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Australian man accused of abducting 4-year-old appears in court
By Danielle Haynes
Nov. 4 (UPI) -- A man accused of kidnapping a 4-year-old Australian girl found alive after 18 days appeared in court Thursday on charges of forcibly taking a child under 16.
Terence Darrell Kelly, 36, did not apply for bail, nor did he enter a plea on the charges, Australia's ABC News reported.
The West Australian newspaper said Kelly acted out in the Carnarvon court, taking issue with reporters in the courtroom.
"What the [expletive] are the media doing here?" he shouted.
Kelly is accused of snatching Cleo Smith on Oct. 16 while she and her family were sleeping in a tent at the Blowholes camping site north of Carnarvon. She was found Tuesday locked in a state housing commission house playing with toys.
Western Australian police described Cleo as "alive and well."
Kelly lived in the house where Cleo was found, but he wasn't at home at the time she was discovered. He was arrested nearby and has been in police custody for two days.
Detective Senior Sgt. Cameron Blaine, the officer who found Cleo, spoke to reporters outside the courthouse Thursday. He said he was glad to see Kelly appear before the court.
"It's obviously a combination of lots of hard work and that's what we've been here for, so yeah, it's fantastic," Blaine said.
"The matter is before the court so we're not going to make any more comment at this stage."
Child porn cases set to overwhelm German police
There is a simple solution to this problem
8 Nov, 2021 11:53
German police during a demonstration in Berlin. April, 13, 2021. © AFP / John MACDOUGALL
During the first half of 2021, reports of child pornography in Germany almost reached the country’s caseload from last year – as federal police authorities warn that its forces are being stretched to their “limits.”
The head of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) told Bild am Sonntag newspaper that there were as many cases with child sexual abuse imagery reported between January to July this year as recorded across all of 2020.
“The number of reports that we receive about such crimes is up, and the number of investigations is increasing,” BKA President Holger Münch told the paper, adding that the “significant increase...will increasingly bring the police to their resource limits.”
Although Münch did not specify the exact figures for 2021, local media revealed that the BKA had registered some 18,761 cases last year. This apparently marked a nearly 53% increase from 2019.
He also noted that the BKA would likely be needed to “provide more intensive support” to police across Germany’s 16 states in order to combat the growing incidence of child sexual abuse images.
Münch’s comments came as reports emerged about a Catholic priest from the northwestern city of Osnabrück being investigated over alleged child sex abuse images crimes. A diocese spokesperson told local media that the priest had been relieved of his duties with immediate effect.
Following a months-long Europol-led probe, German police in May shut down what they described as “one of the world’s biggest child pornography darknet platforms” and arrested three suspects thought to be its administrators. The site, called ‘Boystown’, had been active since June 2019 and apparently had some 400,000 users at the time it was taken offline.
Then, in July, Bavarian police identified more than 1,600 potential child sex abuse suspects from the US, Austria, Switzerland and France who participated in online chat groups on which child pornography and zoophilia material was shared. Many of the suspects were reportedly minors.
The solution
The spectacular growth in child sex abuse materials needs to be answered with a large growth in the police forces dealing with it. But, it does not require fully-trained police men or women. Specially trained officers should be produced to deal with CSAM, officers who do not need to be trained in firearms or combat. Such officers can spend their time investigating CSAM and documenting criminal cases. They can take a couple armed officers with them when they have to serve a warrant or make an arrest. This could save police forces a small fortune.
Explosive report into Tasmanian public school child sexual abuse released
Isabel Bird
NOVEMBER 9 2021 - 1:00PM
The Examiner
An explosive report into the states school system's response to child sexual abuse has found that school reputation and financial loss were put above the interests of children who were abused by paedophile teachers.
The report provides details of an independent inquiry into the education department's responses to child sexual abuse since the 1960s, which was undertaken by child abuse expert Professor Stephen Smallbone and legal expert Professor Tim McCormack.
Professors Kneebone and McCormack state that the education department continually disregarded risks and harms to children, with officials responding in ways that were "completely at odds with community expectations at the time".
They found that paedophile teachers were transferred to different schools despite parents, teachers and principals opposing the transfers.
"We have found it deeply disturbing that, as concerns, complaints and ineffectual responses literally piled up in DoE's records, serial abusers ... were not just allowed to keep teaching for decades, but that DoE leaders and others so willfully disregarded the obvious risks and harms to students," they said.
"DoE responses over this period routinely involved deflecting or ignoring concerns and complaints, often by disbelieving or blaming students, and by shielding alleged or known sexual abusers."
The government initially planned to release the report after the commission of inquiry, looking into the state's responses to child sexual abuse, completed its investigations.
In a joint statement Attorney General Elise Archer and education minister Sarah Courtney said the government is releasing the report's findings and recommendations and the government's response only.
They said Professors McCormack and Smallbone met with a number of people directly and indirectly affected by child sexual abuse in school settings, including victims, survivors, family members, support people, medical professionals, and State servants.
"It is important to note that many of those people contributed to the Inquiry on a confidential basis and we acknowledge their valuable contributions to the Inquiry and want to ensure the rights of these individuals are protected," they said.
"Many of these contributors have legal protections preventing the publication of their experiences without their express consent, including protections under section 194K of the Evidence Act 2001 (Tas).
"The Tasmanian Government respects the right of all people affected by child sexual abuse to determine if and how their experiences are shared."
The report makes a number of recommendations.
But, apparently, they are for another day!
Jail for paedophile who 'bought victim's silence' with lighter
By Tom Seaward @t_seaward
Crime & Court Reporter
Oxford Mail
A drayman who groped a teen boy while they watched a film then ‘bought his silence’ with a novelty lighter has been jailed.
Maurice Smith, 58, who was known to his victim’s parents and described as a role model for the 13-year-old, carried out the attack in the early 2000s after taking the boy to a computer fair in Blackbird Leys.
The pervert’s victim said in a personal statement that he’d ‘felt a huge surge of relief, started to cry and spent the rest of the day crying’ when he learned jurors at Oxford Crown Court had unanimously convicted Smith of two counts of indecent assault after a re-trial last month.
Jailing him for three years, Judge Maria Lamb said: “It was perfectly clear that your victim throughout the course of what went on expressed his unhappiness and you must have (realized) that as you did in the end desist.
“But I am satisfied thereafter you sought to buy his silence about what you had done by giving him a novelty lighter and taking him to buy an accessory for his PlayStation.”
She added: “You have been able to move on with your life and he has not.
“Whilst I bear in mind as part of the mitigation the consequences for you which are going to be wide ranging and of the immediate prison sentence which is going to be imposed here, it is borne in mind and has to be borne in mind that there have been significant consequences for your victim that have gone on and on over the years while you have been able to continue with your life.”
Jacinta Stringer, prosecuting, said the victim and defendant were known to each other. The older man groped the boy after inviting him to sit on his bed to watch a film.
Smith had been convicted in the mid-80s of indecently assaulting an eight-year-old boy in the same house where he would grope his latest victim a decade-and-a-half later.
In 1997, around five years before the attack sentenced on Friday, Smith completed sex offence rehabilitation courses.
Mitigating, Anthony Rimmer told the court that his client had worked in logistics for a brewery before he was remanded into custody by the judge last month.
His mother had died in 2019 and he now lived alone. Were he sent to prison he would lose his rented home, Mr Rimmer told the court. His son and daughter had written references in his support.
Smith, of Pinnocks Way, Botley, was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault. He had previous convictions, including one for indecent assault.
The defendant must register as a sex offender and abide by a sexual harm prevention order for life.
Blackbird Lees, UK
Former Sudbury reporter pleads guilty in child pornography case
Callam Senyk-O-Flanagan was arrested February 13, 2019 after an investigation found more than 450 images, as well as a number of videos, identified as child pornography, on his computer
about an hour ago
By: Arron Pickard
Elliot Lake Today
Former Sudbury reporter Callam Senyk-O’Flanagan (also known as Callam Rodya) had 464 images of child sexual abuse on his computer, and at least one video, when he was arrested on Feb. 14, 2019.
Senyk-O’Flanagan, 35, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one count of committing an indecent act by making child sexual abuse material available to the public through the use of digital file-sharing software. When he was arrested on Feb. 13, 2019, he was charged with two counts of accessing, five counts of possession and three counts of making available child pornography.
Senyk-O’Flanagan is being represented by Toronto lawyer Michael Lacy.
Assistant Crown attorney Christina Croteau told the court Tuesday that multiple computers and storage devices were seized from Senyk-O’Flanagan’s apartment on Riverside Drive on Feb. 13, 2019.
On Nov. 15, 2018, an officer with the cyber crime division was reviewing his undercover operation on a file-sharing network and had found that an IP address, which ultimately led to Senyk-O’Flanagan’s apartment on Riverside Drive, was sharing child sexual abuse material.
In this case, the file-sharing software being used on the suspect computer had a global unique identifier (GUID), which is specific to a computer device using this software to access the file-sharing network.
“It is similar to a fingerprint for a computer device accessing the file-sharing network,” said Croteau.
Police had also downloaded partial child sexual abuse videos from the suspect computer with this GUID on Nov. 2 and Nov. 14, 2018.
In each case the IP address was different, but the GUID was the same, meaning it was the same computer device.
“(Greater Sudbury Police Service) Det.-Const. (Chris) Kerr viewed each of the videos and confirmed they were child pornography as defined by the Criminal Code of Canada,” said Croteau.
On Nov. 16, 2018, a justice of the peace granted a production order, compelling the internet service provider to disclose subscriber information for the suspect IP address.
On Nov. 20, 2018, those records were provided to police, and indicated the computer used in the downloading of child sexual abuse material was at an address on Riverside Drive. That apartment was the residence of Senyk-O’Flanagan, and an investigation revealed he had accessed the internet during one of the occasions that child sexual abuse material was being downloaded.
On Feb. 12, 2019, a justice of the peace granted a search warrant for Senyk-O’Flanagan’s apartment.
Officers executed the search warrant on Feb. 13, 2019. Senyk-O’Flanagan was home at the time. He was arrested and charged with various child pornography offences, as well as a charge for drug possession, which has subsequently dropped earlier this year. Following his arrest, he was granted bail.
Senyk-O’Flanagan was a reporter at CTV News in Sudbury when he was arrested. He had previously worked for Sudbury.com.
The sentencing hearing will happen Dec. 2 at 9:30 a.m. An ESP technological report has been ordered to determine if electronic monitoring will be available at the time of sentencing.
Swiss Court Convicts Afghan In Absentia For Raping Two Children
CHRIS TOMLINSON
9 Nov 2021 2:38
Breitbart
A 32-year-old Afghan migrant has been convicted by a Swiss court of sexually abusing two children aged between 11 and 13 but remains at large after fleeing to an unknown location.
The District Court of Brugg AG tried the 32-year-old in absentia and found him guilty of sexual acts with a child, multiple counts of sexual assault and possession of child pornography, sentencing him to seven years in prison.
However, the Afghan has fled justice and his own lawyer has claimed not to have had any contact with the 32-year-old in over a year, Swiss tabloid Blick reports.
The Afghan is said to have abused two children, a girl and a boy, the latter of which was the son of the Afghan’s romantic partner at the time of the abuse, which took place from 2017 to 2019.
According to the tabloid, the boy, who was between 11 and 13 during the time of the abuse, was raped by the Afghan migrant several times in both the shower and in his bed.
The girl was molested by the 32-year-old while she was between 12 and 13 and was subjected to inappropriate touching of her breasts and genitals as well as penetration by the man’s hand, and the Afghan was also said to have forced her to perform oral sex on him.
The Afghan male was never kept in pre-trial detention as prosecutors believed that he was not a flight risk. The whereabouts of the Afghan are currently unknown and an international arrest warrant has been issued for him.
In addition to the seven-year prison sentence, the Swiss court also awarded 21,000 Swiss francs (£16,945/$22,987) to the female victim and 26,000 (£20,979/$28,460) Swiss francs to the male victim.
And what is the possibility that they will collect those fines?
More Islamic migrants accused of Child Sexual Abuse
The case is just the latest of child sex abuse this year involving a migrant suspect in Europe. In January, a group of Afghan migrant men in Sweden were accused of filming sexual acts with underage girls and using the videos to blackmail their victims. According to prosecutors, some of the alleged victims were as young as 13.
Last month, in the Italian city of Aosta, two Pakistani migrants were arrested by local police after allegedly raping a 13-year-old boy in a public garden after spending the afternoon with him and drinking alcohol.
Icelandic Doctor Describes Sexual Abuse by Leading Literary Figure
Iceland Monitor |
Tue 9 Nov 2021 | 14.01 GMT
Vala Hafstað
In an article published by Morgunblaðið today, Guðný Bjarnadóttir, an Icelandic physician, states she was sexually abused as a child by Kristinn E. Andrésson (1901-1973), who served as a member of parliament and editor of the Mál og menning literary journal (Tímarit Máls og menningar).
The article, which has received enormous attention in Iceland, comes in the wake of the publication of a book about Kristinn and his wife, Þóra Vigfúsdóttir.
“There are certain facts about Kristinn E. Andrésson, not mentioned in the book,” Guðný writes, “which I feel obliged to reveal — facts that have followed me all my life, although luckily, I haven’t let them ruin for me more than was necessary when a child carries a secret not even Mom and Dad may know about.”
In addition to serving as MP for the Socialist Party 1942-1946, Kristinn was a leading literary figure in Iceland in the 20th century, and the journal of which he was editor was the country’s main literary journal at the time.
In the article, Guðný relates that when she was nine years old, she was invited to the home of Kristinn and Þóra, her parents’ friends, to read a book that wasn’t available in her own home.
She states that when she was getting ready to read in the living room after Þóra had left the room, Kristinn began touching her inappropriately. When he finally let go of her, she asked to go home, but was forced to accept a ride home with him. She said no to his suggestion to take her to the outskirts of the city, she writes.
Guðný felt ashamed and paralyzed after returning home and never visited the couple again. A few months later, however, Kristinn repeated his behavior, she states, when he surprised her with his presence as she came home.
After that, she was repeatedly invited to Kristinn’s home, but always refused to go there.
“I kept silent about this and felt ashamed for decades,” Guðný writes. “Ashamed of a memory I never asked for and could do nothing about. I told my spouse about this but never my parents. I decided they should be allowed to die without hearing about this.”
She concludes by writing, “I hope I will succeed in getting rid of the shame, now, 60 years later, when I finally manage to write about this experience, without which I truly would have liked to be at the age of nine.”
Northamptonshire monster caged for 22 years over historic child sex abuse
northantslive
A Northamptonshire pensioner has been jailed for 22 years over historic child sex abuse.
Phillip Greenwood, 71, began to target the girl in 2007 when she was aged just six.
The monster went on to abuse her for the next four years until she moved out of the county.
The girl kept what had happened to her a secret until November 2018, when she bravely disclosed the years of abuse she suffered at Greenwood’s hands.
It included him both molesting her and forcibly making her touch him.
An investigation was launched by Northamptonshire Police and Greenwood went on to be charged with four counts of sexual abuse against a child under the age of 13.
Following a trial in August this year, Greenwood was convicted by a jury of one count of rape, two counts of sexual assault, and one count of engaging in sexual activity with a child.
At Northampton Crown Court last Monday (November 1) Greenwood, formerly of Rushden, was given a total custodial sentence of 20 years, with a further two years to be served on licence.
He was also placed on the sex offenders’ register.
Facebook Ranks Top On List of Social Media Apps Used
to Exploit Minors in Kenya – Report
by Vanessa Murrey
Kahawatungu.com
Facebook is the most used medium for online based sexual exploitation of minors in Kenya. According to a report titled ‘Disrupting harm’ by Interpol, UNICEF’s Office of Research-Innocenti and End Violence against Children, 90 percent of online child exploitation activities in the country were carried out on Facebook.
The report used data collected from the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), interviews with minors, their parents, policing agencies and legal representatives.
The report also found that the perpetrators used WhatsApp, Instagram and YouTube were used in the possessions, manufacture and distribution of child sex abuse imagery and videos.
FB 37 times worse than Google
More data from the NCMEC shows that globally, Facebook reported over 20 million more images of child sex abuse compared to 2020. The figure is 37 times more than that of Google, which ranked second in the report.
Incidents of online child sexual abuse also increased in Kenya by six percent to 14,434, according to CyberTipline reports from the NCMEC. Kenya is reportedly the only country directly connected to the US NCMEC reporting system through the Directorate of Criminal Investigation’s (DCI) Anti-Human Trafficking & Child Protection Unit (AHTCPU) and Interpol’s International Child Sexual Exploitation Database.
“WhatsApp and Facebook or Facebook Messenger were the social media and instant messaging apps via which children were most commonly targeted. This is probably because Facebook and WhatsApp – the two most popular social media platforms in Kenya – are where children spend much of their time online,” the report said.
The Covid-19 pandemic reportedly caused a spike in the number of cases as people spent more time online.
“Social media has enhanced sharing, production and distribution of online sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). It has become much easier for predators to trick young people into sharing explicit images of themselves and falling prey to an overly sexualized culture.” Mueni Mutisya, the AHTCPU in-charge at NCEMC told TechCrunch, adding that the authority receives about 22 Cybertip reports daily.
The report further claims that the offenders prey on children by asking for sexual materials online, in a phrase commonly termed as “send nudes”. Minors aged 12 to 17 were more at risk, with the offenders being people known to them.
Gifts and money are used to sway the minors and most of the material is shared on Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and through YouTube. Instagram and TikTok were also used, but by a smaller percentage. Some victims also reported that they were threatened and blackmailed into sharing the material.
The report further indicated that Kenya was a source of commercial child sex materials including livestreaming of child sexual abuse.
Google search engine trends reportedly show that sex offenders in Kenya search for material “depicting sexual activity with and between teenagers, with children and babies” Foreign law enforcers and security agency flagged Kenya as a hotspot for foreign child sex offenders.
NSW allows courts to break unfair settlements forced on
child sexual abuse survivors by churches
New laws passed by state parliament will let survivors bypass gag orders
that stop them speaking out publicly
Christopher Knaus
Tue 9 Nov 2021 03.27 GMT
Guardian
New South Wales will allow courts to break unfair settlements forced on child sexual abuse survivors by churches and other institutions and will allow them to bypass gag orders preventing them from speaking out publicly.
New laws, passed on Tuesday, give NSW courts the power to set aside unfair historic settlement agreements for sexual and serious physical abuse.
Survivors groups have welcomed the legislation, saying it will help survivors who faced immense legal barriers and felt forced into accepting pitiful settlements.
Until a wave of reform triggered by the child abuse royal commission, survivors of abuse were unable to sue for historic claims that fell outside the statutory time limit, despite a wealth of research showing delays in reporting were common.
Survivors also faced what the NSW attorney general, Mark Speakman, describes as a series of “legal technicalities” shielding institutions from civil cases.
NSW, like other states, introduced reforms in 2016 and 2018 to seek to remove legal barriers to justice for abuse survivors, acting on the royal commission’s recommendations.
But it is now going further by giving the courts the power to overturn any settlement deemed to be unfair made prior to these reforms.
“We are righting the wrongs of the past to ensure survivors can access the civil justice they deserve and be properly compensated for the appalling mistreatment they suffered as children,” Speakman said.
The Civil Liability Amendment (Child Abuse) Act 2021 was introduced in March and passed on Tuesday.
It allows the courts to set aside affected agreements if it is “just and reasonable to do so”.
Survivors who seek to have settlements set aside will not be held to have breached gag orders previously made with churches and other institutions.
This protection will be given even if survivors are ultimately unsuccessful in having their settlements set aside.
The change will potentially open up a raft of cases to public scrutiny which have previously been hidden by the non-disclosure agreements.
NSW is not alone in introducing such laws. Similar reforms have been made in Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
But the NSW law differs significantly in that it allows courts to set aside settlement agreements “for claims that were either impacted by the expiry of the limitation period or where an organisation was not incorporated and there was therefore no proper defendant to the cause of action, or both, if just and reasonable to do so”.
“By doing so, this bill ensures it is clear to survivors, their representatives, potential defendants and the courts the types of settlements that are covered by the reforms,” the NSW upper house MP Natalie Ward said earlier this year, when introducing the bill.
Child abuse campaigners have welcomed the new laws as “critical”. The Bravehearts chief executive, Alison Geale, said the laws would give survivors “the opportunity to escape these unfair deals and access the justice they have been denied”.
“For too long, survivors of child abuse have felt trapped in unjust agreements with powerful institutions,” she said. “These settlements would often include signed deeds, which prevented survivors from taking further civil action against the perpetrators.”
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