UK figures show shocking statistics on child sex abuse
Child sexual abuse virtually doubling in many areas
Germany: Teen acquitted of child sex abuse at campsite
Child sexual abuse virtually doubling in many areas
ROSEANNE EDWARDS
Banbury Guardian
NSPCC press officer Gareth Hill said information for the UK in the last year, obtained through freedom of information legislation, shows 76,204 offences were recorded including rape, grooming and sexual assault against children – an average of one every seven minutes.
The NSPCC’s latest reports show that recorded sexual offences against children in Warwickshire have risen by 92 per cent in the last four years.
In Northamptonshire the rise has been 87 per cent and the statistics for the Thames Valley police area are 48 per cent higher.
The figures have been released by the NSPCC. They show:
• In Warks, 698 sexual offences against children were recorded in 2018/19 compared to 363 in 2014/15
• In Northants there were 1,246 offences recorded by Northamptonshire Police in 2018/19 – up from 668 in 2014/15. Of these, 326 were against children aged ten and under with 11 of the offences against babies under the age of one year
• There were 2,690 offences recorded by Thames Valley Police in 2018/19 – up from 1,815 in 2014/15. Of these, 778 offences were against children aged ten and under.
All sexually abused children need psychological help, and lots of it. But most are not getting the help they need. This will result in hundreds of thousands of adults with very significant mental health problems.
Children who suffered sexual abuse will need extensive support but overstretched services can’t keep pace with demand and the NSPCC is calling for a radical reshaping of how this support is delivered across the country.
Peter Wanless, NSPCC CEO, said: “Record numbers of child sexual offences means we are facing a nationwide crisis in the help available for tens of thousands of children.
“These children are bravely disclosing what happened to them but in too many cases there is not enough timely, joined up and child-friendly support. Instead they are shunted from overstretched service to service. We need a radical rethink in the way we help these young people, otherwise they could struggle for the rest of their lives with long term, deep seated trauma.”
The charity is calling for the provision of specialised services around the country, with an emphasis on early joined-up support from police, NHS services, children’s services and advocacy for children who have experienced sexual abuse, offered in child-friendly spaces.
Such a partnership service is delivered in The Lighthouse in Camden, where medical, advocacy, social care, police and therapeutic services are available to children and their families. This ‘one stop shop’ model connects up timely therapy with the needs of each child, with local NHS services from University College London Hospital and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trusts delivering in partnership with the NSPCC’s Letting the Future In (LTFI) service.
LTFI provides therapeutic support for children who have been sexually abused. Young people who use the service showed a significant reduction in psychological and behavioural problems.
Higher recorded sex offences do not necessarily reflect high prevalence of sex offence crimes, and could be explained by better recording, greater awareness of what abuse is and survivors feeling more confident in coming forward, says the NSPCC.
There were 8,575 offences committed against 14-year-olds, making it the most common age group to report offences.
The NSPCC’s Letting the Future In (LTFI) is a therapeutic service that helps children who have been sexually abused. Almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of children aged eight and over who completed six months of the LFTI service had severe emotional difficulties at the start. After six months, this dropped to 46 per cent.
That's great, but the 46% that continued to have severe emotional difficulties are an indication of just how devastating child sexual abuse is, and the need for therapeutic care well beyond 6 months for many survivors.
For children who received support from this service, there was a significant reduction in the number of eight to 17-year-olds with high levels of psychological and behavioural problems.
Data provided to the NSPCC via freedom of information requests in 2017 revealed the average waiting time for children to access the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service varied from two days in some areas to more than five-and-a-half months in others.
The Lighthouse is the first multi-agency service for children and young people who have experienced any form of sexual abuse, including exploitation. It offers a child-centred approach, providing guidance and support to help children and young people recover.
Cyber related crimes are also on the rise.
The NSPCC sent the 43 police forces across England and Wales a freedom of information request asking them for the number of recorded sexual offences against children under 18s, an age breakdown, and whether they had a ‘cyberflag’ between April 1, 2017 and March 31, 2019.
The NSPCC formally requested the same information from police forces in Northern Ireland and Scotland. All forces provided data except for Cheshire.
Some of these figures may include non-recent child sex offences.
In 2018/19, there were 76,204 cases reported across the UK (65,172 in England; 3,671 in Wales; 5,325 in Scotland; and 2,036 in Northern Ireland).
In 2018/19, there were 8,656 recorded child sexual offences flagged as involving an online element – an increase of 18 per cent from the previous year (7,362).
In 2014/15 there were 46,738 recorded child sexual offences, a 63 per cent increase in the past four years from 2018/19. There were, on average, 22 cyber-related (online) sex crimes against children every day.
The NSPCC is calling on the next prime minister to prioritise online safety and bring in laws that deliver a change in protection against abuse.
Offences with an online element numbered 8,224 as logged by police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
For more information visit www.nspcc.org.uk.
The boy was sexually abused by adult perpetrators
but was alleged to have later turned on other children.
He was one of more than 30 children between the ages of
three and 13 to have been abused at the German campsite.
Police tape cordons off campsite where sexual abuse occurred
A 16-year-old alleged victim-turned-perpetrator was acquitted Thursday of sexually abusing three children at a campsite in the German town of Lügde.
Judges had supported an expert's finding that argued the boy should not be held criminally liable for his actions. They, however, ruled that he would continue to attend psychological therapy.
German law limits the circumstances under which a juvenile can be convicted of a crime. The verdict is part of a second court case stemming from the child abuse scandal.
Earlier this month, two men were found guilty of systematic sexual abuse of children at the campsite. They were handed prison sentences of up to 13 years after confessing to the crimes.
'Degraded' dozens of children
Dozens of children between the ages of three and 14 were sexually abused at the campsite, where the main perpetrator lived.
The presiding judge in the earlier trial said the perpetrators "degraded 32 youths and children to objects of sexual desire, and in doing so, destroyed 32 childhoods."
And, quite probably, 32 adulthoods, as many CSA survivors never fully recover.
Negligent authorities
The case drew outrage in Germany not solely because of the scope of the sexual abuse, but also due to inaction on behalf of authorities, including police and child welfare services.
In one instance, a suitcase with 155 CDs and DVDs of evidence of disappeared from a police station. The loss was only realized weeks after it had occurred.
The abuse took place for a decade between 2008 and 2018. Authorities are still evaluating some 14 terabytes of pornographic material. Prosecutors believe there may have been more victims.
Leaked UN report shows failed investigation
on sexual abuse
on sexual abuse
In this Thursday, Dec. 17, 2015 file photo, Judge Marie Deschamps, left, of Canada, chair of the Independent Review Panel on U.N. Response to Allegations of Sexual Abuse by Foreign Military Forces in the Central African Republic, is joined by panel member Hassan Jallow at a news conference at the United Nations. On Wednesday, March 30, 2016, a U.S.-based advocacy group says 98 girls in Central African Republic have reported that they were sexually abused by international peacekeepers and that three girls told U.N. staff they were tied up, undressed and forced to have sex with a dog by a French military commander in 2014. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The Associated Press, Staff
DAKAR, Senegal -- The United Nations botched its investigation into accusations of sexual abuse in Central African Republic, letting down victims, according to a draft report.
The report, written in 2017 but not yet made public, was leaked to The New Humanitarian and seen by The Associated Press.
An AP investigative series in 2017 uncovered roughly 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers around the world over a 12-year period.
The roughly 11,000 peacekeepers in Central African Republic had the most sexual misconduct allegations -- 52-- of any U.N. peacekeeping mission in 2016.
The failed investigation into the allegations in the Central African Republic cost the U.N. more than $480,000.
Inadequate storage ruined DNA samples that had been collected to connect victims to their alleged perpetrators, according to the report.
And this is the organization that wants to run the world!!??
Pimps spared prison, judge strikes down mandatory minimum sentence for trafficking minors
GARY DIMMOCK Ottawa Citizen
In a rare ruling, an Ottawa judge has spared two pimps the mandatory minimum prison term for human trafficking involving minors, calling it cruel and unusual punishment as the pimps only groomed their teenage victims for the sex trade, and had not yet fully exploited them.
The Ottawa pimps, Amina Ahmed, 33, and Nadia Ngoto, 36, met their last human trafficking victims early on the morning of July 21, 2016.
They invited the two vulnerable runaway girls, aged 14 and 15, into their car only to bring them to a hotel room and ply them with booze and drugs. They were then brought to an Ottawa apartment, where they were dressed up and told how to pose for photographs that would quickly be posted to a money-for-sex website.
The young girls then found themselves in a room full of strange, older Ottawa men who started touching them in a sexual manner. The girls were told they weren’t friendly enough, and the men became frustrated. In turn, an element of fear was introduced when the girls were told not to “piss us off” and that they needed to “behave.”
They were told to get ready to go to “work” at the casino, but before they were subjected to sex acts with adult men, one of the runaways texted an Ottawa police officer with the missing persons unit and the girls were rescued.
The pimps were both found guilty at trial earlier this year and in a recent sentencing decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Marc Labrosse struck down the mandatory minimum of five years in prison for human trafficking involving minors, saying it was cruel and unusual punishment in this case. The judge ruled it would be a grossly disproportionate sentence.
Labrosse instead gave Ahmed time-served after spending 18 months in jail awaiting trial. She walked as a free woman the next day, and her accomplice got a suspended sentence after spending 175 days in pre-sentence custody.
The judge ruled that the pimps were preparing the teen girls for the sex trade, but that’s where it ended, and as such, Labrosse said the human trafficking crimes were at the low end of the scale.
* Human trafficking crimes were at the low end of the scale *
Ontario Superior Court Justice Marc Labrosse
“The offences are really limited to preparatory conduct,” Labrosse wrote in his decision.
The judge noted that Ngoto was herself a victim in the sex trade, and court heard evidence that she worked as an escort in a scheme that had Ahmed, her co-accused, collect half the profits. The judge noted that evidence as a mitigating factor at sentencing.
In his decision, the judge said in light of their limited role, the convicted human traffickers of minors didn’t deserve the mandatory sentence.
In fact, the judge went one step further and said the public would be shocked and outraged if he sentenced the pimps to prison.
“The factual matrix surrounding these offences and the preparatory conduct attributed to the offenders would not be viewed by the general public as warranting a five-year sentence in a penitentiary,” the judge said.
In light of the fact that the offenders who preyed on teens were themselves victims in the sex trade, the judge said the public would be outraged if he sent them to prison for five years.
I'm outraged that you didn't send them to jail. What kind of message does this send to child sex traffickers? How can you call child sex trafficking - the low end of the scale? I don't think you are fit to be a judge, let alone a Superior Court judge.
“Such a sentence would outrage the standards of decency,” said Labrosse when he sided with the Charter applications successfully argued by defence lawyers Tobias Okada-Phillips and Cedric Nahum.
Asked for comment on the decision that balked the federally-legislated mandatory minimum of five years, Okada-Phillips said: “The decision is great. It adds to the steady flow of cases striking down mandatory minimums. Sentencing should be left to judges. The judge who hears the case is best positioned to impose a fair sentence.”
I think this case proves that that is just not the case!
The convicted pimps are now trying to turn their lives around, court heard.
Yes, and you can take that to the bank, and watch it bounce right out the door! Good grief!
Outrage in Spain after court rules attack on teen was sex abuse, not rape, because she was unconscious
The Associated Press
Spaniards are voicing outrage after five men charged with rape counts were found guilty of lesser charges on the grounds that the 14-year-old victim had been unconscious at the time.
The Barcelona-based court on Thursday found the men guilty of sexual abuse. They were sentenced to between 10 and 12 years in prison.
It ruled their acts could not be considered sexual assault since the girl was unconscious after consuming alcohol and drugs, so they did not need to use violence or intimidation, a requirement for a rape conviction in Spain.
So, let me get this straight; if you give a girl alcohol, drugs, even date-rape drugs, she's free game for however many perverts want to have at her!!! Is that how it works in Spain?
Spain's deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo, said while her government does not comment on court decisions, it has set as a priority a modification in the law to make clear consent necessary for sexual relations to occur legally.
The attack occurred in the town of Manresa, near Barcelona, in 2016 when the girl and the men went into an abandoned factory to drink.
The court said that since the girl was unconscious during the attack, she "could not accept or reject the sexual relations" and the men "could carry out those sexual relations without the use of violence or intimidation."
Mayor condemns ruling
Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau and other left-wing politicians and feminist groups have condemned the ruling, urging the law to be strengthened in the victim's favour.
"Another senseless verdict by the patriarchal Justice that doesn't want to understand that only a Yes means Yes," Colau wrote on Twitter. "An unconscious 14-year-old girl was gang raped. I am not a judge and I don't know how many years of prison they deserve, (but) what I do know is that this is not abuse, it is rape!"
Marisa Soleto, of the feminist group Fundacion Mujeres, said "this is just one more piece of proof for the necessity to change the penal code."
A similar 2017 ruling sparked widespread protests when five men were found guilty of sexually abusing a woman, but acquitted of rape for an attack in Pamplona. Spain's Supreme Court later overruled the lower court and convicted them of rape.
Good. So we can expect the prosecutors to appeal this sentence???
East Sussex, UK ballet and dance teacher
jailed for child sex offences
STEPHEN WYNN-DAVIESBexhill Observer
An internationally-recognised dance and ballet teacher has been jailed for sexually abusing three girls under the age of 16.
Stephen Beagley, 62, formerly of Wadhurst, had been due to face trial at Lewes Crown Court, but at a hearing on October 21 he admitted five counts of sexual assault, two charges of indecent assault and one of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
Police said he also pleaded not guilty to another four charges of sexual assault against the first girl and these were ordered by the trial judge to lay on the court file.
At Lewes Crown Court, he was given a ten-year prison sentence, police confirmed.
He had recently been living in Gravesend but was living in Wadhurst, East Sussex, at the times of the offences. He will also be a registered sex offender for life and was given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO), severely restricting his access to anyone under-18 until further court notice.
Judge Christine Laing heard that Beagley’s offending spanned more than a decade.
Detective Sergeant John Steven of the East Sussex Safeguarding Investigations Unit said: “This was a complex investigation of historic allegations carried out with the support of the victims and alongside partner agencies. Beagley was a trusted and well known man in his local community in East Sussex, and around the world in performing and teaching ballet.
“The offences began to come to light for the first time just over two years ago when one of the victims, by then an adult and who had lived with her distressing experiences for many years, finally gained courage and spoke to the police. She described how Beagley had sexually abused her for five years.”
Police said Beagley has not been found guilty of any offences taking place during ballet or dance lessons in relation to this victim.
John Steven added: “The second victim came forward soon after the first, describing similar periods of abuse...and the third victim described being assaulted by Beagley while visiting his then address.
“Beagley targeted the young girls he came into contact with, and abused them while they were at their most vulnerable, over many years. I am glad that the victims had the courage, strength and commitment to come forward and remain resilient through this investigation, ensuring the justice achieved today.
“Sussex Police take all allegations of sexual abuse seriously and this case is further evidence that, even when allegations are historic, or when people may think it is too late, justice can still be done.”
After the sentencing, an NSPCC spokesperson said: “Beagley is a vile predator who hid his sickening crimes behind the façade of a successful dance career for decades.
“Thanks to the bravery of his victims in coming forward, he has now been brought to justice and it is vital they get the necessary support to come to terms with what happened.
“It is never too late to speak out about child sexual abuse. Adults can speak in confidence to trained counsellors on the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000.”
Five men jailed for sexually exploiting
young girls in West Yorkshire
Let me guess - young, white, British girls, and Pakistani, Muslim men
Five men who sexually exploited young girls in West Yorkshire have been given jail sentences of up to 14 years by a judge who said their abuse was "vile and wicked" and "defies understanding".
Read the Quran, judge, it's pretty simple. If she's in your right hand (ie under your power, like in your car or apartment) you can do with her as you wish, as long as she is not Muslim, according to Mohammed!
A total of 27 men have now been convicted following West Yorkshire Police's Operation Tendersea investigation into child sexual exploitation in Kirklees, with prison sentences totalling more than 300 years.
Today, Judge Geoffrey Marson QC told the five men convicted last week: "The way these girls were treated defies understanding. This abuse was vile and wicked. None of you has expressed any remorse for what you did."
Of course not. They were obeying Mohammed. Islamic Law is above British Law in devout Muslims.
Maybe you should look at the victims of Muslim grooming gangs and see how many are young, white, British girls, and how many are Muslim girls. That should explain a lot, even to those who suffer from #PCMadness.
Jailing one 32-year-old defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, for 14 years, Judge Marson said: "You took the virginity of a particularly vulnerable 12-year-old and left her bleeding on the floor in the park."
He said this defendant also subjected another teenage girl to a "campaign of rape", abusing her on a regular basis in a Huddersfield park, using sleeping pills to subdue her.
After taking sleeping pills, she's under his power!
The five men were convicted after the end of the fifth trial relating to Operation Tendersea. They were jailed for a total of 45 years, bringing the combined jail sentences after the five trials to 312 years.
Judge Marson told Leeds Crown Court that Operation Tendersea involved "a large number of men, principally Asian men (2nd story on link)", who have been charged in relation to "the grooming and sexual abuse of a large number of children".
Principally, Pakistani Muslims and principally, if not entirely, young, white, and British girls. Why didn't he complete the sentence?
These are the 18 people who appeared in court today over Huddersfield, UK child sex abuse charges (2nd story on link, photos available).
The judge described how vulnerable girls were plied with drugs and alcohol and passed between men in Huddersfield. He said they thought they were being shown genuine affection but this was an illusion "deliberately created to enable predatory men to perpetrate gross sexual abuse for their own perverted gratification".
Judge Marson described how one terrified 12-year-old was targeted by the men who used her phone to locate her despite attempts to move her.
He said: "One night the house phone rang and a man asked for the girl and said 'tell her I want to f*** her'.
"After three days the girl was moved to another foster carer in another city and again she was quickly located.
"There were repeated calls from Asian men saying 'can you tell her we want to f*** her'.
"The girl was absolutely terrified and said that if the carer gave the sim card to the police 'they will find me and kill me'."
Umar Zaman, 31, and Samuel Fikru, 32, of William Street, Huddersfield, were each jailed for eight years on Friday after they were convicted of two counts of rape.
The court heard that Zaman has absconded and is believed to be in Pakistan.
That's almost as good as being in jail.
A 32-year-old man convicted of five counts of rape was jailed for 14 years. Another 32-year-old found guilty of a single count of rape was jailed for eight years, and a 38-year-old man found guilty of attempted rape was jailed for seven years. Their names cannot be reported for legal reasons.
A sixth defendant, Banaris Hussain, 36, also of William Street, was convicted of one count of rape, and will be sentenced on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment