Results matching “child abuse”

United Kingdom: It came as no surprise that, while the Prattle was down, a number of interesting news stories would come to light, and that others would run and run. In particular, some religious organisations continue to be upset that same-sex couples have the right to be considered as adoptive parents, and will soon have to receive equal treatment in the provision of goods and services.

One church, in particular, is desperate for the right to be bigoted, even though their own members, and people perceived to be descended from members of that church, have been, and still are, on the receiving end of discrimination. Needless to say, the church which pretends to be so concerned about children is the same one that has a long-standing problem with pædophile clergy, and a history of covering up the child abuse committed by their priests (Prattles passim, ad nauseam).

So, what honourable tactics are being used by the men of God?

Australia: One of the recent Exclusive Brethren [Prattle archive] court battles has wound up with the Tasmanian Family Court granting access rights to the excommunicated father, which will no doubt be ignored by the cult. Interestingly enough, the judge bowed to cult lunacy and insisted that the father keep his children isolated and ignorant of reality while they're in his custody.

An excommunicated member of the Exclusive Brethren sect has been ordered by the Family Court not to expose his children to television, radio or non-members of the church in a landmark decision granting him access rights.

Despite finding Exclusive Brethren members and the mother had been abusive in denying the father access visits after the Tasmanian couple's 2003 separation, his bid for full custody was denied because it would be too traumatic for the children to be removed from the secretive Christian sect.

Australia: Christmas is generally the season when Christian religions put on a good front in the hope that they'll keep the seasonal church-goers beyond the holiday. Not so the Exclusive Brethren, who aside from becoming Prattle regulars, have shown their Christmas spirit with an exciting display of corruption, child abuse and paedophilia.

Brethren schools seem to have the enviable ability to tap parents for extremely large sums of money, even in small country towns.

Former principals, teachers and students of the Brethren schools agree the sect is able to raise millions of dollars a year from parents at concerts and auctions, called fun days. The most recent fun day in Sydney is said to have taken $1.3 million from the city's Brethren members, many of whom run successful businesses. Raising $500,000 is commonplace ... It makes a huge amount of money, she [former Brethren member, Janie] said. Even in a little country town they could get $80,000 on a Saturday, and they probably do it three to four times a year.

England: The Leeds diocese of the Roman Catholic Church has been accused of covering up child sex abuse by a priest.

In 1987, Father David Crowley was permanently banned from working as a priest in the diocese and sent for counselling after he encouraged sexual activity among boys and gave them alcohol. The then Bishop of Leeds, Rt Rev David Konstant, did not report the incident to the police, and the story proceeded in the traditional manner:

Within a few months Konstant helped Crowley to find a new post in Devon. He was made to sign a contract to restrict his contact with young people, but went on to abuse in Torquay and Barnstaple. Even though concerns were raised about his continued contact with young boys in the south of England, he was allowed to return to Yorkshire - despite Konstant's earlier pledge that he would never again work as a priest in the diocese of Leeds - and entered into another period of sexual abuse.

Paul (not his real name) was among Crowley's victims when the priest returned to Yorkshire. He was raped by Crowley as a 10-year-old altar boy. Over four years from 1991, Paul was subject to frequent sexual abuse by the priest who got other boys to perform sex acts on him. 'He wouldn't care what was happening,' Paul said. 'Even if there was a funeral taking place or a wedding, he would wait for his opportunity. Sometimes he would be very aggressive, pushing me down on the floor and assaulting me.'

Paul says he was traumatised at the time and it took him till 2004 to report the abuse. By this time, Crowley was in prison, serving an nine-year sentence for a string of sexual assaults on boys, and he admitted raping Paul. This time, the police decided another trial would not be in the public interest, so Paul decided to sue the diocese. Despite the circumstances of Crowley's move from Devon back to Yorkshire, the church is claiming that they knew nothing at the time and that their actions were appropriate.

And it seems that this is not the first time the diocese has been involved in covering up sexual abuse:

This is not the first time the diocese has been involved in a sex abuse scandal. Earlier this year, The Observer reported how it had covered up the criminal past of paedophile priest, Neil Gallanagh, and gave him a job in a school for deaf children, where he went on to sexually assault vulnerable young boys.

As Crowley was sentenced to nine years imprisonment in 1997, he will be free by now, even if he served the full sentence. I wonder in which diocese he's working.

Catholic church in new sex abuse row—The Observer, 17th December 2006.

Australia: It takes about a day to get between Prattle Towers Northern Hemisphere in Edinburgh, and Prattle Towers Southern Hemisphere near Sydney, so you have to wonder why the news that Satanic Ritual Abuse was a pernicious myth appears not to have made the journey to Australia yet.

Reina Michaelson , a psychologist, believes that the O.T.O. hosts parties where children are sexually abused, sacrificed and eaten, and published an article to that effect. But Victoria has laws against religious vilification, and they apply to all religious groups, so the O.T.O. sued.

It has complained under Victoria's religious hatred law that Dr Michaelson and her organisation vilified OTO members, causing revulsion, ridicule, hatred and contempt.

According to OTO's statement of complaint, Dr Michaelson said it was not a religion but a child pornography and pedophile ring, that its members practised trauma-based mind control, sexual abuse and satanic rituals to discourage its victims from complaining to the authorities, and that it condoned kidnapping street children and babies and children from orphanages for sex and sacrifice in religious rituals.

Much effort has been made to present Michaelson as a respectable proponent of children's rights, and she has insisted the article concerned was posted to the web without her knowledge or consent. But Red Wolf has been digging...

Scotland: A woman at the centre of ritual abuse allegations on the Isle of Lewis has told the police that she was not telling the truth. Angela Stretton, 39, who has learning difficulties, said that she had been pressurised into making false allegations during a long series of interviews with police and social workers.

I had lots of meetings with police and social workers. They kept questioning me about different people. It was a different person every day. They had a list of names, including my mum and brother. They said things about taking photos and killing animals and drinking their blood, she said.

At first I said no, they wouldn't do that. But they kept on and on at me. They said I had to tell the truth for the children. I felt really under pressure, so I suppose I told them what they wanted to hear. I just agreed with what was being said.

Stretton also has a history of making hoax calls, but this did not stop the police using here as their star witness to bring rape and child abuse charges against eight people, including a 75-year-old woman.

The similarities to the earlier Orkney case are so surprising it makes you wonder if police and social services on the Isle of Lewis had actually read Lord Clyde's enquiry report. Both cases centred around families where abuse was taking place, of the sadly common sort within the family. But whereas in Orkney, the social workers were much too enthusiastic to take children into care, the Lewis ones seemed reluctant to do so, even though the children were clearly in immediate danger of continuing abuse. They and the police were more interested in uncovering an island-wide satantic abuse ring than the welfare of children.

In Orkney, the main source of evidence was a child from the family where abuse had taken place, who was badly disturbed and awaiting an appointment with a child psychologist. The social workers believed every outrageous claim she made, except when she told them she was making it all up.

Yet the Orkney events happened while the abuser of the children was in prison, having been convicted. In this case, the real child abuser is likely to have got away with their crimes because of the police and social workers' determination to chase after fantasies.

Satanic abuse key witness says: I lied—The Observer, 24th September 2006. See also: Satan-obsessed social workers probed—Pagan Prattle, 15th July 2004; This is important—Pagan Prattle, 11th July 2004.

England: A former adviser to the Bishop of Oxford has pleaded guilty to posessing and making child pornography, though he insists the material found its way onto his computer by accident.

The pictures were found by detectives from the Hi-Tech Crime Unit, who raided his home in June last year. Most had been downloaded on the same day in June.

The unit had been tipped off by the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, which discovered [The Rev Richard Thomas] Thomas's IP address - the unique address allocated to every machine connected to the internet - among a list of those using a chat page to download pornography.

Thomas, the former director of communication for the Oxford diocese, has previously pleaded not guilty to 17 charges of making indecent photographs and three of possession but yesterday at Oxford crown court he changed his plea to guilty to 10 counts of making child pornography and two of possessing it.

The remaining seven charges of making the indecent photographs and one of possessing them will lie on the file.

Thomas said afterwards that he had developed an addiction to adult pornography and the child images had been downloaded inadvertently.

He said that since experts had been unable to prove either way whether the images had been deliberately downloaded, it was the responsible thing to do to plead guilty.

Thomas' name might be familiar to some Prattle readers, as part of his job involves liaison with minority faiths, including speaking at a Pagan Federation event. This role has generated some controversy and suspicion about his motives, some suggesting that evangelism is the sole reason he would act in a friendly manner towards such people. This was before the Church of England thought of bribing people to come to church instead. To his credit, he has not suggested in his defence that he thought that Neopagans abused children and that he was researching the matter.

Bishop's ex-adviser faces jail after downloading child images—The Guardian, 9th September 2006.

United Kingdom: Someone at the Hackney Gazette is confused. They've got out the box labelled Magnetic Poetry: Bog-standard stereotypes, but they can't quite make them up into the article they want. What is a hack to do? Write it anyway, regardless of the facts, perhaps? After all, that's what the Newham Recorder did.

KIDS at risk from black magic rituals are to receive their own Hackney Town Hall officer dedicated to their protection.

Hackney Council is recruiting a community partnership officer to work with faith and community organisations across the borough as part of a new government drive...

...Three people were jailed as a result and a specialist police team was set up to combat child abuse linked to African witchcraft.

That should scare the readers. But look closely, the story is really about children who are abused, not by practitioners of magic, but by people who think the kids are witches. Not that you'd be able to tell that from the report.

Ritual protection—Hackney Gazette, 11th September 2006; See also Making Connections—Pagan Prattle, 4th September 2006.

United Kingdom: Private Eye has noticed some interesting goings on—attempts to connect 'Adam', the torso of a Black boy found in the Thames and the abuse of children believed to be possessed or witches, with the Satanic abuse myth. What's more, a familiar name has popped up: that of Valerie Sinason, who makes a living convincing screwed up women that their problems are caused by ritual abuse, of which they have no memory.

All of this coincides with a lot of publicity surrounding a government report, Child Abuse Linked to Accusations of “Possession” and “Witchcraft” (originally released in June this year), which found the phenomenon to be more widespread that you might think, not restricted to Evangelical churches serving recent African immigrants:

The belief in “possession” and “witchcraft” is widespread. The UK is not alone in seeing cases of this nature; cases have been reported worldwide. The children discussed in this report came from a variety of backgrounds including African, South Asian and European.

Bartholemew has analysed the article in depth, and SAFF has reproduced it on their web site (it's not on the Private Eye site, alas), so I will quote just a single paragraph, which sums it all up nicely:

The abusers involved (mainly carers rather than parents) were predominantly evangelical Christians—but they also included Muslims—who all believed in possession by evil spirits and exorcism. They were categorically not—and in fact were quite the opposite of—Satanists sexually abusing and sacrificing children during black magic rituals. The researchers received no evidence or even anecdotal reports of child sacrifice. They did identify a real and deeply unpleasant problem of child abuse by adults acting in the name of religion. Meanwhile the case of Adam remains unsolved. Maybe the murder involved some form of horrific ritual. Maybe the child was mutilated to disguise his identity—as has happened in rare cases elsewhere. But the simple answer, despite the attempts to use the case to defend a more general belief in satanic abuse, is that no one knows.

Satanic Abuse, Ritual Killings, and Exorcism: Private Eye Explores the Claims—Bartholomew's notes on religion, 2nd September 2006; Satanic Panic—Private Eye (republished by SAFF with notes and additional links), 1st September 2006; Stobart, Elinor, 2006, Child Abuse Linked to Accusations of “Possession” and “Witchcraft” [PDF]. Department for Education and Skills Research Report No. 750, London.

See also: Fanning the flames—Pagan Prattle, 29th June 2005; Media in moral panic shocker!—Pagan Prattle, 26th June 2005; Old myth, even older clothes—Pagan Prattle, 11th June 2005.

England: Newham Council in London is looking for a child protection officer specifically to work with cases of abused children who are believed to be posessed or witches. The council acknowledges that the number of cases is miniscule, and it's amusing the way they try and avoid mentioning that it's mostly associated with a tiny minority of evangelical Christian churches who exploit African communities in Britain. The local newspaper, on the other hand, seems to have gone out of its way to suggest that it's about witches abusing children, with phrases like witch-hunter and dedicated to rooting out child abuse linked with 'possession' and 'witchcraft'. Obviously the article was being written last night when the journalist ought to have been watching BBC2.

'The witch-hunter' - Officer to root out child abuse—Newham Recorder, 23rd August 2006. See also Media in moral panic shocker!—Pagan Prattle, 26th June 2005.

Scotland: Several of the children snatched from their homes by social workers convinced they were the victims of a vast Satanic conspiracy have spoken out about their experiences. Nine children were taken from their homes in South Ronaldsay, Orkney, in 1991. Now adults, they are critical of their treatment by social workers who were determined to make the children support their preconceptions.

But one of the W family, May, has said the questioning presupposed the answer; that there was abuse taking place.

She said: Eventually you would break down, after an hour or so of saying: 'no, this never happened. I don't remember it. I don't even know what you are talking about'.

I can't imagine how I got out of the room if I didn't say 'yes', but I don't remember saying 'yes' to anything.

Another victim, Alex, told the BBC about how the social workers became desperate to get the result they wanted, refusing to take no for an answer.

But at lease one of the social workers involved cannot see what she did wrong, insisting that of course both the children and their families would say that nothing happened.

A documentary, Accused: the story of the Orkney Child Abuse scandal will be shown on BBC2 Scotland tonight at 9pm.

Orkney abuse children speak out—BBC News, 22nd August 2006. See also Family might sue over Satan lies—Pagan Prattle, 6th March 2004, for a similar criticism from the children abducted by social workers in Rochdale in 1990.

Ireland: Damien at Blather reports on a rather familiar looking case in the Republic of Ireland. The difference is that this story broke about a year ago, and not in 1988.

For several weeks last year, the Irish media indulged itself in a feeding frenzy of tabloid-like hysteria surounding the gruesome story of 'Niamh' (now identified as Cynthia Owen) who claimed that she had been the victim of abuse by an organised cabal of child-molesters which resulted in her becoming pregnant (note the classic 'brood-mare' motif) whilst still a child herself - all of which was faciliated by her parents. She then claimed to have watched as her new-born infant was stabbed to death with a knitting needle.

In the wake of the July bombings in London, the story dropped off the radar, the last we heard being that an excavation (looking for the remains of an infant) in a Dublin garden, revealed nothing. But, one year later, the story is back.

The article goes into considerable detail, as well as containing some of the finest ranting.

The Return of the Dalkey Baby—Blather, 17th June 2006.

Nigeria: Today's religious spam is interesting in that it asks me to support a dodgy Christian cult who now operate under another name. The bizarre language is fascinating too (It has defiled all forms of medical treatment), and it includes a classic trick found in many examples of this kind of scam—repeating the amount of money involved in block capitals.

From: Harry Hakeem <harry79hakeemqirr@netscape.net>

Dear Friend.

Good day and God bless you. I feel quite safe and satisfy dealing with you in this charity project.Though, this medium (Internet) has been greatly abused, I choose to reach you through it because it still remains the fastest, surest and most secured medium of communication. However, this correspondence is purely private, and it should be treated as such.

As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday. My name is MR.HARRY HAKEEM, a merchant in Dubai, in the U.A.E. I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer . It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a few months to live, according to medical experts.

I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone(not even myself)but my business. Though I am very rich, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.

I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it. Now that God has called me, I have willed and given most of my property and assets to my immediate and extended family members as well as a few close friends.

I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul so, I have decided to give alms to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in the U.A.E, Algeria and Malaysia. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore. I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and Pakistan, they refused and kept the money to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them.

The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS $12,000,000,that I have with a finance/Security Company abroad. I will want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatched it to charity organizations.

I have set aside 25% for you and for your time if you want to help me to collect this Funds and also invest this money.

N.B-PLEASE I WILL ADVICE YOU TO GIVE THE LAWYER IN CHARGE A CALL IN HOLLAND IMMEDIATELY, HE DOES EVERYTHING ON MY BEHALF AND HE'S VERY UNDERSTANDING AND I BELIEVE HE WILL LEAD YOU TO YOUR SUCCESS IN JESUS NAME AMEN.

Name: BARRISTER.RICHARD GORDON
Tel number: 0031630655043
Email: richardgordon79@netscape.net

Remain blessed in the name of the Lord.

Yours in Christ,

Mr.Harry Hakeem