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10 May 2006
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Help for Adult Victims Of Child Abuse.
A non-profit making organisation based in the UK dedicated to provide help,
support and information to any adult who is suffering from past childhood abuse.
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HAVOCA NEWS
06 October 2005 21:12
A collection of stories from our National Newspapers. These articles do
not necessarily reflect the views of HAVOCA.
Use the link at the bottom right of the page to come straight back to the top of
this page.
Sentence on paedophile infuriates
families
By Nigel Bunyan
(Filed: 05/11/2003)
A judge provoked uproar yesterday by granting a child abuser his freedom and describing him to his
victims as "a thoroughly broken man".
George Boothroyd's two victims waited more 13 years to see him brought to justice at Liverpool
Crown Court.
They had expected to see him sent to prison but broke down in tears as Judge Denis Clark sentenced
the father-of-two to a three-year community rehabilitation order.
The sentence means Boothroyd is likely to be freed
next week after spending 12 months on remand.
Read more here. |
Jackson
to be arrested over child sex claims
By Oliver Poole in Los Angeles
(Filed: 20/11/2003)
An arrest warrant was
issued last night against the singer Michael Jackson on allegations
of multiple child sex assaults.
The police inquiry is
understood to have begun after a 12-year-old boy alleged that the
45-year-old singer had "interfered" with him.
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| Local
district attorney Tom Sneddon at a press conference |
The authorities were
negotiating with Jackson's lawyers about the terms of his surrender.
Bail has been set at £1.8 million and Jackson will have to give up
his passport.
If convicted he faces
up to eight years in jail for the first count with a potential two
extra years for each subsequent charge. Tom Sneddon, the local
district attorney who is leading the case, said details had been
passed to the local child welfare agency. He said the agency would
consider appropriate action to protect the singer's three children
who live with him at his Neverland Ranch 110 miles north of Los
Angeles.
Read more here |
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Child
protection organisations have expressed outrage over
the five-year sentence imposed on a 43-year-old man
who raped a 13-month-old baby girl and photographed
himself in the vile act. James
Taylor, from Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, who is a
father of three children aged 15, 13 and 11, pleaded
guilty to the attack.
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"He
should have got life. Five years in
prison is an absolute joke" -
Childline spokeswoman Natasha
Findlayson |
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He
also admitted to lewd and libidinous behaviour
towards a six-year-old girl and to possessing
indecent images of children. The
offences were committed between August 1998 and
December last year at Taylor's home in Grangemouth,
Stirlingshire, the court heard.
Taylor
was caught during a Metropolitan Police probe into
child pornography distributors on the internet. His
home computer had 2,280 indecent images of children.
On
passing sentence, the judge, Lord Reed, said he had
accepted psychologist Gary McPherson's assessment
that Taylor was full of shame and remorse and is
unlikely to re-offend. Child
protection agencies have slammed the sentence.
Childline spokeswoman
Natasha Finlayson said: "He should have got
life. Five years in prison is an absolute joke.
"There
is no doubt he will be a serious danger to children
when he is released. And what does it say to the
children who have suffered? "They
will live with the emotional scars for a lifetime,
how will they feel to know that their suffering was
only worth five years?" Scotland's
most senior legal officer, Lord Advocate Colin Boyd
QC, has asked for a report into whether the sentence
is "unduly lenient". Kidscape's
Megan Bruns said: "Sex crimes against any
children are a horrible and terrible thing.
"But
on a child as young as 13 months, who trusts and
depends on adults totally, they are an abhorrent
violation. "Research
had shown nearly 70 per cent of paedophiles have up
to ten victims, while 30 per cent re-offend up to
450 times." A
Crown Office spokesman said: "The Lord Advocate
has asked for a report on this case to consider
whether the Crown should appeal on the grounds that
an unduly lenient sentence has been imposed. "Crown
counsel will receive that report in due
course." Scottish
National Party shadow justice minister Nicola
Sturgeon said: "In this gut wrenchingly
appalling case, most people will be perplexed at the
leniency of the sentence.
"I
hope that the Crown will appeal against this short
sentence in order to issue a stricter punishment
that is more appropriate."
Add
your name to the petition to have this sentence
increased by following this link.
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Doctor
'led girl to believe she was sex abuse victim'
By Richard Alleyne
(Filed: 02/09/2003)
A child psychiatrist yesterday became one of the first British
doctors to be accused of serious professional misconduct for leading
a teenager into believing she had been sexually abused as a child.
A tribunal heard that John Eastgate, a consultant working mainly
with adolescents, used counselling sessions to "lead" a
"vulnerable and angry" 13-year-old girl into believing she
had been indecently assaulted by a fellow doctor.
He was also alleged to have contacted police and social services
about the abuse without properly investigating whether the charges
could possibly be true.
Read more here |
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| John Eastgate |
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| Det Sgt Andy Ryden |
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Oh,
my God, what am I looking at?'
(Filed: 31/08/2003)
Every day Scotland Yard's paedophile unit
deals with images of the most harrowing nature. Now the specialist
officers may have their length of service cut to 'ease the
pressure'. Andrew Alderson talks to them
Andy Ryden is a burly 6ft-tall Lancastrian
whose loud, cheerful demeanour gives no clues as to the job that he
has carried out for the past seven years.
There are also few hints regarding
the nature of his work at his fifth-floor office in central London.
It is neat with only a white table lamp, two wooden paper trays, a
printer and a grey laptop computer on his desktop.
Read More here. |
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Paedophile
unit staff 'must stay'
By Matt Born
(Filed: 26/08/2003)
Plans to limit
the number of years that officers work in Scotland Yard's
anti-paedophile unit should be abandoned because it would
deprive the squad of vital experience, one of its former
bosses said yesterday.
The
Metropolitan Police intends to restrict the length of time
officers serve with the unit because of concern at the
potential psychological impact that the work has on them.
Read more here |
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Tories
pile pressure on Hodge over abuse case
By George Jones, Political Editor
(Filed: 04/07/2003)
Margaret Hodge's role
as Minister for Children was looking vulnerable yesterday as No
10 and the Speaker of the Commons were forced to come to her aid.
Conservative MPs
launched a barrage of criticism after it was disclosed that the
publication of a consultation document on child protection - the
Government's response to the death
of Victoria Climbié - had been postponed.
Downing Street
confirmed that the Green Paper had been put off until September, but
denied that this was linked to the criticism of Mrs
Hodge's appointment because of her handling of a child abuse
scandal when leader of Islington council in 1990.
Read more here |
Livingstone
attacks minister in child row
By Benedict Brogan
(Filed: 09/07/2003)
Ken Livingstone, the
London mayor, added his voice yesterday to those
questioning Margaret Hodge's fitness to be minister for children
because of her involvement in the Islington child abuse scandal.
She had been
"fundamentally wrong" in the way she handled the issue
when she was leader of the north London council more than a decade
ago, he claimed.
His intervention
coincided with her first major speech since being given
the new children portfolio by Tony Blair in last month's Cabinet
reshuffle.
Read more here |
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360,000
children 'being damaged by parents' addiction'
By Celia Hall, Medical Editor
(Filed: 06/06/2003)
More than a third of a million
British children are suffering physical or mental damage as a result of
living in homes where at least one of their parents has a serious drug
addiction, according to a report.
The Advisory Council on the
Misuse of Drugs estimates that about two per cent of all children under the
age of 16 in England and Wales are scarred by their parents' drug habits and
more than twice that percentage in Scotland.
Read more here
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Paedophile
posed as teenager to trap girls
By David Sapsted and Sean O'Neill
(Filed: 07/06/2003)
A child abuser who groomed two
teenage girls for sex through internet chatrooms was given a three-year jail
sentence yesterday after exploiting a loophole in the law.
Michael Wheeler waited until
his victims passed their 13th birthdays before having sex with them -
knowing that his sentence would be dramatically less than if he had
assaulted them before that age.
Read more here
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Convicted
vicar escaped scrutiny
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
(Filed: 31/05/2003)
A Church of England vicar has
been removed from a parish after it emerged that he had been convicted of
child abuse 30 years ago. The Rev Michael Walter had been assisting at St
Luke's church in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, until Easter, when it was
discovered that he had served a 15-month sentence for the offence when he
was a vicar in Hull.
Questions were being asked last
night about how the 67-year-old priest could have escaped scrutiny despite
the Church's child protection policies.
Read more here.
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Governor-general
finally gives in to resignation calls
By Barbie Dutter in Sydney
(Filed: 26/05/2003)
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| The Queen is
accompanied by Peter Hollingworth on a state visit to Brisbane,
Australia |
The Australian
governor-general, Peter Hollingworth, announced his resignation yesterday,
ending a turbulent 23-month tenure dominated by accusations of a child abuse
cover-up and rape.
Dr Hollingworth finally
succumbed to prolonged
public and political pressure to stand down over his alleged failure to
act against paedophiles when he was an Anglican archbishop in the 1990s.
The Queen's representative in
Australia had
already stepped aside to allow an unrelated rape allegation to be
resolved. The claim was
dismissed by a court last week.
Yesterday, after attending
church and consulting close advisers, Dr Hollingworth issued a six-paragraph
statement reluctantly admitting that his capacity to carry out properly his
vice-regal duties had been damaged beyond repair.
Read more here
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Paedophiles
to be housed in network of hostels
By David Bamber and Jessica Berry
(Filed: 18/05/2003)
The government has drawn up
plans to create a network of hostels for paedophiles and other sex offenders
in cities across Britain.
Confidential Home Office
documents, seen by The Telegraph, propose converting 10 existing bail
hostels into centres exclusively for sex offenders. Ministers do not intend
to alert the local populations, although the centres are in urban areas and
many near schools.
At least one hostel each in
Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle will be converted, along with two in
London.
Read
more here
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Pete Townshend admits to
paying for child porn over the internet
By Daniel Foggo and David Bamber
(Filed: 12/01/2003)
Pete Townshend, the rock musician, last night
admitted visiting child pornography sites on the internet but
insisted: "I'm no paedophile."
Mr Townshend's statement came after a newspaper
article yesterday claimed that an unnamed "legendary rock
star" was on a list of 7,000 names supplied to British police
by United States authorities investigating child abuse websites.
Read more here |
Matthew Kelly arrested over
abuse of boys
By Michael Paterson and Graham Tibbetts
(Filed: 16/01/2003)
The television presenter Matthew Kelly was arrested
yesterday in an investigation into the abuse of teenage boys.
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| Matthew
Kelly |
Kelly, host of Stars in Their Eyes, was held in
Birmingham as he prepared to go on stage as Captain Hook in the
pantomime Peter Pan. He was taken to a police station in Surrey and
held overnight. Kelly, 52, is married with two children.
Tam Paton, who managed the Bay City Rollers, was
also held in Edinburgh "in connection with historic allegations
of sexual abuse against boys". The arrests are not connected to
the FBI-led Operation Ore into child pornography.
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Texas
trail that ended with child porn arrests in Britain
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Janice
Reedy |
(Filed: 19/01/2003)
An American couple grew rich
on the misery of children until a tip-off on a post box number
shattered the anonymity of the internet. Julian Coman in Fort Worth
talks to the team who caught them
Postal inspectors at the Jack
D Watson Post Office in Forth Worth, Texas, spend most of their days
investigating credit card fraud, the theft of parcels and other
abuses of the US mail system. Early in 1999, however, a very
different kind of case came along.
The tip-off that would eventually lead to the
arrest of Pete Townshend, the guitarist with The Who, came from
an acquaintance of Bob Adams, a postal inspector.
Read more here |
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Cardinal
admits to abuse case mistakes
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
(Filed: 06/12/2002)
Cardinal Cormac
Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales,
dismissed calls
for his resignation last night over claims that he failed to act against
paedophile priests.
Click here to read more.
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'Who
can I call?' The diary of a woman who heard Ainlee's sobs
By Adam Lusher
(Filed: 22/12/2002)
The handwriting is shaky, the letters faint, the desperation all too
obvious.
"I am writing this at
about 6.30am," Gwen Veale, 54, recorded. "I'm still getting upset,
tears. The noises have already started upstairs. Who do I phone? In the past
- nothing - the buck passes round. Help!"
To Read more click here
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Swimming
chiefs investigate 20 claims of abuse
By Simon Hart
(Filed: 01/09/2002)
British swimming authorities
are investigating 20 cases of alleged child abuse by coaches, including two
of sexual abuse, The Telegraph can reveal.
The inquiries are part of a
crackdown on abuse within the sport, which has been shaken by highly-publicised
cases of sexual offences by coaches against young swimmers.
Police are now investigating
the two allegations of sexual abuse. The other inquiries centre on claims of
bullying or intimidation and are being handled by the Amateur Swimming
Association.
Read more here
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