is her own shock and confusion: “I don’t know what’s going on. Something’s going on and I’m just completely in the dark. I’m in the dark with my cousin. I’m in the dark with my husband.”
After his initial arrest and questioning, Ryan was sent home. But Hope found herself increasingly repulsed by him. After a week, she told him: “I can’t have you here anymore. I just am sick at the thought of you coming home knowing what you’ve done.”
Ryan asked her: “Well, where am I going to go?”
Hope replied, “Well, you’ve had a long time to think about it. You’ve been doing this for 30 years or more. You’re going to have to figure that out without me.”
Ryan was convicted of three historical child sex abuse charges against Sonia and three further charges relating to possession of reams of child exploitation material. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was another bombshell to come: three current child abuse charges against Hope’s brother’s young daughter.
Altogether, Ryan spent nine months in prison and was placed on the child sex offender register for life. For Hope and her daughters, none of this heals the pain.
Nine months? Seriously! Nine months? Nine years is barely adequate!
“He’s destroyed our family,” she tells me, “That’s what my brother said. We (siblings) don’t really have a lot to do with each other anymore. That’s what hurts me the most.
“Though my adult daughters are moving forward in their lives and healing slowly, this comes back like a tsunami every Father’s Day. They have to think about what he’s done. They have nothing to do with him and don’t hear from him.”
At the time of Ryan’s arrest, Hope was an integral part of her church community. But the congregation abandoned her once the news of his crimes filtered through.
“I was dropped like a hot brick,” Hope says, “It was like I had some virus and they would catch it by coming near me. People just stayed away from me. They don’t want their own reputation ruined by knowing somebody whose husband has gone to prison on child sex offence charges.”
Not much of a church! You are probably better off without it. But God will never shun or desert you. keep the faith:
Jesus said there are times when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but you should trust Him. At times God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural father, but He is not; He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the thought that the mind of God is behind all things strong and growing. Not even the smallest detail of life happens unless God’s will is behind it. Therefore, you can rest in perfect confidence in Him.
- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest ( July 16th ).
Hope’s experience of being shamed and shunned by her community is a common one, according to Natalie Walker, CEO of PartnerSPEAK. The non-profit works with law enforcement to end child exploitation.
It also supports the innocent family members – like Hope – of men who use and produce child abuse material.
Natalie says the primary victims of these crimes are always children. But the intimate partners and close family members of perpetrators must be viewed as secondary victims.
“Knowing that they lived in the same home, shared the bed, were intimate with, had children with someone who was perpetrating this child sexual abuse is part of the non-offending partner’s trauma,” she explains.
“Often innocent partners in this position are shamed and stigmatised and lose everything. Even their own children and their homes. It’s therefore not uncommon for the people we work with to end up with a diagnosis of PTSD.”
Today's Pakistani Horror Stories:
Pakistan - Child rapists arrested in Nowshera
NOWSHERA: A five-year-old boy has been sexually abused in Nowshera and police have arrested the accused.
Police said the child, Wasif was stopped allegedly by the accused, Shahzeb when he was coming back from mosque in Pirpai area, and took him to a deserted house and sexually abused him. The accused escaped from the scene when the condition of the child deteriorated.
The child after coming home in injured condition told his parents about his ordeal. Police shifted the child to the District Headquarters Hospital where doctors confirmed that the child has been sexually abused. The child was admitted to hospital after initial check up.
Police filed a case of the incident and immediately arrested the accused. The accused confessed to his crime in the court which sent him on 14-day judicial remand to Mardan Jail.
The Nowshera incident happened three days after a 13-year-old boy was murdered after sexual abuse in Swat.
Police said the alleged culprit has been identified as Waqar who strangulated the boy over making noise. Police said the accused is being interrogated and it is suspected that some accomplices might also be involved in the crime.
Sexual abuse incidents, particularly of children, are happening on regular basis in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and rest of the country which have left the society shaken and calls for severe punishments to the culprits involved in such crimes are being made. The government functionaries say they are now considering the options of punishments like public hanging and chemical castration of people involved in such crimes. However, human rights advocates are opposing such punishments, arguing that the countries where these punishments are already in practice have not witnessed any improvement in the situation.
On September 22, an 18-year-old person was arrested in Mardan on charges of sexually abusing a seven-year-old girl.
TNN correspondent reported while quoting police report that a seven-year-old girl was playing outside her home in Chiragh Din Killi in Takht Bhai tehsil when the accused, Afzal took her forcibly to fields and subjected her to sexual abuse repeatedly, leaving her critically injured.
On September 15, a nine-year-old child accused his step-uncle of sexually abusing him in Nowshera.
Pakistan: Karachi man caught disposing eight-year-old’s body
after allegedly raping and murdering him
Published: September 28, 2020
Falah Gulzar, Social Media Reporter, Gulf News
Police in the city of Karachi, Pakistan, arrested a man on September 25 after he was caught by locals trying to dispose the a body of an eight-year-old boy he allegedly raped and murdered.
The victim, identified as Haris, had gone missing from Shafiq Colony, on the evening of September 24, the area’s Station House Officer (SHO) Farrukh Shaharyar told local media. The officer added that a First Information Report (FIR) was not filed. The family had instead made announcements at the local mosques.
A police official told local media that a man was going to dispose the body but was intercepted by residents in the early hours of Friday. The residents saw the man carrying something in a cloth bag made out of a bedsheet. They got hold of him and discovered the boy’s body in the bag, according to the officer.
Soon after, around two dozen relatives and neighbours of the victim also reached the scene. They neither informed police nor handed over the suspect to authorities. The cop further said that they reportedly held a village council meeting to settle the issue before the police arrived.
The body had bruises on the neck and was shifted to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for an autopsy. A medico-legal officer (MLO) at the hospital confirmed that the boy was raped before being murdered. He said they await a chemical examination report to confirm more details.
Police registered a case against the held suspect on the complaint of the victim’s father on charges of murder and rape. During the initial probe, the suspect admitted to having raped and killed the boy but later denied doing so, the SHO said.
The body was handed over to his family after the medical examination for burial.
Shaharyar said that police had obtained information from the area that revealed that the suspect had also been involved in sexual assault cases in the past.
On Friday, relatives of the boy, while carrying his coffin, protested on the streets and demanded strict punishment against the arrested suspect.
Pakistan: Girl refuses marriage proposal,
father kills her with an axe in Faisalabad
The accused reportedly wanted her to marry her maternal uncle’s son
Published: September 28, 2020
Falah Gulzar, Social Media Reporter, Gulf News
A teenaged girl was hacked to death with an axe by her father on September 27 over a marriage dispute in the city of Faisalabad, Pakistan.
Police said the girl’s father wanted her to marry the son of her maternal uncle but she did not want to marry him, as per local media reports.
The issue had been brought up several times in the household but this time it resulted in fatalities, after she once again refused to accept the marriage proposal. Her maternal uncle was also injured in the incident, news outlets reported.
On being informed, police and rescue officials rushed to the scene in Faisalabad’s Tandlianwala area and found the girl lying in a pool of blood. Rescue officials shifted her to a hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead on arrival. Meanwhile, the police arrested the suspect and launched investigations into the case.
No matter how it works, it's always the girl that pays the price.
In a similar incident, a 14-year-old girl was burnt to death allegedly by her uncle after her father turned down a proposal to marry her to the accused's son in Chiniot, in the Punjab province of Pakistan on July 17.
Is this an extension of the Rape Culture or just an example of Australia's best and brightest young minds? Either way, things look bleak for the next generation of leaders.
Vulnerable teenage sex abuse survivor, 18, is left 'sobbing and shaking' after being tormented on Facebook by schoolboys 'defending paedophiles' in the most twisted Year 12 Muck Up Day challenge imaginable
By BRITTANY CHAIN FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
A group of heartless selective schoolboys have tormented a teenage sexual abuse survivor as part of a twisted Year 12 muck-up day scavenger hunt.
Leaving students at Merewether High School in Newcastle, north of Sydney, were challenged to send the girl - who was abused from the age of four to 10 - a message 'defending paedophiles' to score points.
And in a sickening abuse of trust, the idea to target the 18-year-old actually came from one of her friends. The teenager had only recently confided in him about being sexually abused by a close family friend over six years.
In Facebook messages obtained by Daily Mail Australia, graduating students contacted the vulnerable teenager - who does not even go to the school - late on Wednesday night to defend paedophiles in a sick attempt to elicit a reaction.
The young woman, who can't be identified, later learned the messages were sent to earn points for the selective school's Muck Up Day scavenger hunt.
Other challenges in the warped hunt included flicking a dog's testicles, abusing a teacher via email, filming sex acts and abusing new mothers.
Leaving students at Merewether High School in Newcastle, north of Sydney, were challenged to send the girl a message 'defending paedophiles' to score points
It is the latest in a string of sick muck-up day challenges involving graduating NSW students, including at elite schools such as Shore in Sydney where so-called pranks included spitting on homeless people and pooing in public.
The girl's shattered mother told Daily Mail Australia the messages had 'broken' the 18-year-old, who recently started university after leaving school in Year 10 to cope with her trauma.
'The days of throwing toilet paper over lawns and having innocent fun are gone... This is way too far,' the mother-of-three said.
Her daughter was at home when she received a message from a boy her age that read: 'I really think paedophiles aren't that bad.'
When she questioned the message, the boy added: 'My uncle was one and I think he's a good bloke. Is there anything wrong with that?
The boy who created the challenge, she confided in him.
She thought he was her friend and instead he's turned her trauma into a joke.
Teenager's mother
'Everyone is human. We are all the same, black, white, pedo, not pedo.'
The messages immediately triggered the young woman, who was repeatedly molested as a child and has needed therapy to deal with her trauma ever since.
A friend in the year group revealed he had seen the muck-up day scavenger hunt challenges for Year 12 students at the Newcastle high school, and the messages were part of the twisted game to earn notoriety and points ahead of graduation.
'She was sobbing, shaking,' her mother tearfully explained to Daily Mail Australia late on Wednesday night. 'I'm taking her for a drive to calm her down now. She hasn't stopped saying how she feels so humiliated and exposed.'
The exact challenge was for the students to 'message [her] and start an argument about paedophilia', all while knowing about her traumatic experience. 'The boy who created the challenge, she confided in him. She thought he was her friend and instead he's turned her trauma into a joke.
'We're just totally shattered, and that's an understatement.'
On Wednesday night, the young woman decided to confront the issue on Facebook after she realised 'all of Newcastle was about to find out about it one way or another'.
'I thought it would be better for it to come from me. It was my story to tell and I wanted to be able to tell it myself rather than in this group, so I posted it on Facebook,' she said.
The post attracted hundreds of comments from outraged friends sharing their own muck-up day horror stories and condemning the boy who created the challenge.
'I wasn't ready to publicly announce it at all, but I felt like I didn't have a choice,' she said.
Within hours, Facebook had removed the posts and any other comments affiliated with it, claiming it violated community standards.
'It's okay for him to put it all around Newcastle and the high school that he went to, and for students at the school to have a hard copy of this challenge list and to contact my daughter, but it's not okay for her to post about it,' her mother said.
The mother-of-three explained that she understood kids needed to let off steam at the end of a school year, but said it should never come at the expense of another person.
'That boy has caused irreparable damage to [her] and to our family,' the woman said. 'We were finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel and now we're back at square one. As a mother, I helped her put the pieces back together and now they've just totally fallen apart again because of one person's idea of funny.'
When she was just 10 years old, the brave girl told her parents about the abuse she had endured for six years. Her family had no idea.
'She stood up in that box at court and she was just so brave in testifying against him. He was charged and it took her a very long time to trust anybody with that information, to trust boys at all.'
'She's so broken again. She'd been trying to build up trust in people. She's just said to me ''what's the use?' It's just heartbreaking.'
On Wednesday night, the family rang police about the messages she was receiving and about the muck-up day challenges. They were told nothing could be done, even though they had names and evidence of some of the people involved, including the young man who first distributed the rumours.
She had not yet contacted the school, but the young girl involved told Daily Mail Australia she knew the scavenger hunt had been planned without the school's authorisation.
'A few years back, I was told a student died while doing the scavenger hunt. Ever since then, the school has wanted no part in it,' she said.
NSW Education said they were aware of the girl's post and were co-operating with police. 'The school understands that the posts are not from a student or students enrolled at the school,' a spokesperson said.
'No students at any school, including Merewether High School, are to take part in any inappropriate or anti-social activities.'
Sounds like a rule that is obviously not enforced.
Since she began receiving the vile messages, the young woman has slipped back into a dark place and has been inconsolable. 'In the past, she has been in a place where she couldn't even find a reason to live,' her mother explained.
'I would camp outside her door and sleep on the wooden floor just to make sure she wouldn't harm herself. I'm so terrified now. I'm praying and I've made her promise she won't hurt herself.'
It's understood the boy responsible for including her name in the challenge completed his HSC at the same school in 2019. He has since deleted his social media accounts.
He and the young woman had been friends prior to the incident, and she was doubly heartbroken when she learned he had broken her trust.
'Someone's idea of a scavenger challenge to hurt and break a person is not my idea of fun or funny,' the girl's mother said. 'They've made it personal. I think they're young, and silly and don't realise the repercussions of their actions.
'Some of these challenges include taking three ecstasy pills and washing it down with a bottle of Jack Daniels, last year they were told to burn swastika's into their bums.'
She acknowledged that the students had worked hard and overcome major setbacks in 2020 to make it to their graduation, but said it was no excuse to ruin someone else's life.
The young woman is not a student at the school and has no affiliation with the muck-up day challenge, and said she had no idea why she was ever brought into it.
Your sharing your secret with your 'friend', gave him power over you. In his youth, narcissism, and stupidity, he chose to use it, probably to impress his friends somehow. It is good that it is out in public now, it has no more power over you in a practical sense. You are stronger than you think, but judge your new friends carefully.
Paedophile Labour councillor who worked in UK children's home walks free despite being caught with over one million child porn images including 12-year-old girls being raped
By NICK IRVING FOR MAILONLINE
Roger Spackman, 50, who was a Labour councillor on Exeter City Council until his arrest in 2017, worked at a secure children's home at the time he started collecting the enormous hoard of images.
Exeter Crown Court heard that he was part of an underground internet network called The Other Place. A police investigation in 2017 charged the two front runners with offences and other members were exposed.
But Judge Peter Johnson jailed Spackman for ten months, suspended for two years, with 40 days rehab for possessing a 'huge number of images'.
Roger Spackman, 50, (pictured) who was a Labour councillor on Exeter City Council until his arrest in 2017, worked at a secure children's home at the time he started collecting the enormous hoard of images
Spackman, of Exeter, Devon, was arrested and 68 electronic devices were found at his home and examined.
Judge Johnson said it was 'an astonishing number' of images which included the most serious category A images and others of category B and C.
The judge said he was of good character working hard in public service as a councillor in Exeter before his 'fall from grace which has been dramatic'.
Of course, this is part of grooming the environment so you appear to be a good person. It helps keep suspicions away from one's real character, rather than displaying it. It appears the judge bought into it.
He said Spackman had been abused as a child and played the role of an abused child in this forum.
Many of the images were inaccessible but the offences dated back to 2008 - seven years after he began working at the secure children's home.
The court heard the most graphic images showed young girls aged 12 being raped.
Spackman's barrister Barry White said: 'He likes to pretend he is a young girl who will be abused. He will pretend to be a young girl.'
Mr White stressed: 'None of the images are of people who he knows. He has never sexually assaulted any children nor would he do so. The images were sent to him by the other party in the fantasy which were indicative of what that person liked. He did not get to choose what images but he accepted them all.'
Prosecutor Thomas Faulkner said some of the worst images were found on two devices found in his bedroom. He said: 'Those images depicted pre-pubescent girls forced to take part in sexual activity.'
Mr White said there had been 'considerable impact' on his life since his arrest in October 2017 - quitting his Labour seat the day after his arrest and avoiding going out in public because 'everyone knows what he has done'.
Spackman admitted between October 2007 and July 2017 possessing still and moving images of categories A, B and C as well as possessing a prohibited image and possessing 48 extreme pornographic images involving an animal.
Boy, 14, latest victim of ‘child snatch gang’ amid reports of
SEVEN kidnap attempts in Worcester
Abe Hawken, The Sun
28 Sep 2020
A 14-YEAR-OLD boy is feared to be the latest victim of a terrifying gang preying on teenagers and women in Worcester.
Detectives are investigating seven chilling incidents which have taken place in the Arboretum area of the city since September 10.
Xanda Chesworth was approached by two men as he walked home from Tudor Grange Academy Credit: Google
Ellesse Robinson, 15, was left sobbing when she fled four men on September 20
Credit: SWNS: South West News Service
In the latest incident, schoolboy Xanda Chesworth was approached by two men as he walked home from Tudor Grange Academy on Friday afternoon.
The teenager said he was grabbed by strangers in the street and told: "Come with us."
He said: "I turned down the road and two men were standing there. The pavement is quite narrow with cars parked on the side and there was not any space. I could just get by.
"They said: 'Come through'. I started to go near them when a mixed-race guy grabbed the bottom of my blazer.
"They said: 'Come with us'. I thought they were going to take me away.
"At that point I dropped my bag and ran. I started shouting and screaming. And they started walking towards me."
Xanda's dad Alex has now bought his son and daughter panic alarms to carry while they walk to and from school.
One of the men was mixed race, in his 40s and wearing a dark-coloured jumper. He also said he was skinny and about 6ft tall.
They said: 'Come with us'.
I thought they were going to take me away."
Xanda Chesworth
The other man was apparently black and in his late 30s or early 40s. He was around 6ft 1ins and wore a dark shirt.
The disturbing incident is the latest kidnapping attempt in the city. It is unclear whether police have linked the incidents.
On most of the occasions, young women or children were either approached, chased and even grabbed by men in a silver-coloured vehicle.
Ellesse Robinson, 15, was left sobbing when she fled four men who tried to snatch her off the street on September 20.
The schoolgirl was walking to a shop at 7pm when a car pulled up next to her. She said: "As I walked out of the shop and was waiting at the traffic lights, a grey Peugeot pulled up very slowly towards me.
"I felt so scared as they were all in their mid or early 30s and really big. They sounded Turkish or Romanian, they were all tanned. After he opened his door I basically shouted 'No! no! no!' repeatedly."
The following day, Keeley Austen-Marsden, 21, was chased by two men as she walked a mile from where Ellesse was approached.
Later that evening three girls, including one aged just eight, were approached by men two miles away. The girls were followed by the men before they ran into a Co-op shop where police were called.
Parents have also been warned after several incidents of suspicious men seen loitering outside the city's schools.
West Mercia Police have stepped up patrols across the city following the spate of worrying incidents.
Detective inspector Ed Slough and inspector Dave Troth from West Mercia Police, said: "We are aware of heightened concerns surrounding the reporting on social media and local news reports of a group of men in a silver or grey saloon car approaching people in the Arboretum area of Worcester.
"Some incidents are reported to have happened whilst children have been walking home from school or in the early evening."
=====================================================================================
Brit woman ‘raped by monster who attacked her and
dragged her up to his hotel room in Turkey’
Jon Lockett, The Sun
28 Sep 2020,
A BRITISH woman was raped by a fiend after being hauled up stairs to a hotel room in Turkey, say reports.
The woman - who lives in the country - claims she was sexually assaulted by a stranger after he approached her in a restaurant.
The alleged attack happened on the Turkish RivieraCredit: Getty - Contributor
After her horrific ordeal, she contacted cops and a 32-year-old suspect - named only as Murat B - was taken into custody.
Local reports say the woman, who is in her 50s, was targeted after visiting a hotel restaurant on the night of September 25. The woman was dining with a friend when two men allegedly approached them and asked for them to join them at their table.
After a while, the alleged victim left to go to a toilet on an upper floor where a man followed her and tried to kiss her, according to the news site Haberler.
The suspect allegedly slapped the woman for resisting his advances before carrying her upstairs to his hotel room on the Turkish Riviera.
The woman tried to resist the sex attack and reportedly punched the man in the groin. She left the hotel room a short while later and went straight to the cops to file a complaint.
The woman’s statement was taken in the presence of a psychologist. During the police interview, the woman reportedly claimed that she had been raped by the suspect.
The police reviewed the hotel’s CCTV cameras which revealed a man had carried the victim to an upstairs room before disappearing inside. The cameras also filmed the moment they both left the room separately.
The suspect a supermarket worker - denies he attacked the woman and said he was with her at "her request", claim local reports.
Abuse in care: N.Z. child wrongfully diagnosed as mentally disabled was sexually and physically abused
Andrew McRae, Reporter, RNZ
A man who was wrongly identified as mentally disabled when just six years old, was then sent to a state institution where he was physically and sexually abused until the end of his teens.
Royal Commission Abuse in Care inquiry.Photo: RNZ / Patrice Allen
It took until he was 74 years old before the man, referred to as Mr M, received compensation and an apology.
Known to the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care, which is sitting in Auckland, as Mr M, his story was relayed to the inquiry on Monday by the IHC.
Mr M was placed into the care of the Home of Compassion in Island Bay until he was six years old. After that he went to the Templeton Centre, near Christchurch, he was placed there under what was then the Mental Defectives Act.
Mr M was assessed as intellectually disabled because it was felt he had low-intelligence. He could not spell cat, add two two and did not know his surname.
No attempt to see if he could learn!
The IHC said it was a slim diagnosis at best, which in time, quite a long time it turned out, proved to be wrong. For the next 13 years he was put to work and physically and sexually abused.
Director of Advocacy for the IHC Trish Grant said Mr M went to Templeton thinking he was going to school. ''But when he got there that didn't happen. He worked on the farm and in the workshop.
"At that time there was very gender defining activities, so the girls went off to the school-like place and the boys went off to work on the farm or be in the workshop. So he was very, very disappointed with that.''
From the age of 14 he was promised wages for the work he was doing, but he never received any. At 19 he left Templeton to work on a farm on the West Coast.
''He had no money, he had no literacy skills and not a day of schooling. He had also been the victim of terrible physical and sexual assault during that time at Templeton.''
Trish Grant said he left the farm and ended up in Seaview Psychiatric Hospital on the West Coast where his life changed dramatically.
''They then assessed him. They were thinking who was is this person and how can we support him and so he went through an assessment process and surprise surprise he was found not to have an intellectual disability.''
Seaview arranged employment for Mr M. ''So he began what was to be his life-long career as a (hospital) porter,'' she said.
Grant said throughout his time as a porter Mr M never let on he had once been in institutional care. He retired in 1991 and then started to think about his early life.
''Mr M lived a very isolated, lonely life. He didn't have many friends, he didn't have an important relationship, he didn't have children, he didn't have relations so he had a lot of time on his hands and he started to think about the terrible things that had happened to him.''
Mr M started his quest for redress in 1991 and finally received an apology and compensation in 2003.
He died in 2006, aged 78.
Trish Grant said Mr M's case is like many who have come to the IHC for help. She said it is about the lack of education.
''At that time his legal counsel had looked out and seen that many of the cases at that time based on abuse hadn't been successful, so they framed up his claim around the denial and neglect of his education.''
Trish Grant said redress for survivors of abuse is extremely difficult.
''Firstly the systems themselves may be inaccessible, they may be unaffordable and actually you need a lot of support to go through those processes.''
Trish Grant said she would like to see an Office of Public Advocate established, but whatever system is decided on to safeguard people in the future, it must be fair, impartial and inexpensive.
She said people who are disabled have a human right to access justice and seek redress.
Especially, when they weren't disabled in the first place.
Mother, stepdad charged with sex abuse of daughters in T&T
ELIZABETH GONZALES
TnT Newsday
Police charged a mother with five counts of failing to report the suspected rape of her daughters, 17 and 14, by her boyfriend.
Police charged the boyfriend with seven counts of sexual penetration of a child and one count of sexually touching a child.
Police said the elder sister made a report to the Mayaro Police Station that she and her sister had been sexually assaulted by her stepfather for several years. The child told police the mother was aware of the abuse but made no effort to stop it.
A press release on Monday said police investigated the matter and the mother, 36, and stepfather,40, were arrested and charged. They were expected to appear before a Mayaro Magistrate on Monday.
The Children Protection Unit (CPU) reminded parents and guardians to be cautious when it comes to the care and supervision of their children.
"The CPU stresses that many times, children fall victim to crimes and abuse by those closely-knitted to their family, and as such, it is incumbent of parents to be extremely vigilant and constantly screen those who are interacting with their children," the release said.
If raping your children is a condition for staying in a relationship, get rid of the jerk. If you don't, you're not much better than he, and maybe worse.
Hi Gary, May I respectfully request the removal of the first story on this blog post. It was written and published with the knowledge or consent of victims and it’s presence online has caused irreparable hurt and damage. I appreciate that you will not have been aware of that fact when sharing the story.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Dear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your request; I apologize for taking so long to get to it. I am still considering your request but in the meantime I have removed the photo and remind you that all the related names are fictitious.
This is a powerful story about how paedophilia affects more than just the paedophile and their victims. Families are devastated, both the victim's and the perpetrator's. This story displays that better than any on my blog, so I am reluctant to dismiss it.
If you wish to discuss it further you can email me at garymsmail@gmail.com.