Man Guilty of Having Child Sex Abuse Images Escapes Jail Term

Belfast Crown Courts, Northern Ireland

Belfast News Letter
A young Co Antrim man who had over a thousand images of child sex abuse escaped a jail term on Thursday to save him coming under the malevolent and manipulative influence of more dangerous and serious sex offenders.

Belfast Recorder Judge David McFarland told 23-year-old Daniel George Clarke that three years of intense probation supervision and work courses would ultimately best serve and safeguard both him and society.

Clarke, from Coronation Road in Carrick, who was also put on the Sex Offenders’ Register and made subject to a five-year Sex Offenders’ Prevention Order, pleaded guilty to 23 charges of downloading the images, and one of distributing some of them in 2013.

Belfast Crown Court heard that following a police search of his home in November 2013, Clarke readily admitted looking for the images and sharing them with others on an internet chat site.

A defence lawyer said while a remorseful Clarke knew it was both wrong and illegal, he went looking for more images after they were “burnt into his brain” when he initially “stumbled” upon them on the internet. The lawyer added that given his frank admissions, his was a “somewhat exceptional case”.

Judge McFarland said that downloading images of child sex abuse was not a victimless crime, and while the youngsters were unknown to Clarke and police, they were individuals subjected to the most appalling abuse and lives of physical degradation.

Judge David McFarland
Addressing Law Society

“These are not just pictures, they are actual people,” he added.

Judge McFarland said it was accepted Clarke’s guilty pleas were based on genuine remorse and that there were many positive aspects to his life, notwithstanding his serious offending.

The Crown Court judge added, while on one view the custody threshold had been passed, he had to consider the impact of such a sentence, as in Clarke’s case it would be a minimal jail term of between two to three months.

Judge McFarland said this would be served in the prison’s sex offenders’ secure unit where Clarke would be exposed to the more dangerous elements of sex offending. Spending even two months in their presence and under their malevolent and manipulative influence would not result in a positive outcome either for Clarke or ultimately society.

He added that he preferred the suggested alternative contained in the pre-sentence report, advocating an intense period of supervision by probation during which time Clarke would undertake any course work they deemed necessary.

Judge McFarland said this would be a benefit both to Clarke and society.

Oddly enough, I agree with Judge McFarland. The young man's honesty and sincerity may be enough to turn him around, with significant help. What I am appalled at is that the minimum sentence would have been 2-3 months. I'm not sure 2-3 years would be adequate, even for a first time offender, to protect vulnerable children used in the making of these sickening videos.

Cupid Ain't No Angel

Sex offender plays cupid for female American inmates

CBC's iTeam originally contacted Rodney Barras to do a story about his pen pal website for female American convicts, but details about his sexual abuse of children emerged, which shifted the focus of the story.

Geoff Leo
iTeam Investigative Journalist

A Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada man with a history of sexually abusing children says he's been running a dating site for female American inmates to bring joy and love to their lives.

But the mother of an alleged victim of sexual assault, who can't be named because of a publication ban, said Rodney Barras is a "predator" who she believes has other motives. 

"I feel that it's a ruse for him to find a back door to get to find a woman that needs help, because she's down on her luck and has children," said the mother, whom we'll refer to as CP.

Rodney Barras started a dating site for lonely American women in prisons,
however he pulled down the website once CBC started asking questions
about his record of sexual abuse against children (CBC)

For just over a year, Barras has been running Babes-Behind-Bars.com out of the basement where he lives in a residential neighbourhood.

The site contains photos of women serving time in prisons across the U.S. It includes details the inmates have provided, such as their crimes, former professions, religion, measurements and how many children they have.

Barras said he doesn't just run the site. He also regularly writes to five or six women that he finds attractive, though he said he has no romantic intentions.

Then why does he only write to the 'attractive' ones?

He said he's just trying to help. "An act of love if you will. It sounds kind of corny, but it is actually true," Barras said.

Babes-Behind-Bars.com catches on

Rodney Barras said he receives about 300 handwritten letters from female
American convicts a week hoping to have their profiles posted to
Babes-Behind-Bars.com. (CBC)

He said at first he received up to 100 handwritten letters from inmates every week, with photos and personal information. But that quickly grew to more than 300.

He doesn't charge for the service. And he said he has invested thousands of dollars to reach out to these women desperate for attention.

Some of those prisoners have been released, and he continues to keep in touch with them.

"When they are released I am like their little safety net," Barras said. "They want to make sure that they have my phone number and my Facebook page."

Babes-behind-bars.com was taken off line after CBC's iTeam started asking Rodney Barras questions about his criminal record.

This profile picture and the personal details have been taken from that website

Mother of alleged victim says Barras a 'predator'

This story is eerily familiar to CP, who said Barras also moved into her life at a time of need, and almost destroyed it.

"Knowing all I know now, he's quite the predator," she told CBC's iTeam.

Back in the mid-'90s, CP was a single mother of two. She was approached by her landlord and asked if she would be willing to rent out a room to Barras.

She said he seemed like "the perfect roommate."

He lived with her for a few months and became a good friend of the family. "He was kind. He didn't drink. He didn't do dope.. He didn't swear. I thought, 'OK, cool.'"

"Like he'd help me with heavy things, go to the store."

She said Rodney also regularly looked after her nine-year-old boy and would sometimes take him for ice cream.

Boy makes troubling allegations

All seemed to be going well until one day her son delivered some troubling news. "He more or less told me that Rodney touched him with his privates," CP said.

She reported the matter to social services, which brought in police.

Following an investigation, Barras was charged with three counts of sexual interference, three counts of sexual assault and one count of invitation to sexual touching. 

Barras went to trial and on Dec. 12, 1995, he was acquitted on all charges. 

CP said she has no doubt her son was telling the truth, but she said the little boy had a learning disability and was a poor communicator.

For some sick, degenerate predators, the more vulnerable the child, the better.

Despite the verdict, CP is convinced that Barras is a danger to children. And his criminal record appears to bear that out.

Barras has a history of abusing children

Rodney Barras spent six months in a Florida prison in 1993 after he pleaded
'nolo contendere' to lewd and lascivious conduct related
to a little girl. (Pinellas County Sheriff's Office)

Barras has been convicted of sex charges against children in both Canada and the U.S. Toronto police have confirmed that he's still listed as a potential sex offender in their database.

In 1993, he was found guilty of lewd and lascivious conduct related to one little girl in Florida. 

Then in 1994, he was convicted of sexually assaulting another girl under 14 years old in Ontario.

In addition, he was charged and acquitted of sexual assault charges relating to two little boys, CP's son in 1995 and another child in 2006.

In his ruling on the 2006 case, Judge Brian Trafford said the little boy's testimony did not rise to the level of beyond a reasonable doubt.

However, he also pointed out that "the court has not found [the boy's] testimony is false in its material particulars. He may be a truthful and reliable witness."

In addition to these charges, Barras was found to have breached court ordered conditions to stay away from children or places where they frequent on three occasions.

Barras says this is a case of mistaken identity

When the iTeam's Geoff Leo showed Rodney Barras his name and birthday
matched a Florida document that said he was guilty of lewd and lascivious
 conduct in front of a little girl, he flatly denied he was the same person. (CBC)

When CBC's iTeam asked Barras about his record of sexual offences against children, he argued we had the wrong man.

"A sexual charge against a child. No, absolutely not," Barras said.

When it was pointed out to him that he shared the same first, middle and last name and birthdate with the person convicted of all those sex charges, he continued his denial. 

"It is a coincidence. It's wild," Barras said.

But he suggested a simple test to help clear up the confusion. "Get the mug shot," he suggested.

"That'll solve your mystery right there. I guarantee you won't see my picture [because] I've never been in prison."

CBC obtained a mug shot of Barras from the Florida prison system. Barras has aged and put on weight but the photo shows the same facial markings in the same locations on his face and neck.

In an email to CBC, he responded, "If this is the direction the story is going to take, I'm not interested. I thought it would be about the website."

A few hours later, Babes-Behind-Bars.com was wiped from the internet.

Compare the mug shot with how Barras looks today

Geoff Leo has been a reporter for CBC News in Saskatchewan since 2001. His work has won numerous awards.

Sometimes I Think the Death Penalty Would Be Too Good for Some

Sandusky appeals again

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky argued in a new appeal Wednesday that pretrial publicity, leaks and unprepared defense lawyers are among the reasons a judge should throw out his child sexual abuse conviction.

Sandusky says the criminal proceedings violated his constitutional rights, prosecutors engaged in misconduct and his attorneys were ineffective during his 2012 trial and an earlier round of appeals.

"The commonwealth's entire case was a house of cards resting on testimony that trial counsel should have exposed as incompetent, unreliable and inadmissible," wrote his new lawyer, Al Lindsay.

He says Sandusky's right to a fair trial was "crushed under a stampede of vitriol, rage and prejudice" that warrants a new trial and ultimately the dismissal of charges.

State prosecutors said they are reviewing the petition and plan to respond.

Sandusky, 71, was convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys, some on campus, and is serving a decades-long prison sentence. He has maintained his innocence, acknowledging he showered with boys but saying he didn't abuse them.

Evil is alive and well in Tulsa

A Tulsa, Oklahoma man charged with sexually abusing a girl over a four-year period from the time she was 3 pleaded guilty Monday and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The four counts of child sexual abuse filed against Jimmy Earnest Hill, 58, alleged that he sodomized the girl, performed other sex acts on her and forced her to perform other sex acts on him.

Prosecutors charged Hill in March, and the initial filing against him shows a date range for the crimes from 2010 to July 2014, during which time the victim would have been 3 to 7 years old.

Second Tulsa Pervert

A Haitian native who worked as a security guard at a Tulsa high school before his arrest was found guilty on five counts of child sexual abuse against a female relative Wednesday.

A jury convicted Yvon Demesmin, 43, after one day of testimony and less than an hour of deliberation. Jurors recommended two life sentences on counts involving intercourse and three 25-year sentences on the remaining counts involving various other sex acts.

Demesmin asserted at the time of his arrest that he was unaware of the criminal nature of his actions and that the relationship would have been acceptable in his native country, a point on which the defense relied at trial.

“We’re not in Haiti; we’re in America,” Assistant District Attorney Andrea Brown argued, telling the jury not to fall for his defense.

“The defendant most certainly did” know of the wrongfulness of his actions and treated his victim as “his sexual pin cushion for seven months,” she said.

Furthermore, a prosecution witness in the case who is also Haitian testified that the country does not condone sex with children.

Public defender Chuck Sullivan painted Demesmin as someone who was easily manipulated by Tulsa police detectives into making a statement.

“The question is: ‘Should Yvon have known better?’” he said in his closing argument.

The jury began deliberating around 3:15 p.m. and submitted its verdict to District Judge William LaFortune shortly after 4.

Formal sentencing is scheduled for June 19.

They're in Kansas too

An Overland Park man accused last month of molesting two of his students at a Shawnee music store now is charged with sexually abusing two more children.

Sean Andrew Dow, who had been free on bond in the case filed last month, was arrested on the new charges Tuesday night.

He now faces four counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child for alleged incidents that occurred while he taught music lessons at Funky Munky Music, 12710 Shawnee Mission Parkway.

A spokesman for the store said last month that the store “immediately ended” its relationship with Dow when the allegations came to light.

The new charges, filed Tuesday in Johnson County District Court, involve children younger than 14. The incidents of “lewd fondling or touching” allegedly occurred between March 2014 and earlier this year. According to court documents, one victim was about 8 years old and the other was 4 or 5.

The charges filed in April involved girls who were 11 and 12, according to court documents.

Both involved allegations of inappropriate touching. Dow also allegedly asked the 11-year-old for a pair of her underwear, according to the documents.

Bond in the new case was set at $100,000.

Dow, 28, appeared in court on the new charges Wednesday afternoon. A judge denied a request to modify bond.

Child Pornography Bust - 17 Countries - 41 arrests - 19 Rescued

Ontario, Canada's York Regional Police say Project Hydra led to arrests around the world, numerous victims ID’d

York Regional Police Insp. Tim Kelly, left, and OPP Det. Staff Sgt. Frank
Goldschmidt briefed the media on Project Hydra. (Charlsie Agro/CBC)

CBC News Posted: May 06, 2015 

One warrant executed at a Toronto-area home led to an international child pornography investigation that eventually netted 41 arrests and rescued 19 child victims, York Regional Police say.

York's Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) section, which worked with investigators from the RCMP, FBI and others, said more than 100 charges have been laid in connection with its investigation, dubbed Project Hydra. 

There were 10 arrests made in the Greater Toronto Area, with 26 charges laid. Suspects have also been arrested in 16 other countries thanks to the investigation. Project Hydra also led the RCMP to launch a parallel investigation in New Brunswick, details of which were also released today.

Insp. Tim Kelly called the yearlong investigation "a true success story," but warned police are always playing catch-up when it comes to tracking down online predators.

Project Hydra began in April 2014 after the National Child Exploitation Co-ordination Centre told York police that child pornography was being uploaded to the internet from a computer in its jurisdiction.

Kelly said police went looking for a suspect, but instead found a young victim — he didn't disclose the victim's age or gender — who was being coerced into uploading self-exploitative images to the web.

Police found the images had been uploaded, via cloud storage, to a previously unknown "social networking application" that was being used by people around the world to trade child pornography.

Investigators said they'd seen images of victims ranging in age from infancy to teenage years.

The 19 male and female child victims identified and rescued as part of Project Hydra are aged nine to 15.

As the investigation grew, York police worked with the RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, as well as Interpol.

Kelly said York police sent out 356 information packages to police agencies around the world with information that could be used to make arrests. Suspects were identified in the U.K., Australia and South America.

Connecting the dots. Charged and potential offenders, Project Hydra

Matthew Stentz, the attaché for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations Office in Canada, said the information turned up by York police led to around 100 more investigations in the U.S.

"We will leave no stone unturned," Stentz said.

Ontario Provincial Police Det. Staff Sgt. Frank Goldschmidt said his force sent forensic technicians to assist with the investigation. He called the crimes revealed by Project Hydra "monstrous."

"Every child has the right to be nurtured and the right to be safe," Goldschmidt said.

Police also took the opportunity to warn parents to be vigilant in speaking with their children about the dangers of sharing images online and to report any suspicions immediately.

Congratulations Project Hydra. Well done. You are my heroes today.

Rape Victim (14) Arrested and Raped Repeatedly by Police

And other horror stories

Not even being mostly invisible can save you from being raped in Somalia

Mogadishu, Somalia (AFP) - After 14-year-old Fatima was raped by a tuk-tuk driver, she was arrested, detained for a month and raped repeatedly by a police officer, according to the child and her aunt.

Sexual violence is widespread in Somalia and rarely prosecuted. If anyone is punished at all it is often the victim, not the perpetrator.

"We are fighting to change that attitude of blaming the victims," said Fartuun Adan, who runs the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre in the Somali capital Mogadishu, where survivors of sexual violence can find refuge, medical care and support.

"There must be consequences for men who rape," she said, but instead those who report rape are frequently arrested themselves.

When it comes to rape cases in the socially conservative Horn of Africa nation, blaming the victim is the norm -- and there have been no consequences for Fatima's uniformed attackers.

A slight girl no more than five feet (150 centimetres) tall, she lives in one of the squalid camps for the uprooted that dot the city. The UN children's agency UNICEF says young women and girls in the camps are "systematically preyed upon", frequently by armed personnel.

Last year the advocacy group Human Rights Watch accused some members of the 22,000 African Union force in Somalia of rape and sexual exploitation.

When not attending the Islamic madrassa that substitutes for school, Fatima (not her real name) and her aunt would make and sell sweets.

One slow day she got in a motorised rickshaw or tuk-tuk with a plan to try selling her sweets in another part of town, but the driver took her to a quiet spot and raped her instead.

Hearing the commotion, police arrested both the girl and her attacker. Soon afterwards the man was released and Fatima was accused of being a prostitute. "The police arrested me, they blamed me," she said, her voice a whisper.

Fatima's aunt spent a month seeking her release. The officers would joke when she visited, telling her they were training Fatima to work for them as a cleaner. Fatima had become uncharacteristically taciturn, telling her aunt to abandon her, to "consider her already dead".

Fatima's aunt said she reported what was happening to the authorities.

"They said I shouldn't talk like that and must leave," she said. Fatima was released after the Elman Centre intervened but she was traumatised by the experience and still faces the threat of a court appearance for prostitution.

"She used to be full of life and joy," said Fatima's aunt. "She's not the same person anymore."

Fatima, 14, who was arrested after reporting a rape,
pictured at the Elman Centre in Mogadishu (AFP)

"If you can't go to the police without fear, where can you go?" asks Adan.

An answer to that question is found in the Elman Centre in Mogadishu, which Adan runs with her daughter Ilwad Elman.

It includes a 15-bed safe house for victims of rape and a host of other forms of sexual violence and abuse, including the near-universal female genital mutilation -- the cutting off of the clitoris -- and widespread forced and early marriage.

Among the current residents of the safe house is 18-year old Marian (not her real name), who was forced to marry an old man.

"The decision came from my father. I had no choice," she said.

Nor did she have any choice when it came to sex with her new husband, which was never consensual. Mariam said her husband used to beat her and she ran away repeatedly. But each time she fled home her father would send her back to her husband.

In the end she "became hopeless" and attempted suicide by setting herself on fire while at her father's house. Neighbours extinguished the flames, leaving her with a web of weeping sores on her arm and across her chest.

Despite the prevalence of sexual violence, as well as the stigma and shame that frequently follows, Adan said she has seen some modest improvement in recent years.

"Rape is not getting less, but people are talking about it," she said.

"The government, the family, the clan, none of them want to talk about it," said Adan. "But women are coming out to speak."

"When we started talking about rape in 2010 no one was saying anything. Now it's accepted there is a problem so we're in the second phase: how do you fix it?"

Somalia's draft constitution includes provisions for new laws on rape, sexual violence and female genital mutilation, and sets the minimum age for marriage at 18. But political progress is slow, and the legislation is yet to be passed.

Like much else that is broken in Somalia, the causes of the pervasive rape can be found in the decades of anarchic conflict that began in 1991 and continues in some parts of the country today.

"Sexual violence is another legacy of the war in Somalia," Adan said.

God help the girls in this story recover. See that their abusers are punished, and this absurd, evil concept of blaming girls for being raped comes to a quick end. Amen?

South Yorkshire Police Circle the Wagons But It Backfires

Anger as child sex abuse debate in Rotherham 

with EDL founder is cancelled

By Dominic Gover
Int'l Business Times 
May 6, 2015 16:19 BST

A public debate featuring English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson was scotched in Rotherham because the scandal-hit council and police feared criticism over child sex abuse, organisers have claimed.

Robinson was due to debate with a Muslim youth group in the town on the issue of child sex abuse and the Muslim community, last week.

But at the last minute, two venues pulled out of hosting the event, after being visited by representatives from South Yorkshire Police and Rotherham borough council.

The pressure brought to bear on the Hilton hotel and a second venue came after both had initially welcomed the event on their premises. The sudden change of heart left organisers fuming.

Both the police and council told IBTimes UK there were concerns about the impact upon security of a potential large crowd turning up for the event, adding the decision to cancel was the hotels' themselves.

Yeah, Right! I believe that, don't you?

Robinson sparked controversy this week by unveiling a plan to host a 'Draw Mohammed' contest, after a similar event in the United States was targeted by gunmen.

The police would have been much better off having allowed the debate. Now they have a real security nightmare on their hands.

According to the founder of British Muslim Youth (BMY), the authorities "scared" venues into withdrawing from the event, out of a self-serving desire to silence criticism about a notorious child sex scandal, earlier this year.

Muslims are saying this! That's wild!

It sparked outrage in Britain after it was revealed 1,400 vulnerable girls were molested by a paedophile gang -- mainly comprising Muslim men -- while authorities in the South Yorkshire town looked the other way.

Muhbeen Hussain of BMY said: "We need to have these difficult conversations. It was the police and council who blamed their failures [over the scandal] on not wanting to be called racists, which was a lie. They arrest other criminals who follow Islam, but they [tried to] cover their tracks behind political correctness [on child sex abuse].

Efforts were made to liaise with the authorities, insisted Hussain, who claimed this was not reciprocated in turn.

"We received an email for this hotel saying they wanted to back out from the agreement because of the advice they had received from Rotherham Borough council and South Yorkshire Police.

"We weren't made aware by the police or the council. We could have changed the venue, but they didn't want to get in touch. This is because they didn't want it to happen, that's why they went behind our backs. They didn't have the decency to contact us."

A police spokesman said: "Officers liaised with the venue and following that consultation, the hotel made the decision not to host the event.

"The decision whether to hold events is a choice for the venue concerned and not a police decision."

A Rotherham council spokesman said the authority had met with organisers at BMY about hosting the event.

"The Council had spoken with a hotel about a proposed event due to take place at the venue, organised by a representative of the British Muslim Youth organisation. Following the discussion with the Council and South Yorkshire Police, the hotel made the decision not to host the event – ultimately it is their choice to go ahead or not. It is not a decision for the council."

Ultimately, that is true! But what we don't know is what they said to the venue operators to turn them against hosting the debate. There certainly was some small risk of violence erupting from within or without the debate, and it may even have been proper for the police to warn them of that possibility. However, the optics are pretty bad, even to the Muslim Youth it looks like the police and Council are protecting themselves from further criticism.

While there was a small risk of violence, there was also a possibility of some genuine communication and even healing. That possibility is now gone with Robinson's decision to hold a 'draw Mohammed' event. A decision that may well have been provoked by the police/council intervention. Now, lives are at risk and the rift in the community will just get wider and wider. 

To Make a 10-year-old Give Birth Isn't Just Horrifying – It's Life Threatening

Jessica Valenti
The Guardian

A child raped by her stepfather in Paraguay is being 

denied an abortion, despite the high risks involved 

in carrying the pregnancy to term

 A child raped by her stepfather risks being violated all over again.
Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAPIMAGE

Would anyone in their right mind think it reasonable that a 10-year-old carry a pregnancy to term? This is not a thought experiment but the horrible story of a real child in Paraguay: raped by her stepfather and now denied an abortion.

According to Amnesty International - which is leading the charge to obtain an abortion for the child - the young girl’s condition became public when she went to the hospital complaining of stomach pain and was found to be 21 weeks pregnant.

“The physical and psychological impact of forcing this young girl to continue with an unwanted pregnancy is tantamount to torture”, Guadalupe Marengo, Americas Deputy Director at Amnesty International said in a statement. (In fact, the United Nations has declared lack of access to abortion at any age a form of torture.)

Paraguay has very strict laws on abortion – the procedure is only permitted when a person’s life is at risk. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.

Antonio Barrios, the Health Minister of Paraguay, said: “there is no indication that the health of the [girl] is at risk ... therefore we are not, from any point of view, in favor of the termination of the pregnancy”.

Jessica Valenti

There are so many levels of horror here it’s hard to know where to begin but this, perhaps, is the most baffling: in what universe is a 10-year-old delivering a child not a risk to her life?

Childbirth is a risky enterprise for a healthy grown woman – a woman of reproductive age in Paraguay for example, has a one in 310 chance of dying from from complications from labor. For a child, the risks are exponentially worse.

Children’s bodies are not meant to give birth. Dr Dalia Brahmi, the Director of Clinical Affairs at Ipas told me: “It is cruel to force a 10-year-old girl to carry her pregnancy to term”.

Dr Brahmi, who once worked at the World Health Organization in the Department of Reproductive Health and Research, told me: “very young adolescents [under 15 years old] have a high risk of eclampsia, infection, preterm birth and intrauterine growth restriction” compared to adult women.

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you may remember many such cases where 'child'brides' suffered from child-birth, some for the rest of their lives and some by losing their lives.

The dangers are clear – and it takes a whole lot of magical thinking or straight up denial to think otherwise. Pregnancy for a child risks not only her emotional and mental health, but her physical health and possibly even her life.

Paraguay’s decision to remain the course has nothing to do with the actual risk to the child involved, but is all about their adherence to an antiquated, tortuous law that would rather see a child’s life at risk than admit their anti-abortion policies are too strict.

If those who would see this young girl give birth are truly pro-life, whose life are they concerned about? Because it’s certainly not the ten-year-old at the center of this story who is being forced to carry her rapist’s baby to term.

This anonymous young girl - this child - has already been violated by a member of her family. Must she be violated by her country as well?

I think her step-father should have an abortion and have his prostate removed.

I don't have the answer to this ethical/spiritual dilemma. As a Christian, I am concerned about what abortion says to God. Although I often wonder if a pre-born infant going straight to Heaven is such a horrible thing compared to the risk and suffering of a child like this. 

Neil Bantleman Appeals Jakarta Child Sex Abuse Verdict

Lawyers for Canadian teacher held in Indonesia 

filed appeal April 29

Canadian teacher Neil Bantleman formally appealed his child sex abuse
conviction and 10-year sentence this week.

Lawyers for Neil Bantleman filed a formal appeal on Wednesday after the Canadian teacher was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Indonesia on child sex assault convictions. He continues to deny the allegations which he and his family say have been fabricated.

The case raised questions about the Indonesian legal system, and Bantleman's lawyers are urging the country's high court to overturn the conviction. They also plan to file an appeal for Ferdinant Tjiong, a teaching assistant who is convicted on the same charges.

An Indonesian court found Bantleman and Tjiong guilty of child rape charges in early April and sentenced the pair to a decade behind bars.

Bantleman, a Burlington, Ont., native, also taught in Calgary. He has been in custody in Jakarta since July 2014.

Lawyers for Bantleman and Tjiong have long complained about the process the case went through, referring to evidence they said should have been included in the process that wasn't, as well as strict time limits placed on their witnesses.

They said the allegations by three children who alleged repeated rape at the Jakarta Intercultural School (formerly Jakarta International School) were conjured up to pursue a civil lawsuit against the school to the tune of $125 million US.

This is what I have been saying all along, that it was all about money. It's a disgraceful exhibition of third-world 'justice'. If the Supreme Court has any dignity at all, they will quickly dismiss all charges against Bantleman and Tjiong, and award them damages and legal fees.

Jakarta International School

The JIS has about 2,400 students aged three to 18. Many of them are children of diplomats and other foreigners living in the country.

Bantleman's wife Tracy told CBC Hamilton in April her husband is teaching English to other inmates, keeping fit and reading profusely — the last book he finished was the biography of Nelson Mandela. Mandela spent 27 years in South African jails.

In a separate but related case, five janitors who worked at the school also received guilty sentences for the alleged rape of a kindergartner. They are serving up to eight years in prison.

Mother Never Gave Up on Her Child Abused by the Oxford Child Sex Ring

A not untypical story of a young girl who was horribly abused by Pakistani Muslims

When Lara fell victim to the notorious Oxford child sex ring, her mother tried
everything to save her. Now, the two tell Nick Harding how they're trying
to put the past behind them

NICK HARDING
The Independent

To the neighbours in the quiet cul-de-sac where they live, Elizabeth McDonnell, 64, and her daughter Lara, 22, are just two women getting on with their lives.

Lara, a mother-of-two, works as a carer in a nursing home. Elizabeth is a retired high-flyer who headed national charities. Both are single and both are devoted to the two young children in their household, Noah, six, and Olivia, six months. They are friendly and warm but do not make a habit of talking about the past.

Elizabeth and Lara are not their real names. When they arrived four years ago in the small south-west market town they now call home, they were fleeing a nightmare.

Lara was a victim of an infamous child sex trafficking ring based in Oxford. In 2013, seven members were jailed for a total of 95 years. She was one of six brave girls who gave evidence against their abusers. She was groomed from the age of 12 and for five years endured unimaginable physical, sexual and psychological abuse. Elizabeth frantically tried to save her and raise the authorities from an apathetic slumber, the type of which allowed similar gangs in Rochdale, Rotherham and other parts of the country to exploit young, vulnerable girls with impunity.

Lara was born to alcoholic parents. Her mother was a drug addict and a prostitute, her father was a sadistic alcoholic. Along with her four siblings, she was taken into care aged four. For the following six years, she tumbled through the care system, where she was sexually abused. Elizabeth adopted her when she was 10 and already deeply disturbed.

Elizabeth picked Lara from a book that was distributed to prospective adoptive parents by an adoption charity. "Like an Argos catalogue for children," she explains.

Elizabeth was never made aware of the full extent of Lara's early problems. "I was taken through the sorts of issues a child might have and asked if I could cope with things like learning disabilities, physical disabilities, and behavioural problems. The one area I wasn't sure about, because I didn't know anything about it, was victims of sexual abuse. But that was the one thing they didn't make me aware of," she says.

Elizabeth lived in a Victorian town house in Oxford near the river. Her Oxford was the city of dreaming spires. Her social circle included academics and professionals. Deeply insecure, Lara struggled to settle. "I remember feeling that I had come into a happy home and I was going to mess it up. All Mum's friends and family were very different people to where I had come from and I was never going to fit in," she says.

The seven members of the child sex trafficking ring:(Top row from left)
Akhtar Dogar, Anjum Dogar, Kamar Jamil; (Bottom row from left)
Assad Hussain, Bassam Karrar,  Mohammed Karrar and Zeeshan Ahmed

As she progressed to secondary school, her behaviour worsened. She stayed out late, ran away from home and became violent. But instead of getting support and understanding, she was excluded from school. Elizabeth tried to get help and advice from Oxford social services.

"They refused and said it was not their problem as Lara did not come from Oxford," she explains. "I was saying very early on that I felt she needed therapeutic support to process what had happened to her. But social services didn't entertain it and felt she was just badly behaved. I was told she was a young person making choices, and although she was making the wrong sort of choices, she should be supported to make those choices regardless."

At 12, Lara came to the attention of a local drug dealer, Mohammed Karrar. He ran a crack den in a run-down part of Oxford. Manipulative and well versed in child grooming, he befriended Lara and she began to spend increasing amounts of time with him and his associates in the Cowley Road area of the city.

"At the time, I was very naive, mixed up and confused about who the right sort of people to associate with were, especially men," Lara explains. "I was bored of being me. I wanted something different. Mohammed was initially charming and that's what I responded to."

Over the following months, Karrar carefully gained Lara's trust, feigning sympathy when she told him about her troubled childhood. "He found out everything he could about me and used it to manipulate me. He knew I was impressionable and he pretended he cared," she says.

Karrar gave his victim with alcopops and cigarettes and encouraged her to run away from home. Eventually, he encouraged her to take crack cocaine and began feeding her drugs. Soon after, he forced her to have sex with two men, demanding the act as payment for the drugs he had plied her with. He continued to feed her addiction, sold her to men around the country, beat her and threatened her and her family if she didn't do as he commanded.

In one incident when she was 14, Lara was imprisoned for eight hours in a guest house on a main road in Oxford and violently raped by Karrar's brother Bassam. Police were called by another guest, who heard her screams through the walls. Despite having witnesses and DNA evidence, it was decided not to pursue a prosecution when Lara declined to testify after being coerced by the gang.

"People say, 'Why didn't you walk away?' and I ask myself that question every day. But I was out of my depth and terrified," she explains.

Lara was reported missing around 100 times. Elizabeth drove all over the country to rescue her daughter. Each time, she returned home distressed and often injured.

"Lara would allow me to be protective for short periods, and then the call of the wild came, some pull that was inaudible to me, and off she would go," Elizabeth explains. "In the early days, I tried to physically stop her leaving, but I couldn't, and the police advised me not to because one or both of us would get hurt.

"It became normal life. All I could do was stay as sane and calm as I could and be there to pick up the pieces, or go and find her and bring her home. If she was gone for more than a day, I waited for the police to come and tell me they'd found her body. The thing that kept us both going was the fact that we had lots of good times in amongst it all, particularly when we weren't in Oxford. That was the real us."

Lara agrees: "I would consider the effect it was having on Mum and cry. When I was away, I knew I needed to get home, to get to her. It must have been horrific for her. I was never running from her. I was running away to protect our little family because the gang told me if I didn't do what they wanted they would kill her."

Lara eventually escaped the gang when, on the eve of her 18th birthday, she asked to move away. By that time, she'd had her son, the product of a relationship with an older man unrelated to the gang.

Two years after fleeing, Lara was approached by officers from Thames Valley Police who had been investigating a number of linked sex crimes against young girls in the town. She agreed to give a statement and eventually gave evidence at the trial. Elizabeth was also a witness.

Elizabeth says: "The judge handed down all these life sentences and in a terribly matter-of-fact voice summed up this catalogue of depravity – a lot of which can't be reported because of how terrible it is. I sat there. I knew it was bad but I hadn't heard all that. There were people in the room with tears pouring down their faces. It took everyone's breath away. Suddenly, the sense of triumph I had when the sentences were read out went, and all that was left was an absolute sense of horror at what had happened."

Today, mother and daughter deal with the past in different ways. Both have written books about their experiences. Elizabeth is a vocal critic of the failing systems that allowed the Oxford gang and others around the UK to execute such well-organised abuse.

Lara has been diagnosed with clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and wants to put the past behind her. The one thing they both have in common, however, is an unshakeable mother-and-daughter bond.

"She was a single mum to a 10-year-old adoptive child with issues and went through all that and she's still here. She's amazing," Lara smiles.

"There was never an option to give up on her," Elizabeth says. "She is my daughter and I love her."

'Girl for Sale' by Lara McDonnell (£6.99, Ebury Press) is out now

New Sex-ed Program Upsets Parents

MPP Monte McNaughton speaks to people who gathered at Queen's Park, Toronto, on April 14 to protest the proposed new sex-education curriculum that the Liberal government has brought forward. A group of Ontario parents is threatening to pull their kids out of school in protest of the change. (Mike Crawley/CBC)

A group of Ontario parents is threatening to pull their kids out of school this week, in protest of the province's new sex-education curriculum.

A Facebook group called "Parents & Students on strike: one week no school" is encouraging parents who oppose the 2015 sex-ed curriculum to keep their kids at home.

The group also offers a letter template for parents to give to their children's respective schools, which states the curriculum contains "age-inappropriate" content that does not align with the "principles and beliefs" of families.

Sex-ed curriculum changes protested by thousands at Queen's Park

Toronto District School Board spokeswoman Shari Schwartz-Maltz said it's difficult to determine how many families will participate in the protest, because in some cases parents have downloaded the letters and handed them in ahead of time, but in other cases it's been done verbally "so the numbers are next to impossible to know" until midday on Monday.

"Everybody that's not in school will be marked absent and teaching and learning continues. So if you are not present in class, we're following the same policies we do in any other case," said Schwartz-Maltz. "Children/families are responsible for the work missed."

The templated letter also states that parents believe it is their responsibility to teach these values to their children, in addition to having complete control over when the topic is first introduced.

"We live in a democracy and people are permitted to protest and voice their opinions and this is clearly the way some parents feel is the best way to express their opinions," Schwartz-Maltz said.


Close to 10,000 people have liked the Facebook page "Parents & Students on strike: one week no school" as of Sunday night. (Facebook)

"We'll have to see what the numbers are. A lot of people say they're going to do it, we'll see what happens. We're prepared in the sense that all of our people know about it."

Janet McDougald, chair of the Peel District School Board, said she thinks a "fair number" of parents will pull their children out of school for at least the first day of the week in the culturally diverse region.

Thousands protested the new sex-ed curriculum, which was previously updated in 1998, on the lawn of the legislature last month and many said they came from communities within Peel Region. But McDougald says there's a lot of misinformation being intentionally circulated about the curriculum.

Parents & Students on strike: one week no school
Close to 10,000 people liked the Facebook page "Parents & Students on strike:
one week no school" as of Sunday night. (Facebook)

Curriculum changes
Under the changes, Grade 3 students will learn about same-sex relationships, kids in Grades 4 and up will learn more about the dangers of online bullying, while the perils of sexting will come in Grade 7.

Lessons about puberty will move from Grade 5 to Grade 4, while masturbation and "gender expression" are mentioned in the Grade 6 curriculum. Anal sex is part of the Grade 7 curriculum, in the context of choosing to abstain from or delay certain activities in order to avoid sexually transmitted infections.

Some opponents of the curriculum say it's not age-appropriate, others insist children should not be taught about same-sex relationships and different gender identities, while still others wrote on the Facebook group that the curriculum is full of "deviant sexual practices" and amounts to "child abuse."

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne
is an admitted lesbian

Premier Kathleen Wynne met privately last week with a group of parents who demanded she withdraw the curriculum. She said it will take effect in September as planned.

'Wedge issue' in upcoming election
Even though education is a provincial jurisdiction, Wynne said she has been warned that the curriculum could be used against the federal Liberals in the upcoming election campaign.

"I have been told that this is something that could be used as a wedge issue," she said recently in Ottawa. "I think that we just need to be aware of that and we need to all be armed with the facts."

The changes to the curriculum were announced in February by Education Minister Liz Sandals. For a time, in the early and late 2000s Professor Dr. Benjamin Levin, was deputy Education minister. Levin is an extremely qualified man, but, unfortunately, a man who is currently awaiting trial on child pornography and child sex abuse charges. Levin, was deputy minister of education in Manitoba and Ontario and a member of Premier Kathleen Wynne's transition team. 

Professor Levin

Part of the problem in Ontario is that people just don't trust this extremely liberal Liberal government. The Premier is a well-known lesbian, and many believe that Professor Levin was involved in the early stages of the recent changes to the sex education program. Toronto is a pretty liberal city, but I'm not sure they are that liberal. Rural Ontario tends to be less liberal.