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Mission mom files civil claim against school district,
says son was sexually abused by five boys
KEVIN MILLS
Jan. 10, 2023 5:33 a.m.
Abbotsford News
A local (Mission, B.C.) mom has filed a notice of civil claim against the Mission Public School District, saying her nine-year-son was sexually abused by five boys while at school.
The claim, filed Jan. 9 in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, alleges that the boy – who is in Grade 4 – was assaulted Nov. 1, 2022 on the school grounds.
The Record is not naming the child, his mom or the school in order to protect the boy’s identity.
According to the civil claim, the student reported the incident to school administration, and the five boys allegedly involved in the incident were sent home.
The court documents state that the boy was not sent to a medical facility, and his mom only found out about the incident when she arrived at the end of the school day to pick up her son.
She then reported the incident to the police.
The civil claim states that the principal told the mom that the school was investigating and the children involved would not be allowed to return to school until the investigation was complete.
However, the next day, one of the five students had already returned to class, the documents say.
The claim says the school administration, after learning about the assault, “failed to take the proper steps” to report and investigate the assault.
The school did not immediately notify the Ministry of Children and Family Development, the police, or the student’s parents, the claim states.
It also says the students involved were never disciplined or expelled and were known by staff to have assaulted other students.
Kevin Mills. From the sidewalk, it would appear that the school district is too busy painting rainbows
to be concerned about child sexual abuse in its schools.
The court documents say that the student suffered injuries that included physical pain, injuries to the legs and buttocks, mental anguish, feelings of guilt and shame, and more.
The claim seeks general and special damages; loss of earnings and earning capacity, past, present and future; loss of housekeeping capacity; cost of future care; past and future cost of health care services and more.
None of the allegations in the lawsuit has been proved in court, and the school district has not yet filed a response to the notice of civil claim.
Twitter blocks more hashtags used to promote child sex abuse material
on April 7, 2022 in Colorado Springs, Colo. Trevor Cokley / U.S. Air Force
Jan. 10, 2023, 1:12 PM PST
By Ben Goggin, NBC News
Twitter on Saturday blocked searches for a series of hashtags and keywords used to promote the sale of child sex abuse material (CSAM) following an investigation by NBC News posted the day before.
NBC News found that a series of hashtags on the platform related to the file-sharing service Mega served as rallying points for users seeking to trade or sell CSAM. NBC News observed the hashtags over a period of several weeks, and counted dozens of users who collectively published hundreds of tweets daily.
The accounts used thinly veiled keywords and terms related to CSAM to promote the content they said was stored on Mega, which they said was available for purchase or trade.
Twitter prohibits any promotion of CSAM on its platform and, since CEO Elon Musk took over the company, he has vocally criticized the company’s former leadership, claiming they didn’t do enough to address child sexual exploitation material on the platform. Musk in November said cleaning up the platform and addressing child exploitation on it was his “priority #1.”
NBC News’ examination of the hashtags found that some accounts had been using them for months, and that dozens of users had tagged Musk using the hashtags attempting to alert him to the issue. The hashtags, however, appeared to remain largely unmoderated until Saturday.
Following NBC News’ report Friday, Ella Irwin, Twitter’s vice president of product trust and safety, which includes overseeing child safety on the platform, said in an email, “We will do a specific additional review this weekend and see what we find. As you probably know the links you shared relate to a file sharing service broadly used for a wide variety of purposes and so that makes it much harder to find the specific illegal content being posted using the hashtags in question.”
In a follow-up email Saturday, Irwin said she met over the weekend with her team and decided to ban the hashtags, which she said had been under review by the company.
“We were already reviewing doing this in the coming weeks, given that we have banned other hashtags used commonly for trafficking [CSAM] material already, however, we made the decision to accelerate this action for these terms,” she said.
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Rotherham: Three charged over children's home sex abuse
Published, 9 Jan 2023
The charges relate to abuse allegedly carried out at a children's home, the NCA said
Three men have appeared in court charged with sexually abusing two girls who lived at a South Yorkshire children's home a decade ago.
Romulad Stefan Houphoet, Absolom Sigiyo, and Jacek Brozozwski were charged as part of Operation Stovewood, an investigation into historic child sex abuse in Rotherham.
They appeared before Sheffield magistrates and were released on bail.
All three are due to appear at Sheffield Crown Court on 6 February.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the charges relate to offences alleged to have been committed in 2011 and 2012, when the two victims were aged between 13 and 15 years old and resident in a children's home.
Mr Houphoet, aged 36 and from Burngreave in Sheffield, has been charged with four counts of rape.
Mr Sigiyo, aged 39 and from Catcliffe, Rotherham, has been charged with rape, attempted rape and witness intimidation.
Mr Brozozwski, aged 33 and from Rawmarsh, Rotherham, faces two charges of engaging in sexual activity and inciting sexual activity with a girl aged between 13 and 15.
Eleven people accused of taking part in child sex ring
involving witchcraft and attempted murder
Seven men and four women are alleged to have taken part in a child sex ring
between January 2010 and March 2020 at various addresses in Glasgow
Katharine Hay
6 Jan 2023
The Independent
The trial of 11 people accused of taking part in a child sex ring involving witchcraft, attempted murder and serious sexual violence is estimated to last up to seven weeks, a court has heard.
Seven men and four women are facing a 14-page indictment over alleged crimes said to have happened between January 2010 and March 2020 at various addresses in Glasgow.
Some charges claim the alleged victims, two young girls and a young boy, were forced to kill animals and made to use a ouija board, or similar object, “to call on spirits and demons”.
One of the young girls was said to have been shut in a microwave, a fridge, an oven and a freezer in an attempt to kill her, according to the charges.
There are also claims members of the group “did clap, cheer and verbally encourage” as well as video record the children being sexually abused.
The accused are further alleged to have forced the children to take part in satanic “seances” where they were told they were drinking blood and eating a heart.
Iain Owens, 44, Elaine Lannery, 38, Lesley Williams, 41, Paul Brannan, 40, Marianne Gallagher, 38, Scott Forbes, 49, Barry Watson, 46, Mark Carr, 49, Richard Gachagan, 45, Leona Laing, 50, and John Clark, 46, deny the charges they face.
Maureen Goudie, Steven McHendrie, Robert Brown, James McLean and Douglas Gachagan are also mentioned as being involved in a number of the charges, but court papers said they are now deceased.
At a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow on Friday, Judge Lord Beckett estimated the full trial could take up to seven weeks, with several of the defence lawyers agreeing this was “realistic”.
The judge told the court: “There are so many people in the case there could be an unusual level of disruption.”
Advocate depute Kath Harper estimated the Crown case alone would last up to three weeks.
At Friday’s hearing – where none of the accused were present – several defence lawyers raised concerns over a video posted on social media in relation to the trial hours before the case was called.
Gary Allan KC described the content as “accusatory” and having “derogatory terms” directed towards the accused, and said it was “potentially prejudicial”.
Brian McConnachie KC told the court: “We need to speak to this person and tell them to stop what they are doing… There will be some future video uploaded.”
Lord Beckett responded to the lawyers’ concerns, saying: “The Crown has the resources to tackle this and I would encourage the Crown to do so.”
The case was continued to the full trial hearing in September.
