Scandal Grows, 90 Schoolgirls Kidnapped, Men of God on Today's Global PnP List

Rotherham scandal grows as NCA IDs

1500 victims & 110 suspects

The number of victims of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham has grown to more than 1,500 victims and detectives have identified 110 'designated suspects' in the scandal.

An initial figure of 1,400 sparked a national outrage, but the National Crime Agency (NCA) has now said at least a hundred more underage victims have been added to their list.

The NCA is conducting a huge investigation in the South Yorkshire town following the revelations in the 2014 Jay Report that children were groomed and abused there.

Professor's Alexis Jay's report sparked national soul-searching when it revealed that the large scale exploitation undertaken by gangs of largely Pakistani-heritage men had been effectively ignored by police and other agencies for more than a decade.

Eighty percent of the suspects are said to be Pakistani

and 90 percent of the victims are white girls 

The number of victims of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham has grown to more than 1,500 victims and detectives have identified 110 'designated suspects' in the scandal

On Tuesday, NCA senior investigating for Operation Stovewood officer Paul Williamson said his team's analysis suggests there are 1,510 potential victims and survivors of CSE in the town between 1997 and 2013 - the same timescale as covered by the Jay Report. 

Of these, at least 1,300 are female, he said.

Mr Williamson said his team was now actively engaged with more than 260 victims, had identified 110 'designated suspects' and currently involves 144 officers working on 34 distinct investigations.

He said he is hoping to increase his team - which currently has a £6.9 million annual budget - to between 200 and 250 people.

'We will not falter in our commitment as an agency to this task,' Mr Wiliamson said. 'The identification and bringing to justice of offenders is what what we'll be judged on.'

Eighty percent of the suspects are said to be Pakistani and 90 percent of the victims are white girls.

This woman says she was raped by an Asian gang in an alley not far from where she is sat

He said: 'That momentum and pace will increase and that is commensurate with the resources that are put into the investigation. I now have 144 which enables me to do a lot more than what I could do when I first started as SIO in January 2016. Justice, we are now seeing, is being rendered. And I've got a very, very committed team which is pursuing a very, very, worthy mission.'

Mr Williamson described the mushrooming nature of his team's task, detailing how one women spoken to by his officers recently talked about more than 30 named suspects, 17 other potential victims and 27 potential crime scenes.

The NCA launched operation Stovewood after it was called in by South Yorkshire Police three years ago, and is now the biggest investigation in CSE in the UK. It is 85 percent funded by the Home Office and 15 percent by South Yorkshire Police, and has cost more than £10 million so far.

Asked 'why Rotherham', Mr Williamson agreed that there was combination in the town of a failure to listen to and believe victims, to safeguard them and to investigate their reports.

He said: 'Undoubtedly, a toxic mix has come together of a number of factors - those being the four primary ones we are finding in Rotherham. 'Undoubtedly, that has occurred and as that has resulted in the scale.'

Mr Williamson said four individuals had so far been convicted, 38 arrested and 18 charged.

More than 90 Nigerian schoolgirls feared missing after Boko Haram attack

Please God, not again!

Thomson Reuters 

The disappearance, if confirmed, would be one of the largest since Boko Haram abducted more than

270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

More than 90 Nigerian schoolgirls are feared missing after Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram attacked a village in the northeastern state of Yobe, two sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

Their disappearance, if confirmed, would be one of the largest since Boko Haram abducted more than 270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014. That case drew global attention to the nine-year insurgency, which has sparked what the United Nations has called one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

President Muhammadu Buhari dispatched his foreign and defence ministers on Wednesday to Yobe to investigate the situation, said Information Minister Lai Mohammed, who was also headed there. But he declined to confirm whether any of the students was missing.

A roll-call at the girls' school on Tuesday showed that 91 students were absent, said the two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

'They were crying for help'

"I saw girls crying and wailing in three Tata vehicles and they were crying for help," said a witness from the nearby village of Gumsa who was reportedly forced to show the insurgents the way out of the area and then released.

Reuters was unable to verify the witness's account. Nigerian police and the regional education ministry denied any abductions had taken place, but parents and other witnesses also told Reuters some girls were missing.

The two sources, several parents and other local witnesses who spoke to Reuters did so on condition of anonymity because they had been warned by Nigerian security and government officials not to disclose the disappearance.

Seven parents told Reuters their daughters were among the missing.

"I hope my daughter is not one of those abducted as we learned that over ninety of them were not seen after going through their register book," one parent said.

Militants went directly to school, witnesses say

The Boko Haram militants arrived in Dapchi on Monday evening in trucks, some mounted with heavy guns and painted in military camouflage, witnesses told Reuters.

They went directly to the school, shooting sporadically, sending students and teachers fleeing, the witnesses said, adding that some people had returned to Dapchi after spending the night hiding in the bush.

Members of the #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG) campaign demonstrate against the kidnapping

of Chibok school girls, during a sit-out in Abuja, Nigeria in 2016. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

  

Yobe state Police Commissioner Sumonu Abdulmaliki on Tuesday told reporters Boko Haram had not abducted any girls in Dapchi. "They fired shots and left the town toward Gaidam... in the night, where they abducted three people," he said.

The state ministry of education also said there had been no established case of abduction, but shut the Dapchi school for a week to allow students to be reunited with their families.

Conflicting accounts

Late on Wednesday, Nigerian media outlets gave conflicting accounts of how many girls were missing and how many, if any, had been found.

More than 20,000 people have been killed and two million forced to flee their homes in the northeast of Africa's most populous nation since Boko Haram began its insurgency in 2009.

Of around 270 girls originally abducted from their school in Chibok in April 2014, about 60 escaped soon afterwards and others have since been released after mediation. Around 100 are still believed to be in captivity.

Last month, the group released a video purporting to show some of the Chibok girls still in its custody, saying they do not wish to return home.

Aid groups say Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands more adults and children, many of whose cases are neglected.

Yobe State, Nigeria

'Upskirters' target girls as young as 10, police powerless

© Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy / Getty Images

Police data reveals perverts are snapping intimate photos of girls as young as 10 in an intrusive type of sexual assault dubbed ‘upskirting’. Campaigners are now calling on UK legislators to criminalize the offence.

According to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests made by the Press Association, police pursued 78 offences related to upskirting since 2015, but only 11 led to alleged offenders being charged. The reason:

There is no specific law in Britain that prohibits the practice.

Upskirting is already illegal in Scotland. The law was changed by the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 which introduced a voyeurism offence.

In many of the 78 cases in England there was insufficient evidence to proceed, including the alleged sexual offence against a 10-year-old girl in 2015, Avon and Somerset Police said.

Upskirting has taken place in a range of public spaces, including nightclubs, shops and restaurants, and are usually snapped with mobile phones. Last summer, one man thought it would be a good idea to upskirt a women named Gina Martin at the British Summer Time music festival in London's Hyde Park. He was wrong.

Martin caught him in the act, reported him to police, and has since been a vocal campaigner; calling to have Section 67 of the Sexual Offences Act amended to specify that upskirt photos constitute as a sexual offence. She started an online campaign last summer, which has now garnered more than 81,000 signatures in only six months.

Conservative MP Maria Miller chairs the Women and Equalities Select Committee. She said more must be done to stop the “horrific crime.”

“Attempting to take a photograph underneath a skirt is a gross violation of privacy and potentially an act of indecency,” Miller said, the BBC reported. She added that a stronger legal framework “can help” begin to address the issue.

Sarah Green of the End Violence Against Women coalition, called on the legislation to be looked at. She said the figures exposed in the FoI requests were “very concerning, even though only a minority of police forces were able to respond because the behavior is not classified as an offence.”

“The police responses show that the police are clearly struggling to recognize upskirting distinctly, even though the disclosures reveal that it is commonly connected to existing sexual offences including voyeurism and sexual assault,” she said, according to the BBC.

“It is notable that girls and young women are disproportionately targeted where that information has

been recorded. The law should be urgently examined in this area.”

B.C. piano teacher accused of sex assault
involving former students

LAURA BAZIUK 

A piano teacher in Coquitlam, British Columbia, who has been teaching in private homes for more than 20 years has been charged with sexual offences involving three former students.

Dmytro, or Dmitri, Kubyshkin, whose current company is called DM Piano School, faces three counts of sexual assault in relation to alleged incidents that occurred from 1998 to 2015.

In a news release on Tuesday, RCMP released a photo of Kubyshkin, saying they believe other victims could be out there.

The 67-year-old man is described as 5’10”, 160 lbs., with white/blond hair, blue eyes, a mustache and a medium build. He speaks with a Russian accent. He is not previously known to police.

“If you believe that you, or someone you know, has been a victim of a crime involving Kubyshkin, please call the Coquitlam RCMP,” the release said.

The detachment’s non-emergency number is 604-945-1550. Ask for the investigative support team, file #2018-1860.

Former Winnipeg rabbi charged with sex

crimes 'actively evading police'

By: Carol Sanders

Winnipeg police have issued an arrest warrant for a rabbi charged with sex crimes alleged to have occurred between 1993 and 1999.

Yacov Simmonds, 42, has been charged with three counts of sexual assault, three counts of sexual interference and two counts of invitation to sexual touching.

Sexual interference involves touching someone under the age of 16 for a sexual purpose and a conviction carries a minimum one-year prison sentence. Invitation to sexual touching also involves minors and a minimum one-year prison term.

One-year sentence minimum, how pathetic is that?

Winnipeg police said Tuesday that they issued a warrant for Simmonds' arrest in October. Investigators believe he fled to the United States. Simmonds "is aware of the warrant and is actively evading police," WPS said in a statement.

Canadian arrest warrants are enforceable only in Canada, police said. There may be extradition or reciprocity arrangements in place with the U.S. government or certain states, but police offered no details on any such agreements in Simmonds' case.

He worked as a fundraiser for the orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Learning Centre in Winnipeg from 2000 to 2016, after the alleged sex crimes occurred. Its board of directors issued a statement Tuesday saying it broke ties with Simmonds before he was charged by police.

"We have been advised that these charges relate to matters that allegedly occurred prior to Rabbi Simmonds’ engagement with the centre," the statement said.

Someone with knowledge of the circumstances said Simmonds was expected to return to Winnipeg to face the charges after the Jewish high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur last fall. That didn't happen and the arrest warrant was issued, said the source, who agreed to comment on condition of anonymity. They said the alleged victims are female.

While the community wasn't informed about the allegations against him, the closely connected network of those running the learning centres would be made aware of them, the source familiar with the situation said.

"There's no way he's going to be employed in another lubavitch," the source said.

The Hasidic organization Chabad-Lubavitch operates an extensive outreach effort to encourage unaffiliated Jews to return to traditional practices. Members of Chabad-Lubavitch are differentiated from other orthodox Jews by their devotion to a dynastic leader (referred to as a "Rebbe"), their wearing of distinctive clothing and a commitment to a Torah life, according to several websites.

Former Christian Brother jailed for first time

over 'heart-wrenching' abuse

By court reporter Emma Younger

A former Christian brother who sexually abused five boys in Ballarat in the 1970s has been jailed for the first time after pleading guilty to more charges.

Stephen Farrell, 66, was sentenced to 18 months jail, with 14 months suspended, for sexually abusing two students when he was a teacher at the notorious St Alipius Primary School.

He has never previously been jailed for his crimes, despite this current case bringing his confirmed number of victims to five.

In 1997 he was given a two-year suspended sentence after being convicted of nine counts of indecent assault and a three-month suspended sentence in 2013 for another count of indecent assault.

The sentence handed down in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court means he will now spend four months in prison.

The court previously heard Farrell had not reoffended in the 40 years since leaving the Christian brotherhood and was "completely rehabilitated".

Magistrate Belinda Wallington said that although it seemed Farrell had been able to put the offending behind him and have a "successful life", it had had a devastating and sustained impact on his victims.

She described their descriptions of the betrayal of their trust and its long-term effect as "heart-wrenching".

Magistrate Wallington said the maximum penalty at the time of Farrell's offending, which was five years jail for indecent assault, was relatively low.

"What we now know is the devastating impact of child sexual abuse," she said.

It is unclear if Farrell will appeal against the sentence.

'No specific concerns' before alleged rape of toddler in Tennant Creek, Territory Families says

ABC Alice Springs By Claire Campbell and staff

More than 20 notifications were made to child services about the Tennant Creek household where a two-year-old girl was allegedly raped, but Territory Families maintains there were "no specific concerns".

The toddler was allegedly raped in the outback town, about 500 kilometres north of Alice Springs, last week.

Territory Families has confirmed the department received 21 notifications about the household dating back to August 2015, but only six had been substantiated.

The child's uncle, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said eight notifications had been made to child services in the two months leading up to the incident. Territory Families Chief Executive Ken Davies said reports made about the household related to domestic violence and alcohol.

"In terms of the notifications we received, there were no specific concerns that came to Territory Families about particular harm to this child of a sexual nature," he said. "They were not substantial enough to take the child out of this household and away from the mother."

"What we did was where these issues were substantiated, we responded and we put in family support services to support the family and the mother in that household."

Territory Families 'disconnected' from Aboriginal community

The NT Government has since ordered an immediate investigation into its handling of the case and a review of all cases where children had been subject to multiple notifications.

The Acting Chief Minister Nicole Manison conceded the government had "failed" the child.

Dozens of letters have been sent to government ministers in recent months outlining concerns for safety, but locals say they went unanswered until reports of the alleged rape surfaced on Tuesday.

The girl's uncle said his family was distressed by what had happened and called for less Top End-based decision-making on local issues. "There were concerns about this little girl and nothing really happened," he said.

"Eight notifications in the last two months and they haven't sent one to this office here because they assessed it as not high risk. How do they know? They don't live here. Failure after failure after failure, how much longer can we put up with this?"

Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation chair Ross Jakamarra Williams, who is also a traditional owner of Tennant Creek, said local police and government agencies had failed the community for years.

"The Department (of Territory Families) employees do not work in the interest of this community because they themselves are totally disconnected from Aboriginal families and the real issues they face," he said.

"What I have lived and witnesses in the past two weeks is intolerant and unacceptable for any community in this country."

'For God's sake, think of the children'

Federal Minister for Indigenous Health Ken Wyatt said the incident was unacceptable, but warned against finger-pointing. "It's easy to say an agency hasn't responded, or a government hasn't responded," he told ABC Radio Darwin. "But on a broader front, as Indigenous Australians, we've been asking for a reduction in the number of aboriginal children in out-of-home care."

Mr Wyatt said he would rather see wrap-around services for families "having challenges", but conceded there should have been discussions with extended family to take the child "out of harms way".

Former chairman of the Federal Government's Indigenous Advisory Council Warren Mundine said action should have been taken once the notifications to child services were received.

"Next time an Aboriginal leader stands up worried about the child, worried about a stolen generation, for God's sake, think about the child," he said. "We are condemning children in these communities to a life of misery."

The attack is alleged to have happened in the same week a man died after a fatal assault.

Last Thursday night, the evening of the assault, Tennant Creek police received almost twice as many callouts as usual during a 12-hour period overnight and believe alcohol was a major factor behind the spike.

NT Police have responded to the spike in crime by bolstering resources in the town and ramping up operation of Strikeforce Haven.

Tennant Creek, AU

Former Devon school groundsman jailed for sexual abuse

A former public school groundsman has been jailed for 17 years for abusing two boys more than 20 years ago.

Peter Weyman worked as a handyman at Chelfham Mill School in Devon, where he preyed on a 12-year-old pupil. Weyman groomed him with cigarettes, alcohol and gifts, Exeter Crown Court heard.

The 67-year-old, of Cleveland Close in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, admitted seven offences of indecency against one victim and four against the other.

He moved to Devon from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, where he had also abused a child over more than two years.

The abuse of the first child took place in the 1980s and of the second child in the 1990s.

Sentencing, Judge Geoffrey Mercer said the sentence reflected the fact that one of the assaults would now be classified as rape.

He told Weyman: "You knew both boys to be vulnerable and in need of care and support and you sexually abused both of them."

Det Con Richard Howe, from South Yorkshire Police said: "Weyman used bribes to overpower the victim [in Rotherham], telling him he would buy him toys and things he wanted, abusing the trust he had gained from the victim for his own evil purposes.

"The abuse Weyman subjected him to was absolutely horrific, so horrific in fact that the victim was nearly physically sick when recalling what had happened."

"I'd like to praise him for the courage he has shown throughout this entire process and I'm pleased that Weyman pleaded guilty, meaning the victim was spared the ordeal of a trial."

He was put on the sex offenders' register for life and made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order, which restricts any future contact with children.

Child abusers could be chemically castrated in Turkey

BY DAMIEN SHARKOV

Turkey’s government is looking to strengthen penalties heavily for child abusers, perhaps even reintroducing so-called chemical castration “to reduce or eliminate” the sex drives of offenders, a top minister has said.

Speaking at a press event in the Turkish capital of Ankara, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül said this week the government will oversee the drafting of a new set of proposed laws geared at increasing the administrative measures against child abusers.

“A commission supervised by a deputy prime minister will start working as of tomorrow,” Gül told reporters Wednesday, state news agency Anadolu reported. Once drafted, the bill would need parliament’s approval to become law. However, the last time the government tried to reintroduce the measure, in 2016, Turkey’s highest administrative court intervened to block the bill, stating that its definition and limit were “vague.”

Gül said Turkey was looking to crack down on child sex offenders after seeing a rise in court rulings on child sexual abuse, with 21,189 cases in 2016—a fourfold increase from 2006. Over 60 percent of the 2016 cases ended in convictions.

Abdulhamit Gül (right), Turkey’s minister of justice and the general secretary of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), and Mehmet Parsak, of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), address a press conference at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), in Ankara, on December 10, 2016. Gül said the government wants to introduce penalties after registering a spike in child sexual abuse cases.

ADEM ALTAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Gül spoke after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the issue of child abuse at a meeting with his ministers, describing the crime as “dynamite that will take our society to collapse,” German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported. Erdogan also promised the “severest punishment” for acts of child abuse, though he did not give specific examples. Turkey does not currently have the death penalty, as capital punishment is inconsistent with the country’s faltering bid to join the European Union. Chemical castration for child abusers has been used by several current EU members, but in most cases the offender chooses the measure in exchange for a lighter sentence. Since 2010, courts in Poland have had the power to sentence sex offenders to mandatory chemical castration.

Gül’s statement has sparked an outcry from rights groups. The Women’s Assemblies Organization, a Turkish activism group, decried it as flying in the face of human rights and “a punishment that was distant from modern law.”

The term chemical castration refers to the use of anaphrodisiac drugs pills or injections to periodically reduce sexual urges and sexual performance. Its effects are not permanent, and the drug needs to be administered over time to continue working.

New Zealand PM urged to expand royal commission over St John of God child-sex abuse

Joanne McCarthy

Australian victims of notorious St John of God Brother Bernard McGrath have urged New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to include churches in a child abuse royal commission after McGrath's fight against extradition from New Zealand stopped the Australian royal commission from a public inquiry into the Catholic order.

Victims, their families and advocates in Australia and New Zealand are mobilising after the New Zealand government established the child abuse royal commission on February 1, but controversially failed to include sport- and faith-based institutions, and restricted investigations to sexual and physical abuse allegations between 1950 and 1999 where the state was involved.

Ms Ardern and Children's Minister Tracey Martin said the royal commission could investigate abuse cases involving children under state care in church facilities but the inquiry was "about the people, not the institutions". The restriction could rule out up to 50 per cent of complainants, critics say.

Ms Martin confirmed the commission would investigate complaints about abuse in church facilities such as Marylands only if children were under state care, but would not investigate cases in which children were sent by their parents.

She said the royal commission was established to look at failings in state care where the government had a responsibility to keep children from harm. "A key difference between the New Zealand and Australian royal commissions is that it is about the government's role, and the definition of harm is much wider," Ms Martin said.

New Zealand victims' advocate Murray Heasley said the royal commission ran the risk of being "a Clayton's royal commission, the one where you are not really having a royal commission but want to show you ticked the box".

St John of God - Paedophile ring

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found 40 per cent of St John of God Brothers were alleged child sex offenders, the highest percentage of alleged offenders in any institution investigated by the commission.

However, it advised McGrath victims it could not hold a public hearing into the order because of the risk of prejudicing his trial and that of a second St John of God offender, Brother John Clegg. Clegg was found guilty in 2015 of multiple offences, including sexual intercourse against boys at a St John of God school.

New Zealand-born McGrath, 70, was charged by Lake Macquarie detectives in 2012 with more than 250 offences at Kendall Grange. He unsuccessfully fought extradition from New Zealand only weeks after the Australian royal commission was established in November 2012.

A jury last November found him guilty of multiple serious child sex offences against multiple victims in the Hunter, including at the notorious St John of God Kendall Grange school for troubled boys at Morisset between 1978 and 1986.

He was jailed for 33 years by the Sydney District Court on Friday.

Judge Sarah Huggett said she had "no doubt at all that systemic abuse of children at Kendall Grange was taking place" during the period of McGrath's offending.

She said that, "appallingly", McGrath was transferred from St John of God's Marylands school near Christchurch to Kendall Grange in late 1977 "when allegations were made about his conduct at Marylands School". He served three previous jail sentences in Australia and New Zealand for crimes against children in St John of God facilities.

The sister and mother of a McGrath victim wept in court on Friday as the details of McGrath's crimes against 12 boys at Kendall Grange were outlined. "If they don't expand the terms of reference it will be like St John of God has hidden behind a paedophile, and the New Zealand government is letting them get away with it," they said.

St John of God whistleblower Michelle Mulvihill said the terms of reference had to be broadened because the order had been "able to slip under the radar over and over again without public scrutiny or questioning about how they responded to victims" and "still blames the media for all its woes".

Dr Mulvihill said evidence at trials involving Australian and New Zealand St John of God facilities showed the need for the New Zealand royal commission to investigate the order. "Surely it is time the New Zealand government stood up to this order and demanded answers," Dr Mulvihill said.

Long-term Catholic Church whistleblower priest Tom Doyle, who is advising and supporting child abuse victims in New Zealand and Australia, said a royal commission that "bypassed the religious entities is a joke and a waste because they are the worst offenders".

Hunter man John, a victim of McGrath who suffered severe, painful and humiliating sexual, physical and emotional abuse at Kendall Grange from the age of nine, said churches would be "getting away with it" if the terms of reference weren't expanded. "If they don't include churches then they're leaving half of it out. It would be virtually like covering up their crimes," John said.

Last week, Philippines ambassador to New Zealand, Jesus Domingo, wrote to Ms Ardern calling for an expanded royal commission, in part because of the child sex crimes of notorious Hunter paedophile priest Denis McAlinden.

The priest sexually abused at least one girl in New Zealand after Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Leo Clarke sent him there in the 1980s following decades of sexually abusing Australian children, and allowed him to retire to the Philippines in the 1990s where he lived near a school.

In a New Zealand radio interview Mr Domingo said the "first level of concern" for the Philippines government was "Australian and New Zealand priests going to the Philippines and the abuse they may have committed".

Newcastle Herald