Canadian Convulsions > Kids pay a high price for legal cannabis edibles in Canada

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More kids hospitalized for cannabis poisonings after edibles legalized

Stephanie Dubois · CBC News · 

Posted: Aug 24, 2022 6:42 PM ET | 

Chocolate edibles available for authorized retailers are displayed at the Ontario Cannabis Store in Toronto on Friday, Jan. 3, 2020. (Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press )

The average number of kids hospitalized for unintentional cannabis poisonings spiked in some provinces after they legalized edibles, according to a new study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Ontario-based researchers also found that three such provinces — Alberta, B.C. and Ontario — saw twice the increase in pediatric hospitalizations than Quebec, which prohibited edibles at the time of the study. 

"Unlike adults where they would mostly get high, maybe a little bit drowsy, when young children ingest edibles, they may become very, very sick. We've seen kids with seizures, kids who stopped breathing," said Dr. Yaron Finkelstein, a senior author of the study and staff physician at SickKids Hospital in Toronto. 

"Their symptoms, especially in young children, can be more severe and can be life-threatening."

Federal law requires cannabis-infused edibles — including gummy candies, chocolate or baked goods — to be sold in plain packaging, so as not to appeal to children, and with no more than 10 milligrams of the psychoactive compound THC.

But even those precautions "are not enough," Finkelstein said. "Those kids are still at risk." 

After all, they do have to open the packages.

That's why Finkelstein and other pediatricians say parents and guardians should store edibles away from kids. Kids are affected differently by such products and could get very sick, pediatricians say. How much was eaten, the type of edible, the age and size of the child are all factors.

"They are made to be yummy and it can be very tempting for a young person to try one of these things thinking that it's a yummy cookie or brownie or gummies or other edible products," said Dr. Dina Kulik, a Toronto-based pediatrician who was not involved in the study.

And if they are yummy, then the kids will be inclined to have more than one!

What the study shows

As part of the research, Finkelstein and colleagues wanted to see how having more cannabis products on the market after legalization affected the number of kids hospitalized for poisonings. 

They compared provincial hospital data over three time periods: 

Before legalization of cannabis in Canada (January 2015 to September 2018). 

After cannabis first became legal (October 2018 to December 2019).

After the legalization of edibles (January 2020 to September 2021).

In the first period, they found that 581 kids between one and nine years old had been hospitalized for cannabis poisoning. 

There were an average of two such hospitalizations per month in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario, according to data provided to CBC News. 

Federal law requires cannabis-infused edibles to be sold in plain packaging, so as not to appeal to children. (David Bajer/CBC)

Unfortunately, the packages have to be opened before they can be used.

The number grew to 5.2 on average per month after cannabis became legal, according to the data.

After edibles were legalized in those provinces, it increased again to 14.9.

In Quebec, the increase was smaller. That province averaged about 0.7 monthly hospital visits due to cannabis poisonings before legalization. But that tripled after edibles were legalized, to about 2.1. 

The researchers did not specify if any kids died during the study period.

"It is concerning that with legalization led to more kids having accidental ingestion and toxicity from marijuana products," said Kulik, adding that she has seen a rise in cases at her practice. 

Deborah Friedman, the trauma director at the Montreal Children's Hospital and McGill University Health Centre and an associate professor of pediatrics at McGill, said the study points to what she and her colleagues are seeing in their emergency departments. 

'Significant number' of Canadian children needed care after ingesting edible cannabis, pediatricians say

"Certainly the cases we saw were a result of gummies, chocolate and cookies, but certainly the numbers did not increase as they did apparently in Alberta, Ontario and B.C.," she said, adding that it's still early in legalization and that more monitoring of the trend is needed. 

Finkelstein says some parents and guardians don't know their child has ingested an edible, making diagnosis challenging sometimes. Other times, parents choose not to disclose that to doctors.

"When that happens … we have an unconscious kid where we don't know the reason and we start to do a lot of investigations," he said.

"Some of those kids undergo many more painful examinations … until we identify the reason, especially if we're not told about the exposure to cannabis."

Friedman says guardians should watch for common symptoms like vomiting, drowsiness, increased heart rate, trouble breathing, anxiety and agitation. She says that parents should take their children to the nearest hospital if cannabis poisoning is suspected. 

Finkelstein says more needs to be done to stop kids from ingesting edibles.

He, Kulik and Friedman agree that if parents are bringing edibles into the home, they should be safely stored away from kids.   

"We do want to make sure that these products are very, very far away from curious eyes and curious hands and locked away like other medicines should be," Kulik said.

I declared the legalization of cannabis edibles to be madness that would cost great suffering to children when it happened. This study confirms the madness of the Liberal government, and the complete disregard for the well-being of little children. 

Edibles should be outlawed immediately, although the Liberal government doesn't have the courage or the responsibility to do that. Those responsible for allowing children to consume cannabis edibles should be charged with child abuse and should be charged again if they fail to inform ER doctors or nurses of the possibility of cannabis ingestion.

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Today's Global Pervs and Paedos List > Paedo Uses Neighbour's WiFi; Another Met Officer Charged with Rape; Rape Culture in UK Universities

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Paedophile used unsuspecting neighbour's Wifi to download

30,000 videos and images of children

By Fatima Aziz Trainee reporter

05:00, 22 OCT 2021

Lancs Live

39 year old Christopher Meade from Burnley jailed for three years

A man found with more than 30,000 videos of children has been jailed.

Christopher Meade, 39, from Burnley was sentenced to three years imprisonment after police found thousands of images and videos involving children being sexually abused.

Preston Crown Court heard today that the defendant was discovered after the police traced the address of a neighbour living opposite to Meade.

On June 20 2019, police officers arrived at Spencer Street in Burnley and were greeted by a man who denied any involvement in the allegations made. When investigating further, officers asked the individual if anyone other than himself had access to his internet which led to the discovery of the defendant.

The court heard that Meade had admitted to using a router and had access to the internet of the house opposite. After getting access into the property from the defendant, officers explained the nature of their investigation which was when “the defendant became evasive” to which he then said he wished to speak to his solicitor.

Meade confirmed he had a computer in his bedroom but refused to provide a password which resulted in him being arrested and taken to the police station. During the search of a USB and desktop, 30,265 videos were discovered of which 530 category A (most serious) were found and 1015 category B were found. A further 28,720 category C images were found along with 65 extreme pornographic images, involving animals.

Officers who examined the content identified children aged between seven-nine, eight-10 and 10-12. The court heard that the defendant had collated all of the indecent images and videos over a span of seven years from November 2012 to June 2019.

Mr Toale, defending, stated that the defendant made no objections to the allegations and never planned to share, network or contact like-minded individuals.

He said: “The defendant was isolated in his own room accessing these types of images for his own personal consumption. He struggled to get his own head around the number of images over time and (was) shocked at what the experts found during the investigation.”

The defence explained how Meade now wanted to move on, away from the offence.

Passing sentencing, Judge Simon Medland QC recapped the number of images and videos that were discovered during the search.

He said: “These are real children who are really being abused by other people and it often stays with them for the rest of their lives.

“You showed little remorse and liability and denied sexual attraction to children which I completely reject. I have considered the reports in the case. The seriousness of this case greatly outweighs the mitigation. My public duty is clear to me - you must go to prison.”

The judge handed Meade a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and made him subject to notification requirements for life.

Serving Met Police officer charged with rape

over alleged incident while off-duty

27 Oct, 2021 15:37

The sign outside New Scotland Yard is reflected outside the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police

in central London, March 6, 2014. © REUTERS / Andrew Winning

An officer who served in the Metropolitan Police’s East Area Command Unit was charged by the City of London Police on Wednesday with rape over an alleged incident that took place at the weekend.

A spokesperson for the Met Police confirmed that the officer, 28-year-old PC Adam Zaman, has now been suspended from duty, following the decision to charge him with rape.

“I recognise that the public will be concerned to hear that a serving police officer has been charged with such a serious offence,” said Detective Chief Superintendent Paul Trevers, Policing Commander for the East Area Command Unit. Trevers added that authorities “acted swiftly when this allegation was reported to us.”

The police service has informed the Directorate of Professional Standards of the incident and the situation has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. This is the latest scandal to hit the Met Police service. Earlier in October, the force’s commissioner, Cressida Dick, said she was “deeply concerned” after 46-year-old police officer David Carrick was charged with rape over an alleged assault that reportedly took place while he was off duty on September 4, 2020.

Some 771 Met Police officers and staff have faced sexual misconduct allegations over the past 11 years, with only 83 individuals being fired from the service, according to data obtained by iNews under a Freedom of Information request. During that time, 163 officers from the Met were arrested for sexual offences, with 38 of those later convicted.

The latest allegation comes in the wake of the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving police officer Wayne Couzens, who used his official police ID while off duty to fake an arrest to abduct the 33-year-old. Couzens was later handed a rare whole-life sentence for the crime that sent shockwaves through the UK.

The Met Police has appointed social welfare expert Baroness Louise Casey to conduct a review of the culture and standards within the service in an effort to rebuild the public’s trust in the force following the recent revelations.

Study says male students at British universities admit to rapes,

sexual aggression

By UPI Staff

Oct. 29 (UPI) -- A new study is shining a light on attitudes about rape, sexual harassment and misogyny among male British students after it found that several admitted to such behaviors at more than 100 universities across the country.

The assessment, which was published this week by SAGE Journals, comprised of two different surveys -- one which surveyed about 300 students at about 100 British universities and one that polled roughly 250 students at a university in southeastern Britain.

The 27-page report, believed to be the first of its kind, found that 63 of the students said that they'd committed more than 250 sexual assaults, rapes or other aggressive incidents over the past two years.

That would be aggregate, not each! Most aggressors reported 2 or 3 acts in the past two years, even though the average would seem to be more than 4.

This is the Culture of Rape that abounds in western universities, and, I believe, has its roots in adolescent access to pornography.

For the surveys, the students were asked about their views on a range of sexual scenarios and their perception of women and romantic relationships.

The report, titled "Understanding Sexual Aggression in U.K. Male University Students," links toxic masculinity and sexual violence.

"Results highlighted that one in nine participants (11.4%) self-reported recent sexual aggression," the report states.

"These participants could be statistically differentiated from their non-offending peers on various established indicators of general sexual offending, of which logistic regression analyses highlighted atypical sexual fantasies, general aggression, hostility toward women and rape myth acceptance as being the most reliable predictors."

According to the study, many students who confessed to sexual crimes also admitted to holding misogynistic views, such as having fantasies about rape and sexual torture and believing that intoxicated women are responsible if they are assaulted.

According to the research,it's estimated that about one in five women in universities across developed nations will become targets of sexual violence. It recommends more prevention work on campuses to prevent sexual harm, such as using staffers to work with sexually aggressive students.

"Male sexual aggression is an international public health issue that plagues universities," the report says.

"Whole-university sexual violence campaigns have shown [great] promise -- particularly at reducing rape myth acceptance and increasing awareness of sexual violence among students -- and may also offer promising avenues for reducing rates of university-based sexual aggression."

Today's Global Pervs and Paedos List > 3 Telford Paedo Politicians; BoJo Calls for Inquiry into Police; Scotland Yard to Hold Inquiry; Cop Culture in UK

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Social services chief is one of three politicians exposed as

paedophiles as Telford child sex grooming scandal grows

By PHOEBE SOUTHWORTH FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 08:00 EDT, 22 April 2018 | UPDATED: 13:46 EDT, 23 April 2018

Former Shropshire social services chairman Graham Bould, who groomed a 15-year-old boy

A social services chief is among three politicians exposed as paedophiles as the Telford grooming scandal continues to spiral.

The shocking revelation comes just a week after authorities in the Shropshire town voted to commission an independent inquiry into child abuse after years of inaction.

Up to 1,000 children are feared to have been groomed and abused by predominantly Asian paedophile gangs.

Victim Lucy Lowe, 16, was murdered by her abuser who set fire to her house in 2000. The blaze also killed her sister and mother.

She had been made pregnant by the same man when she was 14.

Now it has emerged that former county councillor Graham Bould groomed a 15-year-old boy in the early 1980s after meeting him at a church group.

The 60-year-old is the third politician to be exposed as a convicted child sex offender in the West Midlands town.

Bould chaired Shropshire County Council's social services department from 1993 to 1998. He admitted he became attracted to the boy he abused when they shared a sauna after a game of squash.

Bould was arrested in October 2000 and admitted two indecent assaults on the boy. He stood down after 18 years as a councillor. But he avoided a jail sentence and was handed a 12-month community rehabilitation order at Wolverhampton Crown Court in 2001. 

Who does the rehab, Bould or the community?

Victim Lucy Lowe, 16, who died with her sister and mother after their house was set alight by her abuser in 2000

Anglican vicar and former county councillor Rev Michael Keen, 78, assaulted the same boy, also during the 1980s. He had previously sat on the West Mercia police force's board.

Keen was jailed for 15 months in July 2001 for two indecent assaults following a trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court. The clergyman, who was ordained in 1973, no longer lives in Telford.

In a childhood diary, the boy described Keen as 'aggressive and a manipulator' and believes he colluded with Bould to stop him reporting the abuse, the Mirror report.

'I believed Bould was a friend, probably my best friend at the time, but he did not care about me. I was just an object of lust to him,' he said after Bould's conviction.

Scarred by two decades of depression, the victim broke down in the witness box during Keen's trial as he recounted his ordeal.

The third abuser, parish councillor Graham White, 75, took indecent images of a 14-year-old girl.

In 2004 White admitted four counts of taking indecent photographs of a minor.

He was given a three-year rehabilitation order, ordered to complete a sex offenders programme and had his name added to the Sex Offenders Register for five years.

Telford in Shropshire, West Midlands, which has been at the centre of a grooming scandal after it emerged up to 1,000 children were groomed and abused by predominantly Asian paedophile gangs

But it is feared Shropshire County Council and the police failed to investigate the men's behaviour.

Local MP Lucy Allan told The Mirror: 'I hope that as part of its work the inquiry will examine the culture of the council. We have seen in other towns, where child sexual exploitation has been prevalent, that the culture of the council led to inaction and silence over many years.'

Lucy's uncle Ed Lowe told The Mirror: 'It's mindblowing. It's disgraceful. We always wanted to know why social services didn't get involved in dealing with Lucy's abuse. Now we have even more questions.' 

Council paperwork says social workers during the late 1990s didn't 'understand' the problem, according to The Mirror. 

While Keen moved away, Bould had until recently served as the clerk of Sheriffhales Parish Council in Shropshire. Advertising himself as a community organiser and fundraiser, he was photographed three years ago with then Telford MP David Wright.

None of these stories have anything to do with the Pakistani paedo ring that operated freely in Telford. I agree with MP Allan that the relationship between these men and the lack of investigation into the paedo ring has to be explored and exposed.

‘Not convicting enough rapists’: BoJo says UK needs to ‘systemically look’

 at handling of rape cases after Sarah Everard murder

3 Oct, 2021 15:07

Britian's Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks as he appears as a guest on the Andrew Marr Show © Reuters

In the wake of the sentencing of police officer Wayne Couzens for Everard’s abduction, rape and murder, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated on Sunday that the British legal system was not convicting enough rapists.

During an appearance on the BBC’s ‘The Andrew Marr Show’, Johnson said that, although Everard’s murderer was a serving police officer at the time of the crime, the British should nonetheless “trust” and “have confidence in our police.”

“I think, up and down the country, there will be literally hundreds of thousands of wonderful policemen and women who will be utterly sickened by what happened, by the murder of Sarah Everard,” he said, adding that the case had doubtless “triggered the feelings of huge numbers of people about what is going on in the handling of crimes of sexual and domestic violence, and also rape, and the way we deal with those crimes.”

Johnson argued that, while stranger-murder cases were on the decline, rape prosecutions were still taking too long, “and we’re not convicting enough rapists.”

“We need to deal with it. People feel it – they know instinctively that something is going wrong,” the prime minister said. He affirmed that his government needed to look not just at the abhorrent circumstances of Everard’s faked arrest and subsequent murder, but also “systemically” at “the whole handling of rape, domestic violence, sexual violence, and female complaints about harassment altogether.”

When asked by Marr why the prosecution of rapists and sexual abusers was taking so long, Johnson said there were “delays taking place at every stage in the process,” with some of those delays being due to the legal “complexities” concerning the use of mobile-phone evidence. “But, in the end, that is no excuse. We have to have these complaints properly dealt with,” he concluded.

While this is good news in that the justice system may be stream-lined to be more effective, it's disappointing that neither Marr nor Johnson mentioned the biggest elephant in the room - Pakistani grooming gangs. Everything else are just little toy elephants in comparison.

Couzens was sentenced to a whole-life sentence last week, after he admitted to the abduction, rape and murder of Everard in March as she walked home from a friend’s house in Clapham, South London. He had used his police handcuffs and cited Covid-19 laws to falsely arrest Everard before driving her to a wooded area in Kent, where she was killed.

Lord Justice Fulford ruled that Couzens – who had been working as a diplomatic protection officer at the US Embassy in London – had “long planned to carry out a violent sexual assault on a yet-to-be-selected victim,” and noted that he had taken several measures in preparation for such an attack, including hiring a car.

Despite being a police officer since 2002, Couzens had a history of inappropriate sexual behaviour, and had indecently exposed himself to a McDonald’s employee just weeks before he murdered Everard. He had even been nicknamed “The Rapist” by former colleagues, and was known for having an interest in extreme pornography.

Met Police chief orders review into ‘standards and culture’ in the force

after Wayne Couzens convicted of kidnap, rape & murder

4 Oct, 2021 15:48

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick (FILE PHOTO) © REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

The Metropolitan Police commissioner has ordered a review into her force’s “standards and culture”, after Wayne Couzens was given a whole-life order for kidnap, rape and murder – crimes he committed while a serving police officer.

Speaking on Monday, Cressida Dick refused to resign after Couzens was convicted last week of false arrest, kidnap, rape and murder.

“People are entitled to their opinion, but I’ve got a job to do and I’m getting on with it,” Dick stated, adding that it was her role to restore public trust in London’s police force. She said this would be achieved by “bringing in an independent person to review our standards and culture.”

The “fully transparent” report will review how officers in Britain’s largest force treat each other and engage with members of the public. “Our leadership, our processes, our systems, our people, our training – everything will be looked at,” the commissioner told the media. 

I wonder how they will avoid digging into the Pakistani grooming scandal?

She said the results of the inquiry would be made available directly to her, but any recommendation for changes would be made public.

Is that what you would call "fully transparent"?

Dick admitted that public trust had been damaged by Couzens. “We depend on the trust of the public. We police by consent and I know that public trust has been damaged. People are rightly gravely concerned about what they’ve seen,” she said, adding that the events were “dreadful” and her colleagues were “furious” about the way the force had been dragged into disrepute.

Public trust has been far more damaged by the Pakistani grooming scandal responsible for tens of thousands of rapes, gang rapes, assaults, and general destruction of the lives of young British girls. But this one rape and murder is worth opening a major inquiry. Is this what they call an end-around?

However, the commissioner also contended that there had been vast improvements in the way officers conducted themselves since she first joined the force 40 years ago, particularly with regard to sexist attitudes and behaviour.

Dick was speaking after former firearms officer Couzens was awarded a rare whole-life tariff on Thursday, meaning he will spend the rest of his life behind bars. He was found guilty of falsely arresting, kidnapping, raping and murdering Sarah Everard on March 3. Everard was walking home from a friend’s house in South London when she was abducted by Couzens, who used his police handcuffs on detaining her under false pretences. 

Earlier on Monday, another Met officer, David Carrick, appeared in St Albans Magistrates’ Court, accused of raping a woman he met on the dating app Tinder. The court heard that Carrick – who was from the same unit as Couzens and is currently suspended from duty – “emphatically denies” he attacked the woman after they went out for drinks together. 

The Independent Office for Police Conduct has also opened a probe into five serving and former officers known to Couzens. Alarming messages of a “discriminatory and/or inappropriate nature” shared between Couzens and these officers were uncovered during the Everard investigation.

The commissioner has faced numerous calls to resign in recent months, but has the support of the government. She was due to relinquish her position in April, but her contract has been extended until 2024.

Almost 1,000 UK cops investigated for sharing offensive material

& even explicit photos on social media since 2015 – reports

4 Oct, 2021 14:06

Police officers at New Scotland Yard during a rally for Sarah Everard. March 15, 2021.

© Reuters / Hannah McKay

Nearly a thousand police officers and staffers from several forces across the UK have reportedly been investigated since 2015 after allegedly sharing abusive social media content, including sexist, racist, and homophobic material.

Despite the severity of the alleged offences, the majority – including several senior members – received only disciplinary action, according to an investigation by the Daily Mail. But the paper noted that the actual figure was likely to be far higher, since only 32 of the 44 police forces in England, Wales, and Scotland responded to its Freedom of Information requests.

According to the report, only a small fraction – 53 individuals – of at least 999 police force officers and employees accused by colleagues or members of the public over the past six years are no longer on the job. Nearly three quarters of the allegations were reportedly judged to be serious enough to warrant some type of disciplinary action.

Hundreds were reported for allegedly posting disturbing material on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, while others were accused of sending explicit photos to colleagues, and even sharing sexual content with underage and vulnerable victims.

The Met recorded the highest number of allegations, registering 277 complaints against its personnel, despite only providing the newspaper with data for the past year. The UK’s largest police force has come in for increased scrutiny following the conviction of former Met officer Wayne Couzens for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard.

Chief Constable Craig Guildford, the standards spokesman for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, told the paper that the body was “aware of rare cases” where inappropriate material had been shared, but noted that only a “very small number of staff think this is acceptable.”

The figures come in the wake of revelations that Couzens had exchanged degrading content with colleagues on WhatsApp before he attacked Everard in March. The serving police officers – apparently including three from the Met Police – who shared messages with Couzens are now under criminal investigation.

Former Met Police Detective Superintendent Paige Kimberley recently accused UK Home Secretary Priti Patel and Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick of ignoring her reports about a “vulgar and sexist” WhatsApp group apparently similar to the one used by Couzens.

Kimberly had said the group was “aggressive and inappropriate” and included graphic images which displayed “very misogynistic and sexist” attitudes towards women. She also claimed to have raised her concerns of a “flourishing sexist environment” in the force with Cressida Dick in March.

In July, a total of 12 misconduct or gross-misconduct notices were handed to serving police officers by the Independent Officer for Police Conduct in relation to the investigation on Couzens. Three officers received gross-misconduct notices after sharing an “inappropriate graphic” via social media before manning the cordon on the scene of the search for Everard.

The police watchdog had also issued another notice for gross misconduct and an additional six notices for misconduct to officers who allegedly “breached standards of professional behaviour” by sharing details related to Couzens’ prosecution in private messages.

Meanwhile, a recent investigation by the iNews outlet found that a total of 771 Met Police officers and staff have faced sexual misconduct allegations over the past 11 years. Over the same period, 163 Met officers were apparently arrested for various sexual offences – with 38 convicted in court.

However, the news outlet reported last week that only 83 of the accused officers have been dismissed since 2010 – citing data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, from January 1, 2010 to May 31, 2021. The sexual misconduct allegations reportedly range from sexual harassment to sexual assault, rape, and using a position of power for sexual gain.

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Swedish Justice Ministry Manipulated Crime Statistics – Study

I, and many others, have been complaining about this for years. The government is hiding the reality of gang violence, sexual assaults, gang rapes, and organized crime coming from migrants who were let into the country by the tens of thousands with little or no vetting. The government's stupidity and lack of honesty and responsibility has left Swedish people, especially young girls/women unaware and unprotected. They should be charged with complicity in every rape of a Swedish woman/girl by a migrant.

FILE PHOTO: A police officer investigates the scene of a fatal shooting in Malmo, Sweden

© Reuters / Johan Nilsson

Sweden’s Ministry of Justice pressured the country’s Crime Prevention Council to hide, manipulate, or ignore potentially embarrassing crime statistics, a university study has found.

Sweden’s Crime Prevention Council (Brå) has a difficult task. In a country where media outlets omit police-circulated descriptions of suspects’ ethnicity, and the government actively downplays the surge in gun crime and bombings in its immigrant ghettoes, Brå is charged with compiling factual, accurate crime statistics.

Stockholm was shaken by three explosions in one night last week. But the blasts didn’t even make headlines. With violence rising, the country’s government seems more concerned with downplaying the problem instead of tackling it.

According to a study published by Linköping University this week, the government intervenes here too to downplay “politically sensitive” data.

Employees told the university researchers that their managers – acting on orders from the country’s Justice Ministry – instructed them to manipulate results on “hot potato” issues. Presumably, these results were ones that could embarrass the government, and likely dealt with issues of race or immigration.

One interviewee stated that “methodological deficiencies” was the reason given for the change.

Brå’s own statistics show an upsurge in lethal violence since 2014, particularly among criminals and in disadvantaged and immigrant neighborhoods. They also show a sharp rise in sexual violence, assaults, threats and robbery since 2015, when the country welcomed more than 160,000 refugees and migrants – more per capita than any other European country.

Yet the government would rather these statistics remained hidden. One Brå employee compiling a report on violent crime remarked that the government delayed its publication until after last year’s election, due to its “politically sensitive results.” The report in question was also seen as humiliating, as it directly contradicted an earlier report that used a different method to conclude that violent crime was decreasing.

'A different method' - that would be like 'creative accounting'!

When it was eventually published, the report was allegedly relegated to Brå’s website, and was not printed.

Many interviewees feel that rather the organization’s problems stem from its organization under the Ministry of Justice. Rather than working independently to advise policymakers, they feel that they are working to advance their agendas instead.  

With gang crime and grenade attacks ongoing in Swedish cities, Justice Minister Morgan Johansson was the subject of a no-confidence vote called by the right-wing Sweden Democrats party last month. Johansson survived the motion, but unfiltered crime statistics have fueled Sweden’s opposition. If the Linköping University report is to be taken at face value, his ministry has every reason to stifle crime statistics.

Against this background, a number of Swedish industry leaders have sounded the alarm. Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in July that his company is struggling to attract foreign experts due to crime concerns, while Scania CEO Leif Östling warned in October that Sweden has “taken in far too many people from outside,” and predicted “internal wars” unless the government clamps down on immigration.

Meanwhile, the Sweden Democrats, who push a tough-on-crime, anti-immigration platform, have reached their highest ever level of public support. According to a Statistics Sweden poll published this month, the party scored 22.6 percent, making them the country’s second biggest party.

Study Reveals the Real Perpetrators of Sexual Assault Against Adolescent Girls in Canada

While Canada prides itself on how progressive it is in advancing the rights of LGBTQ2Ss, we are several decades behind many western countries when it comes to protecting our children from sexual abuse. There has been remarkably little research into CSA in Canada as is emphasized by the shock of these researchers at the numbers of abused children. 

While Canadian provinces are having sex education curriculum written up by LGBTQ2S people, and even pedophiles, concerned mainly with the very small number of children who claim to be gay, lesbian or transgender, the 20-30% of girls who suffer child sexual abuse are largely ignored. 

Christy Somos
CTVNews.ca Writer

A girl covers her face with her hand (Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas from Pexels)

“It was alarming for us just how many cases we found

…it is really disturbing,”

TORONTO -- A new study of Canadian sexual assault cases shows that raising the age of consent from 14 to 16 has not led to the prosecution of significant numbers of young men for engaging in sexual relationships with younger teenage girlfriends.

The study, which was published in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, demonstrated that the men accused in sexual offences against adolescent girls in Canada were “on average 19 years older than the complainant, and almost half of the girls reported abuse by a male family member,” according to a press release.

The study argues that data collected dispels the concerns and myths surrounding the “statutory rape myth” around raising the age of consent, which was set at 16 in 2008.

“The statutory rape myth refers to this idea that if we raise the age of consent to 16…then what we are doing is effectively criminalizing otherwise harmless teenage experimentation, so this idea that the criminal law will capture within it young men and teenage girls who are just experimenting with sex in non-abusive and non-coercive relationships,” said study co-author and University of British Columbia law professor Isabel Grant in a telephone interview with CTVNews.ca Thursday.

Grant and fellow study author Janine Benedet examined three years’ worth of Canadian case law involving sexual offences against adolescent girls aged 12 to 17.

“We looked at the cases that were being prosecuted to find out ‘are we targeting young men who fall just outside the close-in-age exceptions?’” Grant said adding that “the concern about raising the age of consent hasn’t really been verified by looking at what’s actually happening [in case law].”

The research sample included 680 written decisions from cases across the country spanning the years 2014 to 2016, and looked at the full range of offences that are commonly charged in cases involving young complainants – including all levels of sexual assault, sexual interference, sexual exploitation and offences that no longer exist but were relevant at the time of prosecution.

Six of the accused in the case data were women; the remaining 99 per cent were men.

The researchers included 12 as the lowest age threshold in their study because it was the youngest for close-in-age exceptions. The eldest age included in the study was 17, as anyone older than that is considered an adult.

WHO ARE THE VICTIMS?

“Adolescent girls face a higher risk of sexual assault than women and girls in any other age group,” Grant said – the study added that “roughly 55 per cent of all victims of sexual assault are under the age of 18 – even though youth under 18 only make up 20 per cent of the population [of Canada].”

Of the 55 per cent of sexual assault victims represented by the under-18 age group, 80 per cent of the complainants are female, the study says.

Adolescent girls who are in some form of “state care” like foster homes, those who have substance use issues and girls who are “prostituted,” are all at higher risk of being sexually assaulted, and Indigenous girls are overrepresented in all of those groups, the study says. Girls with disabilities are also particularly vulnerable to sexual assault.

In the cases examined for their study, Benedet and Grant found that 121 complainants were 12 to 13 years old when they were abused, 200 were between 14 and 15, and 74 were between the ages of 16 and 17. There were eight cases where the ages of the complainants were unknown.

Well over half of the complainants - 62 per cent - in the study reported being sexually assaulted more than once, with 55 per cent reporting three or more assaults.

WHO ARE THE ACCUSED?

Out of all the cases examined, only 26 complainants, or four per cent, alleged they were sexually assaulted by a stranger.

“We have this image of what ‘real’ sexual assault is, and it’s a sexual assault by someone who is grabbed and pulled into the bushes by a stranger,” Grant said. “Overwhelmingly, those are not the cases we saw in these prosecutions – overwhelmingly these girls were reporting being sexually assaulted by someone they knew.”

Forty-six per cent of the complainants in the study’s cases alleged being sexually assaulted by family members – and more than half of those were fathers, including step-fathers and mother’s live-in boyfriends.

Fourteen per cent of the complainants reported being abused by older acquaintances outside of the family, and eight per cent alleged assault by someone other than an ongoing boyfriend they met online; only five per cent of complainants in the study cases alleged sexual assault by someone who was described as a boyfriend.

The average age between the complainant and the accused was 19 years, and when Benedet and Grant removed intra-family cases, including step-family and foster parents, the average age difference between the complainant and the accused was 15.6 years. Only seven per cent of the cases had an accused that was under the age of 18.

It is these findings that “suggests the majority of the cases are not young men just outside the close-in-age exceptions,” the study says. Instead the data suggests that the accused in the study cases were at least twice as old as the complainant if not older.

Number of complainants by relationship to accused

From a study of three years of Canadian case law involving sexual offences against adolescent girls

Number of complainants

Older acquaintance (more than 6 years older)

87

Family friend

57

Peer (within 6 years)

39

Boyfriend

30

Stranger

26

Friend's father

25

Unknown

23

Parent

Stepfather/mother's boyfriend

104

Biological father

54

Foster father

7

Mother

4

Adoptive father

3

Other family

Uncle

60

Brother (including foster/step/half)

24

Grandfather/grandmother's spouse

19

Cousin

13

Other relative

4

Other adult in position of trust/exploitative relationship

Teacher/school employee

12

Coach/activity leader

10

Religious leader

9

Pimp

8

Doctor/healthcare worker

7

Employer

7

Drug supplier

2

Other

2

Chart: UBC Media Relations  Source: The 'Statutory Rape' Myth: A Case Law Study of Sexual Assaults against Adolescent Girls  Get the data  Created with Datawrapper

WHAT WERE THE OUTCOMES?

Out of the cases examined for the study, Benedet and Grant found that 27 per cent of the accused pleaded guilty to at least one charge of a sexual offence, 51 per cent were convicted of all charges at trial and an additional five per cent were convicted of some charges at trial.

Seventeen per cent of the accused were acquitted absolutely.

“We found it interesting that conviction rates were higher when the accused was a stranger,” Grand said, adding that conviction rates were lowest when the accused was a family friend or a boyfriend.

Conviction rates were also highest when the complainant was under 12 years-old when the alleged sexual abuse began, the study said.

On average, fathers received sentences of five years, while step-fathers received four point seven years. Accused outside of the family – like friends fathers, peers, boyfriends received two to three years – with a distinction for adults in a position of trust like coaches and teachers, receiving an average sentence between three to four years.

These sentences are so pathetic! Sexually abused children are still children when their abuser/rapist gets out of jail. That should never happen if the courts had any concern whatsoever for the victims.

Grant said that it was important to understand the limitations of their study and that the 625 girls in the cases used as data “represent just the top of the iceberg in terms of complaints of sexual assault” in the three-year period.

“We don’t look at the incidents of these offences [happening] in the community, we don’t have that data,” Grant said “But if we’re seeing this many cases that go through to verdict in three years, how many cases are actually going on in Canada?”

“It was alarming for us just how many cases we found…it is really disturbing,” Grant said.

It is, as you wrote, the tip of the iceberg, only a small percentage of CSA result in charges and a smaller percentage result in convictions.

Other statistics reveal that between one-in-five, and one-in-three Canadian girls are sexually abused before they turn 18. Probably 1 in 5 in most areas of Canada, but more like 1 in 3 for poorer areas, for indigenous girls, and special needs girls.

Using an average of 1 in 4 girls being sexually abused in their first 18 years, that would work out to about 50,000 sexual abused every year. So, as you can see, most never get reported.