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Former peer Nazir Ahmed denies child sex abuse charges
A former Labour peer repeatedly sexually abused two younger children
when he was a teenager, a court heard.
By Court Reporter
Thursday, 18th February 2021, 11:13 am
There were claims Nazir Ahmed, formerly known as Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, was carrying out serious sex acts on others even before he was 14, jurors were told.
The 63-year-old is on trial at Sheffield Crown Court where he denies two counts of attempting to rape a girl under 16, indecent assault of a boy under 14 and raping a boy under 16, all said to have occurred in the early 1970s.
His brothers Mohammed Farouq, 70 and Mohammed Tariq, 65, also from Rotherham, are accused of indecent assault of a boy under 14, but are not fit to plead and face a trial of the facts.
Tom Little QC, prosecuting, said: “Those who were abused were too young to stop it and too young to do anything about it.
“Those that it happened to kept it buried away for many years – as is so often the case. They did not complain at the time – as is also so often the case.
“However, it is now no longer buried away. They have now complained – not just to those that they know or love but more recently to the police.”
Jurors were played a recording of a tearful phone call between the two complainants in 2016, after the male used the internet to track down the female, who had already contacted the police with her allegations.
The male complainant told the woman: “He did the same thing I suspected to you, the bastard. And it were all three of them.”
Later in the call, she said: “I seek justice for what happened to me and now I know what they did to you. I’m just so very, very sorry.”
She urged him to contact the police with his allegations, which he went on to do, the court heard.
She told him: “You protect yourself, you think – what they did to you is utterly wrong and it is time now to seek justice for that little boy who couldn’t protect himself.”
When Ahmed was arrested and first questioned about the woman’s allegations he “said absolutely nothing”, the court heard.
In a second police interview, Ahmed did answer detectives’ questions, the jury was told.
In a third, he declined to answer but provided a statement which said he categorically denied the offences, claiming there was an “agenda” behind the complaints.
He stated: “Any account provided that I have committed any such act is not truthful.”
Mr Little explained that the law at the time presumed children under 14 were incapable of sexual intercourse, so Ahmed is not charged with any offences before that birthday.
Mr Little said there was evidence of allegations of acts Ahmed committed before he turned 14, and although they were not reflected in the charges, “we say it did happen”.
Mr Little said Ahmed’s case was that the allegations were a “malicious fiction”.
On Tuesday evening, before the jury was sworn in, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC urged panel members not to research the case on the internet when they went home, telling them: “One of the defendants in this case is a public figure. He was a member of the House of Lords and there is quite a lot on the internet as you might imagine about the public figure.”
Prefacing those remarks, he said while much of the information on the internet was useful “there’s an awful lot of nonsense on there as well”.
The trial continues on Thursday.
Deondra Brown (The 5 Browns) reveals rape as she lobbies for teaching consent in school sex-ed courses
Bill advances in Utah House committee on 6-5 vote
By Marjorie Cortez
Updated Feb 17, 2021, 8:50pm MST
Deseret News
Child abuse survivor Deondra Brown helps launch a campaign dedicated to empowering and helping child abuse survivors during a press conference at the Children’s Justice Center in West Jordan on Wednesday, May 27, 2020. On Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, Brown urged Utah lawmakers to support HB177, which would to add the teaching of consent to Utah’s sex education standards. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY — Child sex abuse survivor Deondra Brown, testifying to a legislative committee Wednesday urging their support of HB177, which would add the teaching of consent to Utah’s sex education standards, revealed she is also a rape survivor.
“I am also a rape survivor from my years at the Juilliard School in New York City. I’ve never spoken about it publicly and I almost never even talk about it privately,” Brown told the House Education Committee.
“I don’t share this simply today for the shock factor or for your sympathy. Although I must say over the years, your sympathy has proven quite moving and I share this with you today because I believe the issues we are discussing would have impacted my experiences as both a child abuse survivor and as an adult sexual assault survivor,” said Brown, part of The 5 Browns, a classical piano ensemble comprised of her, her two brothers and two sisters.
The Brown sisters were molested by their father as children. In 2010, the siblings sought criminal charges against their father, who had also been their professional manager.
In March 2011, Keith Brown was sentenced to 10 years to life for sodomy on a child and one to 15 years each of two counts of sex abuse of a child. The sodomy and abuse incidents occurred when each of the girls was 13 or younger.
Brown spoke in support of the latest version of HB177, sponsored by Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay.
The third substitute of the bill would require consent to be part of the state’s sex education instruction and that students would be taught about consent in the seventh grade and again in the 11th grade. Under Utah law, parents must opt in for their children to participate in sex education instruction offered in public schools.
According to the bill, “consent means agreement to take an action or for an action to occur that is freely-given; informed; knowledgeable; and given by a person who is not legally prevented from consenting because of the person’s age or lack of capacity.”
The bill also calls for instruction in sexual violence behavior prevention and sexual assault resource strategies.
Prior to the committee vote after 90 minutes of emotional debate and testimony, Moss told committee members, “I want to make it very clear that I have no other motives in this bill other than to protect children. No other motives, no organizations that have guided me. This has purely been from a personal standpoint and my understanding of teens and what I think they need to better protect themselves.”
The bill was narrowly supported by the committee on a vote of 6-5, sending it to the House for further consideration.
HB177 will enable well-trained, skilled and caring teachers to open the door for conversations with parents to share their values, said Moss, who has adult children and is a retired schoolteacher.
“If they don’t want them to have that information, you’ve heard over and over again, they do not have to do that. I want one thing only from this bill and that’s for young people to have the communication skills to say yes and no,” she said.
Brown said learning about consent would have been “an important life lesson that would have served me well and saved me much pain later. Even though I’m a grown, successful woman, the guilt and the shame still occasionally find their way back into my mind. As with the child abuse I suffered as a child, the sexual assault scars are also very real and are now a part of me, too.”
But others urged the committee not to support bill. Jennie Earl, who is member of the Utah State Board of Education but said she was not speaking on behalf of the board because it has not yet taken a position on the bill, spoke in opposition to the bill noting the school board had adopted new health standards in 2019.
“I would encourage you not to make these changes at this time. Most districts are now just implementing the standards that we put in place, and we still don’t have time to know the outcome of those,” she said.
But BYU student Jenna Lawlor urged the committee to support HB177.
“I am a survivor of sexual assault. I am a survivor of child sexual abuse and I was groomed, and the language of grooming is important for children to understand. If I had known that language, it would have helped me. If I would have known consent language, it would have helped me,” Lawlor said.
Merrilee Boyack, president of the group Empowered Families Coalition, said she was grateful for improvements to the bill but she could still not support it. The committee heard an earlier version of the bill last week but voted to hold it in committee to allow Moss to do more work on the legislation.
Boyack questioned the origin of some of the bill’s language.
“The language used in sub three (the third substitute of the bill) mirrors the language, promoted by Planned Parenthood, and comprehensive sexuality education,” she said.
Jill Thackeray, a high school teacher and Moss’ daughter, said she believes she would not have experienced sexual abuse and rape “if I had known what consent was.”
Moss said Thackeray had confided to her that she had been sexually abused and assaulted but she was unaware her daughter would share those experiences with the committee.
Rep. Steve Waldrip, R-Eden, said he was moved by the survivors’ testimony and urged the committee’s support of the bill.
“This is not inviting Planned Parenthood, or the Pride Center or anybody else into our schools to teach our children. That is a red herring,” Waldrip said.
“This is about allowing kids to get information that I wish that they didn’t need at the age of 12. I so wish that our kids did not need this information. The average age of pornography exposure is going down, not up; our kids are seeing this on average before they’re 9 years old. That’s ridiculous. But it’s the reality,” he said.
Kids need tools they do not get from well-intentioned parents, ecclesiastical leaders and other people who care about them, he said.
Rep. Susan Pulsipher, R-South Jordan, said she believes the 2019 health standards approved by the State School Board “give them everything they need to do the things we’ve been talking about today. And so, that’s where my vote will be.”
But Rep. Karen Kwan, D-Murray, said HB177 “is about empowering our kids to identify and reject the grooming and the manipulation from people that they trust. That is not being taught currently and I think that is the importance of this bill.”
Ninety-three percent of abusers or perpetrators are known to the victim “and a good majority are family members. One in 4 girls and as high as 1 in 6 boys under the age of 18 will experience sexual abuse or assault at the hands of an adult,” Kwan said.
Simon Bowes-Lyon, cousin to Queen Elizabeth II,
jailed for sexual assault
By Clyde Hughes
Glamis Castle, Scotland
Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A British court on Tuesday sentenced Queen Elizabeth II's cousin to prison for sexually assaulting a woman at his family castle in Scotland last year.
Simon Bowes-Lyon, the Earl of Strathmore, was sentenced in Dundee Sheriff Court.
He pleaded guilty last month to a charge that he attacked the woman at his ancestral home, Glamis Castle in Angus, Scotland, a year ago.
Bowes-Lyon, 34, said he was drunk at the time of the assault, which occurred in a bedroom at the castle. The woman was sleeping when she was assaulted.
"I did not think I was capable of behaving the way I did, but have had to face up to it and take responsibility," he said, according to the Evening Standard.
"Over the last year, this has involved seeking and receiving professional help as well as agreeing to plead guilty as quickly as possible.
"My apologies go, above all, to the woman concerned but I would also like to apologize to family, friends and colleagues for the distress I have caused them."
Officials said the woman repeatedly tried to ward off Bowes-Lyon's advances and continues to deal with trauma from the assault.
Bowes-Lyon is a great-great-nephew of Queen Elizabeth the queen mother and a first cousin, twice removed to Queen Elizabeth II. His father, Michael Bowes-Lyon, is the queen's first cousin, once removed.
Glamis Castle is the seat of the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne and was the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth, the queen mother.
LPGA's Madelene Sagstrom publicly reveals
she was sexually abused as child
Feb 22, 2021
Charlotte Gibson, ESPN
LPGA Tour player Madelene Sagstrom first shared her secret five years ago. For 16 years, she acted like nothing had happened. She immersed herself in golf, creating an identity on the course.
But in March 2016, as she prepared for a Symetra Tour event, Sagstrom couldn't keep it in any longer. She needed to open up about being sexually abused at the age of 7 by an adult male friend in Sweden.
In an LPGA Drive On video feature released Monday, Sagstrom, 28, shared her story of childhood sexual abuse and the healing that took place after she decided to talk about what happened to her.
Sagstrom, who has been on the LPGA Tour since 2017 and won the 2020 Gainbridge LPGA, returns to that tournament starting Thursday at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club in Orlando, Florida.
Throughout the process of helping Sagstrom share her story, LPGA officials say they have learned a lot and started conversations around what resources and support the tour has in place for current and future players when it comes to sexual abuse.
Roberta Bowman, the LPGA's chief brand and communications officer, said that through LPGA/USA Girls Golf, which reaches nearly 100,000 girls a year, the tour wanted to make sure Girls Golf leaders had the necessary resources. The tour continues to follow the SafeSport protocol, and worked closely with RAINN, the National Sexual Assault Hotline, during the process of preparing to tell Sagstrom's story.
And this week, the LPGA will be sharing resources and support from RAINN to the USGA Girls Golf leaders. Some of those resources include tips for adults on how to protect children from sexual abuse, how to know the warning signs of grooming and social media safety.
Additionally, for the girls, some of the resources will include what to do if something happened that made them feel uncomfortable or not safe.
In the video and her accompanying first-person essay, Sagstrom explained how she first shared her story with her mentor, Robert Karlsson, a former Ryder Cup player who she had met through the Swedish National Team. After struggling with her emotions on the course, Sagstrom turned to Karlsson for help. In return, Karlsson encouraged her to dig deep and try to figure out the root of her struggles.
"I had this thing come up in my mind. At first, I didn't think it was important. But it kept coming back again and again," Sagstrom said in her essay published on LPGA.com. "I thought, 'Maybe there is something there. Maybe I should tell Robert.'"
While preparing for a tournament in Greenwood, South Carolina, Sagstrom told Karlsson she had been sexually abused as a child. In the LPGA video, Sagstrom said telling Karlsson helped her feel free.
"This was something I was never going to tell anybody," Sagstrom said Sunday. "It was a story and it was an experience that was deeply hidden within me, and I was never going to share that with anybody, and I just came to realize when I started working with Robert, this has changed me. This has made me who I am today."
Sagstrom won her first LPGA title at the Gainbridge LPGA last year. Afterward, she published a letter to her younger self on her Facebook page, revealing more about her childhood and her journey to that point.
Prior to that post, Sagstrom said she also shared her story on Facebook in 2017. At that point, the LPGA was aware of Sagstrom's experience with sexual abuse. But up until then, the LPGA's primary goal was to represent and protect Sagstrom and her story.
"It was after Gainbridge last year at the height of Madelene's sort of career success, and just watching how she handled herself in the aftermath of that, the thoughtful answers to the media questions, and then she did something very interesting, and she posted on her Facebook page a letter to little Madelene, and that became the signal to us that there was a growing sense of comfort in a broader sharing of this story," Bowman said.
For more than a year, the LPGA and Sagstrom have worked together on revealing the full story of Sagstrom's past as part of its Drive On initiatives. "It's been an ongoing situation," Bowman said. "But we really needed to satisfy ourselves, both Madelene and the LPGA, that she was ready to do this."
Sagstrom said she feels ready to go public in a larger way with her story, and that her biggest hope is she can help others realize they aren't alone.
"Over the years, my platform has grown. Being a winner in 2020 has just opened up the doors that I know that I can share more of myself, and it's going to reach more people," Sagstrom said. "I figured it was the perfect timing. The LPGA has been amazing with all the support. We worked on this for a very long time, and I think the timing is great. I just wanted to just help somebody out there."
In telling Sagstrom's story, the LPGA hopes to create challenging but impactful conversations on and off the golf course.
"There are so many layers of this particular story," Bowman said. "If your life is touched with trauma, to have that conversation and reach out to others. If you are lucky enough that you've been spared that, maybe you'll find yourself in the role of Robert Karlsson and having to have that judgment at the very moment, and to create that conversation around how can we appreciate and support people going through their own changes."
With the publishing of Sagstrom's Drive On video, she said she wants the focus to be on the steps she has taken since first sharing her secret and going public with her childhood sexual abuse. She also hopes that she can be a guiding light for others who might need resources and support.
"I'm telling the story but what I want to focus on and what I want to share with people is it's the steps that I've done afterwards, the decisions that I have decided to do to grow," Sagstrom said. "It's not about what happened, it's about how did I grow out of this, how did I become the version that I am today."
The character of a champion. God bless you Madeleine.
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‘Let’s play strip poker’: Former staffer publishes explosive essay detailing claims of sexual harassment against Gov. Andrew Cuomo
24 Feb, 2021 18:07
© Seth Wenig/Pool via REUTERS
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is being accused of sexual harassment and fostering a “toxic” work environment by former staffer Lindsey Boylan, who detailed her time with the top Democrat in a new essay.
Boylan previously accused Cuomo of sexual harassment in December but said she would not detail the experience at that time. Cuomo denied any wrongdoing.
The former aide now says she has revealed her full story in the hopes that it will “clear the path for other women to come forward.” She published the explosive details in a Medium post on Wednesday.
Boylan claims she was warned to “be careful around the governor” when she joined his administration as vice president at Empire State Development, with others warning her that his abusive behavior was well known.
She also alleges that Cuomo made unwanted advances at her numerous times, including unwelcome touching and a sudden kiss on the lips. He also allegedly made disparaging remarks, such as suggesting they play “strip poker” while on a flight and referring to Boylan as “Lisa,” the name of an ex-girlfriend she apparently held a resemblance to.
In another bizarre encounter, Boylan claims Cuomo arranged to meet with her alone in his office and showed off a cigar box he said was given to him by former President Bill Clinton while he worked in his administration. She took this as a reference to the former president’s affair with Monica Lewinksy.
Cuomo saw his political star rise and gained national attention last year, as his state was put in the spotlight over its handling of Covid-19, leading to public feuds between the governor and then-President Donald Trump. The governor was awarded glowing media appearances, a book deal, and even an Emmy Award for his constant press conferences on the pandemic.
He is now, however, facing multiple controversies. Cuomo has been accused of underreporting nursing home deaths in his state during the pandemic to underplay the potential political fallout from an early order forcing the facilities to accept positive Covid patients. Local lawmaker Ron Kim said the governor threatened to “destroy” him if he did not publicly support him on the matter. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio responded to the situation by saying the “bullying is nothing new,” adding that Kim’s account sounded like “classic Andrew Cuomo.”
Boylan also alleges this toxic work environment and intimidation is nothing new. She even included in her Medium piece screenshots of texts to her mother when she worked in the administration, complaining about Cuomo’s allegedly toxic behavior. Boylan’s mother replied by calling the governor a “sexist” and urging her daughter to stay clear of him.
“There are many more of us, but most are too afraid to speak up,” she wrote. She claims two women in particular reached out to her with their own stories.
Boylan predicts she will receive blowback and Cuomo’s team will “attempt to further disparage me, just as they’ve done with Assemblymember Kim.”
“They’d lose their jobs if they didn’t protect him. That’s how his administration works. I know because I was a part of it,” she said.
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