Ex-child soldier, Uganda rebel leader Dominic Ongwen gets 25 years in prison
By Don Johnson
May 6 (UPI) -- The International Criminal Court in The Hague sentenced former Uganda militia leader Dominic Ongwen on Thursday to 25 years in prison for war crimes.
Ongwen was facing life in prison, but a panel of judges gave the lesser sentence mindful of the suffering he endured after he was abducted at age 10 and forced to become a child soldier.
Ongwen, 41, was convicted of 61 crimes in February, including rape, murder, sexual enslavement, child abductions and torture.
He committed the crimes while a commander in Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, a militia group led by fugitive warlord Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself to be the spokesperson of God. The militia led an assault against Ugandans for 20 years and fought the government from bases in northern Uganda and nearby countries.
Presiding Judge Bertram Schmitt said Ongwen was "a perpetrator who willfully brought tremendous suffering upon his victims," but also a "perpetrator who himself has previously endured extreme suffering at the hands of the group of which he later became a prominent member and leader."
Prosecutors acknowledged that Ongwen was a child soldier against his will, but argued that he later did the same thing to many other children. They also noted that he had plenty of opportunities to leave over the years, but never did.
"It cannot go unnoticed that Dominic Ongwen, despite [being] well aware of such suffering which he himself had been subjected to several years earlier and fully appreciating its wrongfulness, did nothing to spare similar experiences to other children after him," the court wrote in its 139-page ruling.
The court decided that Ongwen, as an adult, committed a series of crimes, many against women and children who were forced into slavery.
Many of Ongwen's charges stemmed from attacks on refugee camps. His militia killed 350 civilians during a four-day raid on camps in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2009. About 250, including dozens of children, were abducted.
The LRA militia has now been largely eliminated, but Kony remains free despite a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
Instagram labelled a ‘disgrace’ by senior UK police official after report flags more than 100 convicted paedophiles using the platform
16 May, 2021 14:07
Instagram has come under fire from British law enforcement after an investigation by the Telegraph revealed that dozens of convicted paedophiles were using the popular social media site.
The newspaper was able to identify more than 100 accounts matching the names and photographs of people who have been jailed for sexual abuse against children over the last decade. Two of the accounts belonged to men serving 20-year prison sentences for raping young children, the Telegraph said.
Some of the accounts were following thousands of people on the social network, including school girls. Children as young as 13 are able to create a profile on the platform.
One sex offender on the site identified himself as a “social media marketer” and was following more than 5,000 accounts.
The company responded to the findings by removing all the profiles flagged by the Telegraph. Police are also examining the accounts, and have launched an investigation into at least one suspect.
Instagram should be the main 'suspect' investigated here.
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, asks users to report any known paedophiles by submitting news stories that could link an account to a convicted predator. The site reportedly relies on notifications from law enforcement because the sex offenders’ register is confidential.
In a statement to the Telegraph, Instagram said that it prohibits convicted sex offenders from using its services, and that it works with law enforcement to help detect unwanted accounts. It said that it is able to identify and remove the vast majority of exploitative content before it is even reported, and that it contacts authorities in cases where child abuse is suspected.
But these actions don’t go far enough for Chief Constable Simon Bailey, who serves as the National Police Chiefs Council’s child protection lead. Bailey branded Instagram a “disgrace” and accused the company of abandoning its “social and moral” responsibilities in order to pursue profits.
He claimed that Instagram and other social media platforms weren’t doing enough to stop their services from being used to exploit children. The senior law enforcement official said that he welcomed proposed legislation that gives regulators the ability to impose fines and even jail tech executives for failing to keep their platforms safe.
“We can fly a drone on Mars but we cannot prevent the uploading and sharing of images of child abuse,” he wrote in an op-ed responding to the Telegraph’s findings.
It's not that we can't, Simon, it's that we won't.
The newspaper’s investigation comes three months after the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, citing police data obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, revealed that paedophiles were increasingly using Instagram to groom children for sex.
The UK government published a draft of its Online Safety Bill earlier this week. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden hailed the proposed legislation as a way to “protect children on the internet, crack down on racist abuse on social media,” and “create a truly democratic digital age.”
The draft bill imposes a duty of care on digital service providers, requiring them to moderate user-generated content in order to ensure their platforms are free of illegal or harmful material.
Critics have warned that the law would harm freedom of expression by forcing companies to over-censor in order to avoid fines or other legal trouble.
Anyone uploading anything to the internet should be identifiable to the ISP. The ISP should be required to do the work of documenting each individual so that all internet users are known. That sounds extremely ambitious, even absurd, but after all, we can fly a drone on Mars!
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Have you ever seen a lumberjack fall 3, 4, or 5 trees in one swoop? That's a lot like the Canadian military high command. At least 7 senior commanders have had to step down in the past 6 months while under investigation for sexual abuse of junior members. This comes six years after the beginning of a program to reduce or remove sexual abuse from the military. A program that failed and disappeared. Amazingly, the Minister of Defence is still the Minister of Defence.
Fortin out as Canada's vaccine campaign lead amid military probe into sexual misconduct claim, sources say
CBC News has confirmed investigation involves an allegation of sexual misconduct
Murray Brewster · CBC News ·
Posted: May 15, 2021 10:10 AM ET
The major-general leading Canada's vaccine logistics at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is stepping down under the cloud of a military investigation into a sexual misconduct allegation.
The Department of National Defence issued a terse three-line statement late Friday, saying that Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin is leaving his post and his future will be decided by the acting chief of the defence staff.
Neither the military nor the department would say what kind of investigation has been launched, whether it involves military police or is some other kind of internal review.
CBC News has confirmed the investigation involves an allegation of sexual misconduct that predates 2015 and the military's now defunct campaign, Operation Honour, which was intended to stamp out inappropriate behaviour. Three separate confidential sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly because of the sensitivity of the file, described it as an older claim, but declined to be more specific. The Globe and Mail was the first to report the allegation against Fortin was sexual in nature.
His departure came about suddenly.
As late as Friday morning, Fortin was listed as being seconded to the public health agency in a Department of National Defence statement involving the assignments of general officers.
CBC News reached out to Fortin for comment, but he declined and referred questions to the Department of National Defence.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tasked Fortin with leading Canada's COVID-19 vaccine distribution effort in the fall.
A well-regarded combat veteran of Afghanistan and former commander of the NATO mission in Iraq, Fortin has been a calm, reassuring figure at PHAC's briefings since then, providing updates on the effort to distribute vaccines across the country.
In an interview with CBC Radio's The Current last March, he spoke forcefully about the unfolding allegations of misconduct.
"This type of behaviour is completely unacceptable," Fortin said.
"Members of the military, on the battlefield, should feel safe that the person next to you has your back. That's not unique to the battlefield. You should feel safe at home, as well."
It is unclear how Fortin's departure will affect the vaccine distribution campaign.
He was at the centre of a new military-supported hub within PHAC — the National Operations Centre — that was built to help co-ordinate the deployment of millions of vaccine doses over the coming months.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, in a statement late Friday, tried to reassure the public that the drive to get vaccines into the country will not be interrupted by the general's absence.
"We remain focused on deploying the millions of vaccines that arrive in Canada every week," Sajjan said. "The men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces will continue to support the deployment of vaccines, as well as the rest of the government response to COVID-19 across Canada. As an investigation is underway, I will have no further comments at this time."
The news is another sharp blow to the military, which is reeling under the weight of a string of high-profile sexual misconduct cases.
Allegations of inappropriate behaviour were levelled against the country's former top commander, retired CDS General Jonathan Vance, two weeks after his retirement last winter. Weeks later, his successor, Admiral Art McDonald voluntarily stepped aside after it was revealed he was under military police investigation over an allegation of sexual misconduct.
The military's former head of personnel, Vice-Admiral Hayden Edmundson, was permanently replaced on Friday and is under a pending investigation after a three decade-old allegation of sexual assault was levelled against him.
The country's former military operations commander, Lt.-Gen. Christopher Coates, is retiring after a published report in Postmedia revealed he had an affair with a U.S. defence department civilian while serving as deputy commander of NORAD.
Maj.-Gen. Peter Dawe, the former commander of special forces, was put on paid leave after writing a letter of support for a soldier convicted of sexual assault. Last week, Global News reported that the commander of the military's intelligence school, Lt.-Col. Raphaël Guay, had been temporarily removed while an investigation took place.
Children as young as two 'forced into filming live-sex shows' are rescued in the Philippines after police were tipped off by an accused Victorian man's online chats
By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATE PRESS and ALANA MAZZONI FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
PUBLISHED: 19:04 EDT, 16 May 2021 | UPDATED: 19:21 EDT, 16 May 2021
The arrest of an accused paedophile in Victoria has led to 14 children being rescued from sexual abuse in the Philippines.
A young child is seen being rescued from the alleged child sex ring in the Philippines, with the youngest just two years old
The Philippine National Police arrested three women and a man in Bombon, in the province of Camarines Sur, accused of facilitating the online child sexual abuse.
Investigators from the Victorian Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team, comprising AFP and Victoria Police, in March charged Anthony Scott, 68, with possession of child abuse material.
Six girls and eight boys (pictured, some of the victims), aged between two and 17, were removed from harm on May 7
The maximum penalty for the offence is 15 years imprisonment.
They then tipped off the AFP International Command in the Philippines.
A computer seized from the man contained child abuse material and records of online chat conversations allegedly facilitating 'pay per view' child abuse content in the Philippines, police alleged in a Victorian court.
Among the evidence seized in the Philippines last week were digital devices containing child sexual exploitation material, a sex toy, and several money transfer receipts showing foreigners as senders, police allege.
The Philippine National Police arrested three women and a man in Bombon, in the province of Camarines Sur, accused of facilitating the online child sexual abuse
The child victims have been placed in the care of a local social welfare office.
'Our investigators are dedicated to protecting children in Australia from abuse and work with law enforcement across the world to do the same,' AFP Commander Todd Hunter said on Monday.
The investigation into the Australian man was linked to an earlier Victorian arrest of a man charged by the AFP for allegedly paying for live-streamed child abuse.
Police traced the initial arrest to the Philippines, which led to the rescue of nine children, aged two to 16, and the arrest of a woman by Philippine authorities.
“I was sexually abused by an SFA referee on the way home from a match. I was just 17 but they are denying me compensation”
By Marion Scott
May 16, 2021, 2:06 pm
Stuart McMillan in Paisley last week. McMillan was denied compensation after he claimed he was abused by former referee Hugh Stevenson
Football bosses have been accused of leaving a sexual abuse victim feeling “worthless and abused all over again” after denying him compensation.
The Scottish Football Association (SFA) has refused to compensate a victim of a known paedophile referee because the abuse took place when the official was not on duty.
Stuart McMillan was a schoolboy when he took part in a football match for trainee referees and later the same day accepted a lift home from an SFA awards dinner with referee Hugh Stevenson.
During the journey, Stuart says Stevenson sexually assaulted him, an incident which left him traumatised for life.
Stuart, now 59 and a prison officer, has launched a claim for compensation against the SFA but has now been told that the governing body was rejecting his case.
A letter from the SFA’s lawyers said it was not liable on a number of grounds including that Stevenson was not on duty at the time of the offence, and that any authority he had over the schoolboy as a result of his position with the SFA would have ended when the day’s organised activities did.
Good grief! Lawyers! As if the Ref's influence over the child would end when he clocks out.
It said: “Based on the account provided by your client, the circumstances of the assaults falls outwith our client’s ‘field of activity’. Driving your client home after the course had completed was not an extension of any duty that Mr Stevenson may have had. Any authority which Mr Stevenson may have had would have ended when the course did.”
The letter also states there was no evidence that Stevenson was an SFA employee, and that there was no connection between his position as a referee and the alleged offence against Stuart.
Child sex abuse inquiry commences in Tasmania
A commission of inquiry into the Tasmanian government’s responses to child sexual abuse in institutional settings has been launched — the first time a royal commission has been held in the state for 29 years.
Three commissioners will lead the inquiry to investigate child sexual abuse in Tasmania and identify ways to improve how the government can protect children. They will build on the work of the commonwealth royal commission that considered the same issue and released its final report in 2017.
Leading the inquiry is commission president and former Supreme Court judge Marcia Neave. The other two commissioners are child protection expert Professor Leah Bromfield, and retired Family Court judge Robert Benjamin.
Commissioner Neave said that it was devastating abuse is often perpetrated in settings where children are expected to be cared for and nurtured – the harm even occurs in ‘those organisations that are established and operated on our behalf, by our governments’.
“Child abuse is a terrible crime, which can harm children for their whole lives and devastate their families,” Commissioner Neave said.
The inquiry was announced by Tasmanian premier Peter Gutwein last November, following allegations of child sexual abuse in a youth detention centre, public schools, and a public hospital in Launceston.
In April, The Mandarin reported that 14 state public servants have been stood down from their government jobs and subject to recent child sexual abuse allegations.
“Together we look forward to travelling across the state to hear from Tasmanians about their experiences, and their ideas about how to best ensure that government institutions are safe for children,” Commissioner Neave added.
Submissions are now open and the commission is encouraging any person who has been affected by sexual abuse in government institutions, or has other relevant information, to come forward.
The final report and recommendations are due August 2022.
With a St Kilda jumper as bait, paedophile coaches
turned boyhood dreams into nightmares
By Russell Jackson, (ABC News)
Posted 2 days ago, updated Yesterday at 4:40pm
It should have been the start of a football dream, but for some players at St Kilda, Little League football became a nightmare.
Like so many other boys, he could ignore the uncomfortable moments if it meant pulling on a St Kilda jumper. It was 1976. He was 11 years old. A friendly man with a doting wife and a baby in the pram beside them offered him a game in the Saints Little League team.
The man said he was the team manager, or maybe the assistant coach. The boy was flattered by the attention, so the precise details barely mattered. It felt like the day his football dream was moving closer to reality.
Yet he also knows the sad truth: this is how it works. This is how boys are silenced and remain mute in manhood. In recent weeks, he's cried tears of guilt for the others — the ones who haven't lived normal lives.
Thinking back, he's upset he didn't see the warning signs. The man had taken such a genuine interest in him, driving him to Saints training and other outings, watching his junior games, developing a warm, father-like interest in a matter of weeks. But he says the lingering shoulder rub at the bowling alley certainly put him on edge.
The boy played in round six — St Kilda vs Footscray at the Western Oval. At the beginning of the second quarter, two men led the boy and his Saints teammates into the senior change rooms and kitted them out like their heroes. At half-time, they played — miniature league footballers for a day.
Next the boys lined the race for high-fives as their idols ran back out for the main game: Trevor Barker, Cowboy Neale, Barry Breen, George Young, Carl Ditterich, Rex Hunt. St Kilda lost by five points, but it was intoxicating. Every boy hoped he'd done enough to play again the following week.
A week later, things were looking up: the boy packed his boots and socks and the man's car edged down the driveway. They drove away together for another day at the football. Then came a confusing update: the boy was only an 'emergency' player. More doubts crept in. He wondered why this man who so clearly wasn't the coach was driving him and other boys around town on weekends.
"I don't think I was actually an emergency," he says now.
"I went along, but I was never going to play. Looking back, he just said that to string me along and build me up. It was just a ruse for the man who was grooming me, to get me out on a Saturday afternoon."
The boy didn't play. On the car ride home, a kilometre or two from home, he says he felt the shock of the man's hands caressing his leg and moving up. Every misgiving and moment of confusion sharpened into focus, and he yelled: "Stop the car, I'll get out here." He says he's never forgotten that panicked moment — the precise location, the feeling of fear.
"He'd sort of presented himself as the team manager, but in hindsight, he wasn't. He was just this sort of hanger-on.
"Here was me thinking I might get to play another game for St Kilda Little League the whole time. I hung in there because I thought I'd get chosen. And that was, for my ego, the closest I'd get to playing for St Kilda."
Now his prevailing feeling is anger — not only that nothing was done to protect him and other boys, but that the Saints jumper and the glamour of league football was the bait used to lure them towards harm. Since he read the story of Rod Owen's abuse at the hands of St Kilda Little League coach Darrell Ray and team manager Albert Briggs, like many others, he's also been wracked by guilt. Could he have spoken up? Was that his job?
There is more to this story at ABC Australia.
Aged 10, he was found on Fortnite and groomed on Snapchat,
and he’s not alone
By Wendy Tuohy
May 16, 2021 — 6.01am
At the age of 10, Lucy’s son was not on any social media. It was only when his young peers were messaging each other on the app Snapchat at his birthday party last October that his mother agreed he could download it – “reluctantly”.
“I don’t use Snapchat and don’t know much about the platform, so I said he could use it under my supervision,” says Lucy, who lives in regional eastern Victoria.
Grooming, blackmail and extortion of children to gain child sex abuse material has increased, as has live-streaming abuse. CREDIT:ISTOCK PHOTOS
As someone who works in education and had attended a cyber safety for parents talk only six months prior, she felt she had a handle on managing safe use of devices with kids.
“I have always known the [child safety] risks of Facebook and Instagram, but not necessarily Snapchat. That’s why I allowed him to have those apps. I have to say I did know the risks of him being on Fortnite – but I didn’t realise the risks were so imminent.”
One night after Lucy had removed her son’s iPad as per the family routine each evening, she heard him talking to someone.
“This guy he had met on Fortnite [and who asked to be added as a friend on his Xbox account] had instructed him to go and find his iPad and take it back,” said Lucy, who cannot be identified due to laws around naming child sex abuse victims.
Kids of six, seven or eight are clicking on a link that can take them straight to a live streaming site if they’ve got a webcam on the device.
“I snatched the iPad out of his hands and scrolled through; some previous Snaps had been deleted [the app defaults to delete after a short time] but the guy was still sending pictures when I had it in my hands, genital pictures, of him ejaculating and things – to a 10-year-old boy.”
Police discovered the boy had been added to six other accounts by the perpetrator, which suggested to the family that more than one person was involved in trying to groom him. Her son has experienced depression and is receiving counselling from the local office of the Centres Against Sexual Assault.
There is more on this story on the Sydney Morning Herald.
Tunbridge Wells man falsely accused by paedophile hunters
says his 'life fell apart'
15 May 2021
By Mary Harris
STOLEN IDENTITY: Darrell Edmondson wrote to Tunbridge Wells MP Greg Clark and Facebook about these online groups and also the malicious use of profile photos, names and other details which are taken by others with devastating effects.
A man from Tunbridge Wells has said his life fell apart almost instantly when he was accused of being a paedophile by a ‘hunting’ gang.
Now exonerated, Darrell Edmondson was confronted by a group in July who, while broadcasting the two-and-a-half-hour encounter live on the internet, claimed he had been trying to meet a child.
Kent Police arrested him and has now concluded its investigation. It will not be taking further action.
In a face-to-face interview with the Courier, Mr Edmondson painstakingly explained the events which led to him being caught up in a “nightmare” which saw him drive to Beachy Head with a plan to kill himself.
“It’s one of the most stressful, painful things,” he said. “I can’t put it into words. You know how old people can’t talk about the war because it’s too horrific? That’s how I felt about this. This is the first time I have talked about it.”
Mr Edmondson told the Courier that prior to the encounter he had joined two dating sites.
He said a woman had originally messaged him “out of the blue” and they text messaged each other during July. At one point she messaged him to say she would not be in touch for a while as colleagues were “losing their jobs”.
But she started messaging persistently on July 31 about meeting up that night - the day of the sting.
There is much more on this story at In Your Area.
Convicted paedophile ex-BBC producer is jailed for second time after trying to film Christmas concert at private girls school
By DAN SALES FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 07:54 EDT, 17 May 2021
A BBC producer paedophile on the sex offenders register began a secret life under a fake name in Wales, where he agreed to a £450 gig to film a Christmas concert at a private girls school.
Disgraced Peter Croasdale, 58, had been ordered to tell police of his address after he was released from prison after being jailed for four-and-a-half years in 2009 for sexually abusing a girl under 13.
But the former Radio 4 producer secretly moved 160-miles from the north of England to live under an alias in Wales. He started a new life under the name Peter Alan by winning over locals, joined a male voice choir and even moved in with a teacher.
But another sir at the Haberdashers' Monmouth School of Girls recognised him and police were called and discovered he was actually Croasdale.
Cardiff Crown Court heard it was fortunate he did not attend the concert and there were no child safeguarding concerns.
Prosecutor Claire Pickthall said: 'Croasdale had been negotiating a deal with the school by posing as a man called Peter Alan. 'They were hoodwinked by this man who is intelligent and deliberately hid his identity. 'But his deception was soon uncovered and police were called.'
Croasdale admitted fraud, possessing indecent images of children and possessing extreme pornography involving bestiality.
Cardiff Crown Court heard there were 15 category A indecent images of a child, which portray rape, 28 category B and 63 category C on his home computer. The offences were committed between January 16, 2016 and January 15, 2021.
Haberdashers' Monmouth School of Girls in south Wales, where he was supposed to film
Tom Roberts, defending, said there was a prospect Croasdale could be rehabilitated. But Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke told him: 'You simply don't want to face up to the risks you pose to children.'
She described him as a 'dangerous offender' and sentenced him to an extended sentence of four years.
The sex offender, from Bolton, will serve two years in jail and an extended licence period of two years following his release.
Croasdale worked for the BBC as an employee and as a freelance producer where he made programmes for Radio 4 including the Radio Science and File on Four shows.
He was put on the sex offences register for life when he was jailed at Leeds Crown Court in 2009.
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