Everyday thousands of children are being sexually abused. You can stop the abuse of at least one child by simply praying. You can possibly stop the abuse of thousands of children by forwarding the link in First Time Visitor? by email, Twitter or Facebook to every Christian you know. Save a child or lots of children!!!! Do Something, please!

3:15 PM prayer in brief:
Pray for God to stop 1 child from being molested today.
Pray for God to stop 1 child molestation happening now.
Pray for God to rescue 1 child from sexual slavery.
Pray for God to save 1 girl from genital circumcision.
Pray for God to stop 1 girl from becoming a child-bride.
If you have the faith pray for 100 children rather than one.
Give Thanks. There is more to this prayer here

Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour

Monday 31 March 2014

Former Penn State President Graham Spanier Wants Case Halted

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Former Penn State president Graham Spanier filed a federal lawsuit Monday that seeks to put an end to his state court prosecution for an alleged criminal cover-up of child sex abuse complaints about former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

Spanier's lawyers filed a complaint in federal court in Harrisburg that said his case was undertaken in bad faith and that it violates his constitutional right to due process of law.

A spokesman for the defendant, Attorney General Kathleen Kane, said the office was reviewing the lawsuit but had no immediate comment.
Spanier with Coach Paterno

Spanier awaits trial in Dauphin County court in Harrisburg, along with two of his former employees at Penn State: retired vice president Gary Schultz and retired athletic director Tim Curley.

In that case, all three defendants are waiting for a decision by the trial judge regarding claims that their right to legal representation was violated by the actions of former Penn State general counsel Cynthia Baldwin.

Baldwin's actions, and decisions by Frank Fina, a former state prosecutor, figured prominently in the 15-page complaint for injunctive relief filed by Spanier, who faces charges of perjury, obstruction, failure to report suspected child abuse, conspiracy and endangering the welfare of children.

Spanier's lawyers argued that when Fina subpoenaed Spanier to appear before a grand jury, Fina "had no evidentiary basis to believe that Spanier was criminally culpable or that Spanier had information that would further the investigation."

That's what you call a technicality, folks. It's like the police searching your home and finding a ton of crack cocaine. If they didn't have a warrant, the evidence is inadmissible in a court of law. Note that Spanier is not professing his innocence, only that his rights were violated. So were the many victims of Jerry Sandusky and he did nothing to stop it. I expect he will get off.

Fina did not respond to a voicemail left seeking comment on Monday.

The Incredible Wealth of Sydney’s Catholic Church but so Little for Sex Abuse Victims

THE Catholic Church’s Sydney Archdiocese controls an incredible $1.238 billion in funds — most of it tax free.

In case you are wondering if some Catholic dioceses were going bankrupt from paying the victims of their many pedophile priests, I believe some are, but not Sydney, Australia. That archdiocese is handling the hundreds of claims of child sex abuse in Catholic institutions with what amounts to little more than petty cash.

It was the first time the wealth of the church has been revealed as the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse delved into its finances and examined the church’s response to victims.
Church funds Source: DailyTelegraph
The archdiocese’s cash reserves are $321 million and the church has been making a profit of up to $43 million a year through investments since 2001.

But the commission has been told that, instead of settling former altar boy John Ellis’s sexual abuse claim for the $100,000 he asked for, it offered him just $30,000 and then spent $1.5 million fighting him in court. Most claims are settled for between $50,000 and $70,000.

The money maze was unveiled as the archdiocese’s business manager, Danny Casey, gave evidence to the commission yesterday.

The funds are ultimately controlled by the archbishop, who since 2001 has been Cardinal George Pell.
Danny Casey
Cardinal Pell

Since then, the church had increased its net asset base by 86 per cent from $103 million to $193 million, the commission was told.

No wonder the Pope wants Pell in charge of the Vatican's finances.

In the same time, just $5.5 million has been paid to victims of sexual abuse by church clerics.

“The state of those funds is such that it would be possible for the church to spend significantly greater moneys in assisting people who have been abused than it has spent so far,” commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said.

Mr Casey: “Yes your honour, there is always an opportunity to redirect existing expenditure.”

The diocese’s wealth has remained a secret to anyone outside a few within the church hierarchy because it is generally not required to file its affairs with any outside agency such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Mr Casey said that the church’s funds were income tax exempt and capital gains tax free as charities, although it was liable to pay stamp duty on some transactions.

He said that, as at the end of last year, the archdiocese had $810 million in the Catholic Development Fund, which he said operated as an “internal treasury” for the archdiocese.

That included the $321 million cash reserves.

The Procuration Fund, with gross assets of $426 million, is used to fund sexual abuse claims that are settled.

The Sustentation Fund of $1.7 million pays for the upkeep of St Mary’s Cathedral and looks after sick and retired clergy.

Mr Casey said he believed that the $30,000 the Catholic Church offered to Mr Ellis was entirely and completely inadequate.

141 Pedophiles Reported to Police by Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse

ALMOST 150 paedophiles have been reported to police by Australia's Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse as it investigates 13 ­institutions and more than 30 victims have come forward.

The commission has been so overwhelmed with reports of sexual abuse that it will be impossible to look into all of them, commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said yesterday.

There are 168 institutions, including orphanages and residential schools, where five or more victims have spoken to the commission. It said 62 per cent of complaints involved abuse in a religious ­institution, most of them Catholic.

“Although the royal commission has been given significant resources they could never be sufficient to allow the examination of more than a relatively small selection of the institutions in which we are aware there have been problems,” Justice McClellan said. “I am sorry many people will be disappointed their particular institution and their own story will not be publicly examined.”
Sup't Frank Valentine allegedly assaulted kids at the Parramatta Girls home
The commission has referred 141 matters to police throughout Australia, including the former Superintendent of Parramatta Girls Training School, Frank Valentine, who was accused of raping a girl, 13, in the school’s “dungeon” in the early 1970s. He vehemently denies the claims.

Justice McClellan said he had spoken to federal Attorney-General George Brandis about extending the commission beyond its schedule 2015 wrap-up date. 

Royal Commissions are very expensive. Canada's RC into Residential Schools cost $60 million over five years. Nevertheless, let's pray that more funding is made available so that more healing can be accomplished.

Sunday 30 March 2014

4 Years of Hearings Finish Documenting the Sordid Legacy of Residential Schools

The commission delving into the sordid legacy of Canada's Indian residential schools was wrapping up nearly four years of public hearings Sunday, where thousands of victims recounted stories of cruelty and abuse at the hands of those entrusted with their care.

The heart-breaking accounts — almost all videotaped — will now form part of a lasting record of one of the darkest chapters in the country's history.

For many, being able to tell their stories was at once cathartic and a validation.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
under Justice Murray Sinclair, visited more than 300
communities after hearings began in Winnipeg in June 2010. 

"Many times, I was hearing my own story being told in front of me and that became very emotionally challenging because I need to deal with that personally," Chief Willie Littlechild, a commissioner and himself a residential school survivor, told The Canadian Press.

"At the same time, I think it helped on my own healing journey."

Vicki Crowchild, 80, of the Tsuu T'ina Nation outside Calgary, Alberta, who attended a school as a child, agreed that the opportunity to talk of her past after her abuser told her no one would ever believe her was hugely beneficial.

"A lot of people got healed just by telling their story," Crowchild said.

Now, it would take more than two years to play back the more than 6,500 statements — they range in length from 10 minutes to five hours — survivors gave the commission.

About 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children were taken from their families and forced to attend the church-run schools over much of the last century. The last school, outside Regina, closed in 1996.

During the hearings the Catholic Church, which operated the majority of residential schools, apologized formally for the second time for the abuses that occurred.

The children, the commission heard, were sent hundreds or thousands of kilometres from home. Many were kept largely isolated from their families, sometimes for years.

Siblings were separated and punished for showing any affection to one another. Survivors talked of constant hunger, of beatings and whippings, of sexual abuse. Many died of disease or unexplained causes. Some killed themselves.

The Truth and Reconciliation gatherings have allowed many survivors
of the residential school system to publicly tell their stories for the first time

The damage done to those who did survive was often lasting.

"When I came out of residential school, when they finally shut it down, I went back into a community that was 95 per cent alcoholics," said Martha Marsden, who attended a school in Alberta.

"That is how our parents were dealing with children being taken out of their care, being ripped out of their arms." - Quite literally!

As part of a class-action lawsuit settlement reached in 2007, the federal government apologized for the schools and set up the $60-million commission. The mandate was to create as complete an historical record as possible of the system and its legacy.

The commission has frequently found itself at loggerheads with the federal government.

Some of the battles have ended up in court, with various judges castigating Ottawa for failing to turn over records.

Just this past week, Stan Loutit, grand chief of Mushkegowuk Council, urged Justice Minister Peter MacKay to fire government lawyers for fighting to withhold records related to the notorious St. Anne's residential school in Fort Albany, Ont.

Sinclair himself complained a few days ago that Ottawa would be cutting a program aimed at helping survivors of the system to heal.

Still, the end of the hearings — which wrapped up with a four-day event in Edmonton attended by thousands — marked another beginning, said Littlechild, a former member of Parliament.

"It's really a start of reconciliation," he said.

Calvin Bruneau, of the Papaschase First Nation in Alberta, said he, too, looked to some lasting goodwill emerging from the inquiry into the painful residential-school legacy.

"I am hoping it leads to better all-around relations between First Nations people and the government," said Bruneau, whose grandmother was abused at a residential school.

The commission has been given until the end of June 2015 to report.

One child's story from St. Anne's:

Edmund Metatawabin, 66, is one of several survivors pushing for the government to release documents they say would corroborate their claims of abuse.

His own story is like so many others, but also unique. He is a success story in Fort Albany.

Edmund Metatawabin, St. Anne's Residential School survivor
But when he was seven, he had no idea what was in store for him.

In 1956, succumbing to pressure from Catholic priests, Metatawabin's father dropped him off at St. Anne's. He was the first of 10 siblings to attend the school.

He went in with his father and was sent to the bathroom while his father talked with the nun. And then he heard a door close.

Welcome to St Anne's

"I looked out the little window and saw my dad walking by, head down, looking really sad," said Metatawabin in an interview with CBC News. "I hear, 'Come out of there, that's enough, your daddy's not here to protect you no more!' As soon as I opened the door, she grabbed my shoulder, gave me a vicious slap across the face from behind. And I hit the wall on the other side."

That was Metatawabin's first impression of St. Anne's.

He says students were hit, by hand or with objects, for the smallest of infractions, or for no reason at all. And it only got worse.

One day he wasn't feeling very well. "For breakfast you got a bowl of porridge as usual. I felt sicker and sicker and finally I threw up into my porridge. And I was told go upstairs and go to bed. I was there for three days."

"On the morning of the fourth day … we're now in the dining room for breakfast. And everybody is getting their bowl of porridge except me. And then I hear the sister and she came behind me … and said 'Here, finish that. You didn't finish it last time.' And I looked at that and knew what was in there. I could see it, but I had to eat it. There was no choice."

Entertainment at St Anne's

Metatawabin says a home-made electric chair at the school was used for both punishment and entertainment.

He remembers that at seven years old, his feet didn't even touch the floor while seated in the chair.

"There was a metal handle on both sides you have to hold on to," he said. "And there were brothers and sisters sitting around in the boys' room. And of course the boys were all lined up. And somebody turned the power on and you can't let go once the power goes on. You can't let go."

"And my feet were flying in front of me and I heard laughter. The nuns and the brothers were all laughing. Thought it was funny that my feet were flying around, I guess."

Metatawabin says anyone who tried to resist the abuse was doubly punished.

He didn't question why they were treated the way they were. It was the only school he knew.

Metatawabin was there for eight years.

But his summers back at home, on the land with his father, were a respite he treasured.

"And one of his stories is that I would never be a trapper or a hunter. That my life would be with a pencil."

His father was right. Metatawabin went to high school in Kirkland Lake, where despite being too afraid to speak in class, he succeeded because of athletics.

"I learned to run. Long distance, cross country. Because I could beat the guys who were teasing me. So my body did the talking. That was my saving grace there."

He went on to university and was working on his masters degree when he was summoned back to Fort Albany to be chief.

During his 10 years as chief, he organized a conference for St. Anne's Residential School survivors in 1992. He saw the suffering of people in his community and thought it was time they told their stories.

Those horrific accounts formed the basis of a five-year provincial police investigation.

Out of that came trials and several convictions of former staff and supervisors, including the nun who made Metatawabin eat his own vomit.

Survivors say it is those police and court documents that will help back up their claims for compensation under the residential settlement agreement.

At first, the federal government said that it had no obligation to get those documents for the claims process, but it turned out the government had possessed them since 2003.

Metatawabin says he's tired of getting the runaround.


"All we want is justice," he said. "All we want is movement that will make me feel 'Oh, finally it's over. Finally it's over. They believe me.'"

Saturday 29 March 2014

I Am a Girl!

This video was taken by an acquaintance, Geoff Heith, who was visiting Rwanda recently and happened upon a school talent show. This teenage girl shares a poem that is quite simply brilliant. It's only about 2 minutes long and worth every second. Please watch and share.

I am a Girl

What the Vatican Says and What It Does - "Stunning, Depressing and Irresponsible Contradiction"

A leading Italian cleric on Saturday defended the decision to adopt a Vatican-approved policy which exempts bishops from having to report cases of suspected child sex abuse to the police.

"The Vatican requires national laws to be respected, and we know that there is no such duty (to report abuse) under Italian law," Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian Bishops' Conference, told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting in Genoa.
Cardinal Bagnasco

The conference published guidelines on Friday which stipulated that clergy are under no obligation to inform the authorities about suspected abuse but have a "moral duty" to act to protect the vulnerable and "contribute to the common good". If they took their 'moral duty' seriously, there would be no pedophiles in the priesthood.

The guidelines sparked fury among victim support groups, with the US-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) deploring the "stunning, depressing and irresponsible contradiction between what Vatican officials say about abuse, and do about abuse."

The Church has repeatedly been accused by victims of covering up abuse by priests and simply moving predator clerics from one diocese to another rather than reporting them, thereby putting other children at risk.

Bishops in possession of information on possible abuse cases have been required by the Vatican to report to the authorities since 2010, but only in those countries where they are required to do so under national law.

Bagnasco said the decision to adopt the Vatican's policy had been taken in part to protect victims who may not want to press charges. Emphasis on 'in part'.

"What is important is to respect the will of the victims and their relatives, who may not want to report the abuse, for personal reasons," Bagnasco said.

"We need to be careful that we in the clergy do not undermine the right to privacy, discretion and confidentiality, and the right of the victims to not be 'exposed' in the public square", he said. Good grief! What is the rest of the 'in part'? The Cardinal is not lying here, but to put the emphasis on protecting the victims rather than protecting the church's exposed hind quarters, is simply ludicrous.

The Vatican was denounced by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in February for failing to stamp out predatory priests, and urged to hand over suspected abusers for prosecution.

Pope Francis has defended the Church, saying it has done more than "any other institution" in tackling pedophilia, and last weekend he appointed a woman who had been molested by a priest as a child as part of a new commission on fighting clerical sexual abuse.

Comparing the Catholic church to other institutions has nothing to do with whether or not it is doing the right thing. Part of the reason it has done more than any other institution is that its priests and bishops have committed more atrocities than any other institution, in my estimation, exponentially more.

I wonder if anyone in the Vatican has actually prayed about this? If anyone has actually listened to God about this? If anyone has repented about the abuse, the enabling, the covering up, the treatment of victims trying to come to terms with the abuse? Somehow, I doubt it.

Victims Tell of Anger at Salvation Army over Sexual and Physical Abuse at Children's Homes

A woman has told an inquiry she was whipped, humiliated and denied basic needs at a Salvation Army children's home in Queensland, Australia.

The examination of the Salvation Army by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has so far concentrated on abuse at the charity's boys' homes.

Cherryl Eldridge today became the first woman to tell the commission of abuse at the hands of Salvation Army officers, and also criticised the charity's treatment of abuse victims.

She was taken to a children's home at Toowoomba as a six-year-old girl, after being told her parents could not care for her.
Cherryl Eldridge

The 61-year-old told the commission hearing in Sydney she remembered wetting the bed and having the sheets rubbed in her face.

"I was denied access to basic necessities," she told the hearing.

"I was not issued a bra or deodorant and this caused me humiliation at school."

Mrs Eldridge says access to sanitary pads was also restricted.

The hearing was told a matron would whip the girl's naked body, which Mrs Eldridge said she believed was done for sexual gratification.

"I have found it difficult to have long and affectionate relationships, because I was denied this as a child," she told the hearing.

Mrs Eldridge was later offered $40,000 by the Salvation Army, which she described as "shut-up money".

The former resident took exception to a question from the lawyer representing the Salvation Army, Kate Eastman.

"Have you given some thought as to what you would like to now see by way of an apology?" Ms Eastman asked.

"I find the question you're asking me today to be offensive," Mrs Eldridge responded.

"If you, the Salvation Army, wanted to give me a genuine apology and really mean it, you wouldn't be asking me the question.

"I don't think the Salvation Army can assist me any more."

Staff suited to 'Middle Ages slavery camp'

Earlier a former resident of another Salvation Army home in Queensland told the commission he was beaten and held in solitary confinement.

The man, known only as JE, told the hearing that when he was a young boy he was forced to protect his sisters and mother, who were being abused by his father.

His father sent him away, telling a judge that he was out of control.

JE ended up at the Salvation Army's Riverview Farm, south-west of Brisbane, when he was 15 in the late 1960s.
A victim of child sex abuse says
he was placed in solitary confinement at Riverview
The man has told the hearing that staff at the home in Ipswich "would have been more suitably engaged in a Middle Ages slavery camp".

He says boys were bashed and raped, and remembers being locked in solitary confinement for three days after fighting with some boys who were racially abusing him.

"I remember the floor of the room being wooden and full of splinters," he told the hearing.

"There was no light, no toilet, not even a bucket. If you had to go to the toilet, you had to just go and the army officers would throw some newspaper at you to clean it up.

"You had to sleep on that same floor that you'd been forced to go to the toilet on." Unreal!

Salvation Army apologised for 'unpleasant' experiences

JE complained to the Salvation Army in 2008.

The commission has been told the organisation apologised for any "unpleasant" experiences, but offered no compensation because it could not identify the room where he was confined.

"To me, it sounded like a letter that you get from a hotel when you complain about the room," JE told the hearing.

"I did not consider it an adequate apology, not by a long shot."

JE wrote back to the Salvation Army, complaining the organisation had not followed its complaints handling process. He was eventually paid $20,000.

"In my experience, the Salvation Army are awful people to deal with," he said.

Ms Eastman asked JE whether it would help him if he spoke to senior staff from the organisation, some of whom were in the room.

"If I see one of those uniforms come within a metre of me, you'd better be there," he replied.

The 10th royal commission inquiry, and the second concerning the Salvation Army, is examining the way the religious organisation handled both historical and more recent claims of child sexual abuse.

It aims to explore the experiences of victims, who have been through the Salvation Army's claims process - as well as review disciplinary steps taken against the alleged perpetrators.

The complaints process has been developed substantially since the 1990s due to an increase in claims, including the establishment of the Personal Injuries Complaints Committee in 1997.

The committee was offering small amounts of money to victims by 2000, and the amount has steadily increased, but some victims have told the commission they felt "worse off" after going through the process.

Victims have given evidence saying the amount of compensation was inconsistent with other people who had endured similar trauma, and the apology from the Salvation Army seemed trivial.

As an overtly Christian organization, the treatment of children, and later, adult victims brings shame and embarrassment on all Christians and, indeed, on Christ Himself. Some people have a lot to answer for when they stand before Christ.

Babysitter Sexually Abused Child Over Several Months

A babysitter has been arrested and charged in connection with sexually abusing a child under his care over several months, police said.

Anne Arundel County Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division detectives received information in reference to reports of a possible child sex abuse on March 20.

Police said investigators gathered evidence during the investigation, learning that 22-year-old Andrew Dickinson Grabau, Annapolis, had sexually abused a child over several months in 2013.

Annapolis is in the state of Maryland, USA, just east of Washington, D.C.
Grabau

Grabau was hired by the victim’s parents to babysit and family members told investigators they left their child in his care on numerous occasions between April 2013 and October 2013. The offenses took place at the victim’s residence, police said.

Based on the investigation charges were filed against Grabau and he was arrested on a warrant on Friday. He was charged with sex abuse of a minor, third- and fourth-degree sex offenses and second-degree assault, stemming from the investigation that was initiated on March 20.

Third and fourth degree sex offenses in Maryland refer to mostly non-violent acts where fear may have been a factor, but stops short of full-blown rape.

Grabau was released on $25,000.00 bail.

Anyone with information or concerns regarding Grabau is encouraged to contact Detective Joshua Williams at 410-222-3484.

No indication in this story on whether the child was male or female or how old he/she is.

My personal opinion is - don't hire men or boys to babysit your children, especially young men or teenage boys.

Friday 28 March 2014

'Swirl Face' Child Sex Offender Faces 10 New Charges in B.C.

Authorities in British Columbia, Canada, have laid 10 new charges against convicted sex offender Christopher Paul Neil after conducting investigations into his activities over the past 10 years in Vancouver, Maple Ridge and Cambodia.

Neil became known as the "Swirl Face" sex abuser for digitally altering his face in images posted online, but was identified and arrested in Bangkok in 2007.

The most recent alleged incidents took place in 2013 in Vancouver.

A Vancouver Police Department investigation led to four charges against Neil, 39, related to possessing and accessing child pornography. The other charges were resulted from an RCMP investigation.
'Swirl Face' Christopher Paul Neil - 2007 Interpol photo
In 2007, German specialists working for Interpol 'unswirled' and recovered this image of a man's face from photos posted online depicting the sexual abuse of children. The man was later identified as Christopher Paul Neil. (Interpol)

"The charges laid today are the result of years of work in support of our efforts to identify and charge those involved in tourism for the purpose of committing sexual offences against children," said Acting Supt. Ward Lymburner, who is charge of the RCMP's special projects unit in the B.C. major crimes section.

Neil faces one count each of production of child porn and possession of child pornography relating to incidents that allegedly occurred in 2007 in Maple Ridge, a Vancouver suburb.

He also faces two counts of sexual touching and two counts of invitation to sexual touching stemming from alleged incidents in 2003 in Cambodia.

Neil, who was arrested today and is being held in custody, is scheduled to appear in provincial court in Port Coquitlam on March 31.

The Criminal Code gives Canadian authorities the power to investigate and prosecute certain offences, such as child pornography and the victimization of children, committed by Canadian citizens in other countries. 

Christopher Paul Neil
He sparked a worldwide Interpol manhunt when German police were able to digitally unscramble internet photos of him sexually abusing boys in Southeast Asia.

Neil was convicted of a series of sexual offences involving children in Bangkok in 2008.

He was returned to Canada in September 2012, after serving his sentence in Thailand, and has been subject to a series of conditions ever since.

Before his arrest overseas, the former Maple Ridge resident worked as a teacher in several parts of Asia dating back to 2000. He had worked as a part-time teacher in B.C., as well.

Can Children be Prevented from Accessing Online Porn? God Help Us if They Can't

A UK industry regulator has called for the law to be changed to require pornography sites to carry out age checks before granting access.

Video-on-demand watchdog Atvod said the government must act to protect children from seeing graphic adult material.

It said credit and debit card operators would be forbidden from processing payments from British customers to sites that did not comply.

But one campaigner said the action would be a "worthless gesture".

The Authority for Television On Demand (Atvod) said the matter was so urgent that it was "critical the legislation is enacted during this Parliament".

To back up its demand, the body requested data from market research firm Nielsen, which routinely monitors the general online habits of a volunteer panel of 45,000 desktop PC and laptop users across the UK.

The survey indicated that, over the course of one month:

6% of children aged 15 years or younger had accessed an adult website
5% of visitors to such sites had been under-18
One website alone had been visited by 112,000 boys in the UK aged between 12 and 17-years-old
Of the wider population, 23% of those who had used the net over the month had visited an adult site
Visitors to adult sites spent an average of 15 minutes looking at them during each visit and typically clocked up two-and-a-half hours of time in total over the month

Atvod added that the survey probably underestimated the scale of the issue since smartphone and tablet use was not included in the figures. It should also be noted that these are volunteers and, so, are not likely representative of the public at large.

Porn licences
The regulator already forces UK-based sites to carry out age verification checks before explicit photographs and videos can be viewed.

This can be done by requiring valid credit card details, or other personal information that can be cross-referenced with the electoral roll or another ID database.

However, the body said the vast majority of online pornography was downloaded from businesses based overseas, over which it had no control.
Jon Brown, NSPCC, said there were few barriers
 to accessing pornography online

To tackle this, Atvod said it wanted all adult sites to request a licence that would only be granted if they had age checks in place. Payment processors would be ordered not to handle fees for premium services - such as higher definition or longer clips - from UK citizens to unregistered sites.

"We're a very substantial market and to access the money that's flowing from the UK would be quite a powerful incentive to introduce restrictions," Atvod's chief executive, Pete Johnson told the BBC.

Mixed reactions
The UK government has already pressured the UK's major internet service providers to use software filters that automatically block adult material unless households specifically ask for them to be turned off.

However, a spokesman for the coalition government indicated it needed time to consider Atvod's request. "We will continue to work with industry and others to look at where further action could be taken, including around age restrictions," he said. Does not sound like a very positive response.

Labour has, however, already come out in support of the move.

"It is only by threatening to cut off the flow of money that we will force these websites to act responsibly, and payment processors need legal clarity before they can act to help achieve this," said shadow culture minister, Helen Goodman.

However, Sex and Censorship - which describes itself as a free speech campaign group - said the move would prove ineffective.

"It won't make any difference to the sites that give all their videos away for free and sell advertising because they don't need credit card processing," said Jerry Barnett.

"And some sites are already accepting bitcoin and other anonymous online payment systems. A clampdown on card payments would just accelerate this trend.

"Even if implemented, this measure would have no effect on the range of content available to British consumers."

Mr Barnett previously ran a UK-based adult website himself until he was fined for failing to prevent children accessing its content.

'Significant win'
Mindgeek, the Luxembourg-based operator of many of the most popular adult sites, said it already carried out age verification checks in countries where this was required. But it indicated this did not address the crux of the problem.

"There is no single 'silver bullet' solution to protecting children and adolescents from potentially harmful content and interactions in their digital lives," said a spokeswoman.

"The best solution lies in a multi-layered approach in which the parent assumes the central role."

Atvod acknowledged its proposal was only part of the solution, but it insisted that the scheme could still be designed to make a difference.

"The material that appears on the free services is placed there by the paid services to attract customers to sign up to subscriptions."

"As long as the paid service placed content on a free service without age verification it would be in breach of its licensing conditions and so would not be able to access funds from the UK.

"We're not saying this will stop all children seeing all pornography online. "But our argument is that even if you reduce the number of children who are accessing hardcore pornography online by 10%, that would be a significant win."

Would it be a 'significant' win to reduce the number of children accessing porn online by 10%? It certainly would be significant for those children, but for society as a whole, it would mean a continuation of our descent into moral depravity and a continuation of the dramatic increase in misogyny in the developed world.

This is not just an attitude problem of men or boys talking down to women or girls, there are very serious consequences. I believe the "culture of rape" in most western universities is directly linked to adolescent boys accessing pornography online.
Anne-Marie Roy
The face of the 'rape culture' backlash

I find it very difficult to dredge up any optimism that world societies will be able to stop or even significantly slow down adolescent use of online pornography. As long as there is a $billion+ market for pornography, it will be made available and it will not be possible to separate all users by age.

The only real way to protect children from pornography, whether as users or as victims in the making of child pornography, is to shut down pornography completely, all pornography.

The technology is, I believe, available to do that, or can soon be developed, but not without the political and societal will, and that's just not going to happen until Jesus returns. Nevertheless, we can pray for advances like the initiative above to succeed, but, perhaps we should be praying for Christ's soon return - not that we need to, the direction society is moving makes His return almost imminent.


Thursday 27 March 2014

Child Sex Abuse Royal Commission: Cardinal Pell Publicly Apologises to Victim John Ellis

Cardinal George Pell has publicly apologised to a victim of child sexual abuse, saying the Catholic Church failed in its moral and pastoral responsibilities.

Another report indicated that Cardinal Pell was unable to look at Mr Ellis. Even as he was exiting the courtroom just arms-length from Ellis, he refused to look at him. The public gallery began to taunt him to look at Mr Ellis, but he still refused. Curious behaviour for a Cardinal.

The former Archbishop of Sydney was called back to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney, to answer more questions about his role in the case of former altar boy John Ellis.

Mr Ellis sued the Church after he was abused by a priest in the 1970s, but lost the case on a technicality in 2007.

Cardinal Pell has previously apologised to the victim in a statement tendered to the royal commission, and on Thursday he conveyed that in the hearing room.

"As former Archbishop and speaking personally, I would want to say to Mr Ellis that we failed in many ways, some way inadvertently, in our moral and pastoral responsibilities to him," Mr Pell said in the long-awaited apology.

"I want to acknowledge his suffering and the impact of this terrible affair on his life. As the then Archbishop, I have to take ultimate responsibility, and this I do.

Cardinal Pell
"At this end of this gruelling appearance for both of us at this royal commission, I want publicity to say sorry to him for the hurt caused him by the mistakes made, admitted by me, and some of our archdiocesan personnel during the course of the Towards Healing process and litigation."

Mr Ellis, who sat in the front row of Thursday's hearing, did not react. He later spoke to ABC's PM, saying he was "a bit surprised" at the Cardinal's apology.

"It's very meaningful to have all of the actions that were taken over those years put under scrutiny and to get some answers for the reasons why things went the way that they did," Mr Ellis said.

"It's better that he's said he's sorry than that he didn't say that, but I just think I need to sit with that."

Mr Ellis says he hopes that in future, victims of abuse will not have to resort to legal action to find justice.

"I hope that part of the future is that people don't need to bring their cases to court, that they would be able to have a gentle and more compassionate process that still delivers justice to all parties," he said.

"But ... people need to have the right to bring actions in court if they can't be sorted out otherwise.

"The Church needs to be told very publicly that it's not above the law and it's subject to the same principles that apply to any other corporation."

Earlier in the hearing under questioning from the victim's lawyer, Maria Gerace, Cardinal Pell agreed the Church offered Mr Ellis an inadequate amount of compensation before the case and it refused to negotiate.

Mr Ellis had asked for $100,000 after he first came forward with a complaint through the Catholic Church's Towards Healing pastoral and redress scheme in 2002.

He was offered $30,000 - a sum Cardinal Pell has previously described as "grotesque".

He claims he was under the impression "millions were being sought" from Mr Ellis.

The Church defended itself in court, despite Cardinal Pell admitting he personally believed the man.
 John Ellis leaves the Royal Commission

Ms Gerace suggested there is a chance the royal commission could determine that the tactics of the Church's lawyers should not have been undertaken.

Yesterday, Cardinal Pell stopped short of conceding the aggressive court action was wrong.

"I never, at any stage, contemplated doing anything improper, and I don't believe that our lawyers ever suggested anything that was legally improper," he told the hearing. No, just morally improper!

"I do not believe that the Court of Appeal would have unanimously approved any improper behaviour."

What is the 'Ellis defence'?

At the heart of the so-called Ellis defence is a court ruling that the Catholic Church is not liable for the criminal activity of its clergy.

Cardinal Pell was also pressed about remarks that Mr Ellis was intelligent.

"He was, in every respect, the very typical person that one would expect to walk through the doors of Towards Healing for the very services promised by its protocol, would you agree with that?" Ms Gerace asked.

"Basically, yes," Cardinal Pell responded. "But he's also highly intelligent, very well educated, and - all this is to his credit - in a very significant position."

Ms Gerace asked why the Cardinal was making the distinction.

"I don't think you intend, Cardinal, to suggest that other people who walk through the doors of Towards Healing are not intelligent?" she asked.

Cardinal Pell told the hearing he was taken "out of context", and that every victim is "different". 

The Cardinal has previously given evidence that he was mistaken about Mr Ellis's damaged state, because he was a senior lawyer himself and "presented so well".

He also denied suggestions that the financial or other interests of the Catholic Church were seen as equal to the interests of Mr Ellis.

"No, I wouldn't agree with that," he said. "We, however imperfectly, always recognised the priority of the needs of the victim." Good grief! Can you believe he said that?

After more than a fortnight, the case study into the Catholic Church has formally come to an end.

Cardinal Pell will soon head to the Vatican to manage the Church's finances.

An Astonishing Miscarriage of Justice in Child Rape Case

For decades afterwards, Gerald Barton did not talk about it. What could he possibly say? That he was not a rapist? That he did not knock up that little Miller girl, like her family said he did, that he was not some good-for-nothing, worth-nothing, low-life-sexual-predator, just trying to run away from his past?

Gerald Barton
No, he didn’t talk about it, because he understood that saying he wasn’t guilty is what every supposedly guilty man says. So he kept quiet, as he bounced from place to place. Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Grande Prairie, parts of B.C., pretty much anywhere is where he went, picking tobacco, paving roads, working construction, installing glass and trying not to look too hard in the rearview mirror.

“What was the use of me talking about the past?” Mr. Barton says, in a down home, Down East drawl betraying his small-town Nova Scotia, Canada, roots.

“What you know you got to keep to yourself, and you can’t tell anybody about what happened because they’ll think your some damn rapist, and back when all this was happening I was just a kid, and there was no kind of DNA testing, and people took people for their words.

“And the Millers, they lied their way right into court and it made my life ever since all about scraping and digging, just scraping and digging all this goddamn life to get by, and never getting any farther ahead than where I am today.

“It was a dirty trick they all played on me.”

It was a fabrication that forever altered the course of Mr. Barton’s life — a statutory rape charge and conviction that was quashed by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in January 2011 — some 40 years after the fact, and that, at age 62, has led an innocent man to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia where Mr. Barton and his lawyer, Dale Dunlop, are seeking compensation, arguing the RCMP and the local Crown prosecutor were the authors of a gross miscarriage of justice.

Lawyers. Cops. Courtrooms. A life lived from one place to the next, all of it was a world away from the world young Gerald Barton, known to everybody as “Junebug,” grew up in the 1950s and ’60s. Home was Jordantown, a crossroads on the outskirts of Digby, N.S., a black community where everybody knew everybody — and most everybody was just getting by.
Digby Wharf on the Bay of Fundy
Clara and Gerald Sr. had 12 kids. Junebug was the eighth to come along. The family lived in a 20×16-foot house. Mr. Barton hauled lumber for $35 a week. Junebug was a typical country son, running loose with his friends, playing baseball and hockey, fishing and hunting.

The Millers lived up the hill, beside the railroad tracks. They owned a store. They had a daughter, Rebecca. At 14, she got pregnant. In 1969 she gave birth to a son, Elroy. Jack Miller, the patriarch, seethed, demanded to know the identity of the father. Rebecca insisted it was her older brother, Lamont, and that he had been sexually assaulting her since she was nine years old.

Jack Miller refused to believe it. So Rebecca Miller told a lie, a wicked utterance that she would reveal to RCMP Constable Brent Kelly in a videotaped statement taken in August 2008 during the course of an investigation targeting Lamont Miller — which was unrelated and unbeknownst to Gerald Barton and, along with DNA testing, would confirm the true paternity of the child and ultimately lead to his exoneration.

“My father, he’s got, he had a bad temper,” Ms. Miller told police. “And he kept saying, ‘Who’s the father?’ And then I just lied and said it was Junebug. And then that’s when he took it from there.”

Mr. Barton alleges that Jack Miller, since deceased, marched down the hill to his family’s home and demanded $900 from his father — or else threatened to have his then 19-year-old son charged with rape. The Bartons didn’t have that kind of money.

“The Mounties showed up at our door and gave my old man a summons and told him I had to be in court, at the old Digby Courthouse, a few days later,” Mr. Barton says.
Old Digby Courthouse

“I bet you I wasn’t in that courthouse for half an hour. The only thing I remember saying is: ‘I didn’t do it.’ ”

He was convicted of having “sexual intercourse with a female between the ages of 14 and 16 years of age,” sentenced to one-day in jail and a year probation. No record of the court proceedings and no record of an RCMP investigation are known to exist. The only record was Mr. Barton’s criminal record. Amazing!

He has sworn in court documents filed since that he was convicted without a trial, wasn’t provided with legal counsel and never pleaded guilty. He also alleges that the RCMP failed to investigate “the true perpetrator” of the crime and that John R. Nichols, the Crown prosecutor for Digby in 1970, was a longtime “personal friend” of Jack Miller’s.

John Nichols became a provincial court judge, spent 20 years on the bench and retired in 1997. He is now 81, living in Digby and last summer received the Joe Casey Humanitarian Award, recognizing a local citizen who has worked for the “betterment” of the community. He claims a vague recollection of the Barton case.

“It’s a long time ago,” he said. “And I can’t think, if I can recall the matter, I believe he entered a guilty plea. And I don’t believe I knew Jack Miller.”

Junebug Barton knows what he believes: that his life would have been different if Rebecca Miller had not lied. He had dreams as a kid, of joining the army, of maybe travelling abroad. He liked drawing, working with his hands — and his mind — and not just his back, bending and scraping from one job to the next.

Your Social Insurance Number tells a lot about you,” he says.

His told employers that Gerald Barton was toxic: a convicted rapist. Today, he is living out West, and still working construction, slugging it out, like he always has.

“I am not angry,” Junebug Barton says. “It was a dirty trick they played on me. They threw me in jail, like I was nothing, and I don’t think that’s right.

“And they never even stopped to ask if I was guilty.” 

National Post

This is a hardly believable miscarriage of justice. An innocent man's life ruined; the guilty brother never faced any charges for rape and incest of a minor; the destruction of any documentation should have resulted in criminal charges, and Judge Nichols should be investigated for his relationship with Jack Miller. Please pray that justice is done here.

New Hampshire Law Forces Early Release of Parole Violating Predators

HUDSON, N.H. —A convicted sex offender faces new charges, after he was accused of having child sex abuse images.

Vernon Ingersoll was released from prison in 2011, which sparked controversy because his parole officer had recommended a five-year sentence. However, a law that had just been enacted by the state set his sentence at 90 days.

Ingersoll was convicted of sexual assault in 1989. He was convicted of child pornography in 2002, and was paroled in 2008.

Vernon Ingersoll Jr., 63, was arrested in July 2009 after police said he approached a 14-year-old boy in Hudson, which would be a violation of his parole.

"He was let out on parole with the understanding that he would have no contact with anyone under the age of 16," said Michael Reeves, who said his son was approached by Ingersoll.

Reeves said Ingersoll offered his son money.

"We went to his parole hearing and we had the opportunity to speak our case, but they let us know that because of SB 500, their hands were tied," Reeves said. "They had to let him out in 90 days."

A new law, SB 500 only allows the Parole Board to give a maximum of 90 days to parole violators. Parole officials said that when Ingersoll initially violated his parole in 2009, his parole officer recommended a five-year sentence.

The board was required to give Ingersoll a parole hearing in 45 days, but Ingersoll opted to postpone the hearing until October 2010. At that point, SB 500 was in place.

"He came in on a technical parole violation, and it's different than committing a new crime," said Jeff Lyons, spokesman for the Department of Correction. "So based on that information and the science that helped put this in place, he was appropriate to be released." Sounds like junk-science to me.

Mother Beth Reeves said new charges could have only been filed if Ingersoll had physically touched her son.

"If the hairs had met, we could have filed charges, but because my son knew the right thing to do, there's nothing we can do as citizens," she said. "We just have to let him go again."

The state said Ingersoll has been released, but under intense supervision.

"It will mean additional meetings with a parole officer and will also mean electronic monitoring with a GPS," Lyons said.

The Reeves said they have called their state representatives and will do whatever they can to try to change the law. Two bills have been introduced -- one that would repeal SB 500 and another that would make significant changes.

Please pray for one of these bill to pass quickly so predators like Ingersoll can be taken off the streets, at least for a while.

Alleged Pedophile Charged with 18 Child Sex Offences at Primary School

See Update at bottom.
See 2nd Update at bottom.

A man has been charged as part of an investigation into child sexual abuse at a primary school in Greater Manchester, England, police have said.

Nigel Williams, 50, of Bradshaw Street, Orrell, Wigan, has been charged with 18 sexual offences against three boys aged between nine and 13.

The charges allege assaults between 2001 and 2004 at Pemberton Primary School and Wigan swimming baths.

Wigan is a suburb of Manchester.
The Town of Wigan

Mr Williams will appear at Wigan Magistrates' Court on 8 April.

A man contacted Greater Manchester Police in November to report he had been abused while a pupil at Pemberton Primary School between 2001 and 2004.

Two further men reported being sexually assaulted while at Wigan swimming baths during the same period.

Det Con Suzanne Rigby said anyone with information "about incidents at the school or elsewhere to come forward and speak to us".

Pemberton Primary School in Wigan was demolished in 2006.

* Unconfirmed comment just moments ago (see comments) reported that Nigel Williams has been found guilty.
* Williams sentenced to 12 years.


High Profile Publicist Calls Child Sex Assault Claims 'Revolting'

Max Clifford is considered by many as the highest-profile and best-known publicist in the United Kingdom. (A publicist is a person whose job it is to generate and manage publicity for a public figure, especially a celebrity, a business, or for a work such as a book, film or album.) 

Clifford is one of many celebrities who were caught-up in Scotland Yard's Operation Yewtree, an investigation begun after the horrific abuses of Jimmie Saville were uncovered. Some of those celebrities have been found to be innocent, or, at least, non-prosecutable.

Max Clifford has said claims he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl are "filthy and absolutely revolting".

Giving evidence, the publicist denied assaulting the girl in a Jacuzzi in a Spanish holiday resort in 1983.

He also told Southwark Crown Court claims he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl in his car were "lies".
Max Clifford

Mr Clifford denies 11 counts of indecent assault, relating to seven alleged victims, aged from 14 to 20 between 1966 and 1984.

The claims relating to the 12-year-old are not part of the trial as the alleged incident took place in Spain.

Asked on Thursday whether he had ever had a sexual interest in 12-year-old girls, Mr Clifford replied that "the thought is utterly repulsive and repugnant".

He added: "A 12-year-old girl - that's disgusting, filthy and absolutely revolting."

Mr Clifford had a number of other allegations put to him during his second day of evidence.

Among them was a claim he had sexually assaulted a 15-year-old in his car in the 1970s after originally meeting her in Spain.

Mr Clifford told the jury he had stayed at a hotel in Torremolinos, Spain, a month earlier than the girl and her family and had no recollection of them. The alleged victim has said she first met him at the hotel in August 1977.
Torremolinos, Spain
But Mr Clifford's defence produced newspaper clippings showing the publicist had saved a girl from drowning in the Pontinental Hotel pool in July 1977.

The woman has also claimed Mr Clifford used a yellow Jaguar car to pick her up from her house before indecently assaulting her.

Mr Clifford said it was "possible" he had owned the vehicle in 1977, but said the colour did not appeal to him.

He added the allegations were "totally and utterly untrue".

During questioning from his defence barrister, Richard Horwell QC, Mr Clifford denied ever meeting many of the women who had accused him, and dismissed their claims as completely untrue.

One alleged victim has said she was assaulted by Mr Clifford at his office, after she had been given a part as an extra in the James Bond film Octopussy.

Mr Clifford said the only involvement he had had with anyone connected to the film was with a gymnast whose profile he was helping to promote, along with several other British athletes.

The court has previously heard claims that Mr Clifford offered to get another woman the lead role of Fallon in the 1980s TV show Dynasty, before exposing himself to her and forcing her to perform a sex act.

But Mr Clifford told the court the claims were " too ridiculous for words".

Another woman, who is not a complainant, has alleged she went to Mr Clifford's office after being promised a part in a film. She said Mr Clifford exposed himself and that she later received a call from an "Italian producer" - who she believed was Mr Clifford disguising his voice.

Mr Clifford said on Thursday that he had never held castings for films in his office.

Asked if he had ever exposed himself to women that visited his office, he said: "No", and denied ever impersonating an Italian producer or director.

In response to a number of other allegations put to him, Mr Clifford:

- denied claims he had told a woman he had slept with Diana Ross and had engaged in a sex act while on the phone to his wife
- denied knowing another woman who has claimed he assaulted her while she worked for him in the 1970s
- said another women, who alleges he assaulted her, did work in his office in 1980s, but denied forcing her to perform sex acts on him

Mr Clifford also told the court that dozens of women had contacted him wanting to sell their stories when abuse claims against the late DJ Jimmy Savile emerged.

He said he had urged the women to contact the police.

The trial continues.

Wednesday 26 March 2014

Dottie Sandusky Typifies Our Deep Denial of Child Sex Abuse

(CNN) —It is when talking about her own children or grandchildren that Dottie Sandusky chokes up with emotion, when the pain of her husband's conviction for sexually abusing young boys rises to the surface.

"We kept it from the kids as long as we could because we did not know what was going to happen," said Dottie Sandusky, fighting back tears in an interview with CNN's Jason Carroll.

"And that was really hard. We had to tell the kids, and the kids questioned their dad. And the kids talked to him and he told them and they believe their dad."

To Dottie Sandusky, the boys her husband Jerry was convicted of sexually molesting were manipulated. She blames a vast conspiracy, which included the media, for the conviction that sent the 70-year-old former Penn State assistant football coach to prison on a 30- to 60-year sentence.

Dottie Sandusky
Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted in 2012 on 45 counts, has maintained his innocence. He is appealing.

The toll on the children in Sandusky clan, however, seems to preoccupy his wife the most.

"It's been tough on our family," she said. "Two of our kids have lost their jobs during this time ... Our granddkids, some of them are older, old enough to understand what has gone on, and they know who their pop is, what people are saying that he is. But they know who he is. It's been really hard on them."

The Pennsylvania trial featured the testimony of eight young men who said they were sexually abused by Sandusky -- either groped in a car, soaped by him in the shower or sexually assaulted on a basement waterbed.

"It wasn't like he just took boys and took them to the shower," Dottie Sandusky said. "It was when he would work them out, and they would shower and it's a public place. I mean, there's people that come and go in the locker room all the time." Yes, and at least one of them was a witness for the prosecution. A witness with no personal or financial stake in convicting Sandusky.

Asked whether she was deluding herself or unwilling to accept the truth, she said: "I'm not that kind of a person and I believe he's innocent, and if I didn't believe he was innocent, I would not stand by him."
Spanier (left) Paterno (right)

The scandal gripped the nation and ended a torturous chapter for the victims and Penn State's vaunted football program -- including the dismissal of the late legendary coach Joe Paterno and one of America's highest-paid university presidents, Graham Spanier.

It also tarnished Penn State's celebrated reputation in collegiate athletics and erased part of the Nittany Lions' impressive record under Paterno from the annals of football history.

John Ziegler, a Sandusky family confidant and documentary filmmaker, believes Penn State administrators railroaded Paterno by firing him in the wake of the scandal and making it virtually impossible for Sandusky to have a fair trial.

"When Joe Paterno was fired, it is a nuclear explosion that goes through the landscape of this case," Ziegler told CNN. "And because of that, Jerry Sandusky loses all presumption of innocence."

At the trial of her husband of 37 years, Dottie Sandusky testified that she never heard or saw anything strange or sexual in the basement of their home, where many of the victims say her husband molested them.

The couple's adopted son, Matt Sandusky, originally denied to a grand jury being abused, but later told his attorney that he, too, was a victim.

In the police interview, Matt Sandusky said that he was molested between the ages of 8 and 15, that he tried to escape from the home and once attempted suicide. Matt Sandusky, who was 18 when he was adopted, had earlier spent time with them in foster care.

"I don't know whether somebody talked to him, or whether he saw money," Dottie Sandusky said of their adopted son's change of story.

Asked whether she wanted to reconcile with her adopted son, Dottie Sandusky -- again referring to the family children -- said amid tears: "I would like to talk to Matt. I really miss seeing his kids. They were a part of our lives. And, the hurt that they must be going through. I would love to talk to Matt just to see why and what. What his thoughts are."

She previously disputed his credibility, referring to Matt's "many run-ins with the law" in a letter to the judge who was about to sentence her husband in October 2012.

"Matt is extremely disappointed that Dottie and the Sanduskys have decided to smear his character in an attempt to deflect attention from Jerry Sandusky's heinous crimes," his lawyers, Justine Andronici and Andrew Shubin, said in a statement to CNN at the time. "Matt has shown tremendous courage and strength. Rather than supporting her son when he made the gut-wrenching decision to come forward and tell the truth about the abuse he suffered at the hands of Jerry Sandusky, Dottie Sandusky has chosen to continue Jerry's strategy of blaming and attacking the victims, thereby perpetuating the abuse."

Lawyers for two victims recently responded to Dottie Sandusky's latest comments.

"Mrs. Sandusky is our best recent example of our deep denial of the reality of child sex abuse," attorney Marci Hamilton said. "Never underestimate the ability of a pedophile to charm and deceive the adults around him or her."

I'm glad Marci Hamilton used the phrase "our deep denial", for most people, including Christians, are still in denial of the enormity of the problem. That one in five girls in western countries will be sexually abused before they are 18, means that you almost certainly know several girls or women who have been abused; and most sexually abused children are abused multiple times. Hence, the desperate need for prayer.

Attorney Tom Kline said, "Dott(ie) Sandusky, like her husband, remains remarkably unremorseful towards Jerry Sandusky's victims. One significant and noticeable difference is her dramatic shift from her cold and detached demeanor as a witness for her husband at his criminal trial to an emotional and distraught spouse, which appears to my eye to be an attempt to convey a sympathetic image for herself and husband -- a child molester convicted by overwhelming evidence."

Since the trial, 26 men have settled claims with Penn State totaling $59.7 million in connection with the Sandusky scandal, the university announced last fall. A few other claims have not yet been settled.

"I think that they could be manipulated by people," Dottie Sandusky said. "I think a lot of them had financial problems. I just don't believe their stories. I'm sorry." It's hard for a person to admit that she has been deceived for several decades by her own husband. It's a pity Gerry doesn't man-up and confess the truth so that his family can move on with their lives. The grandchildren are in danger of growing up into paranoia, thinking the world is plotting against them.

At least every week, she visits her husband in his southwestern Pennsylvania prison.

"He's in his cell 23 hours a day, Monday through Friday," Dottie Sandusky told CNN. "And then on weekends its 24 hours. It's hard. We talk about what he's doing in prison, what has happened. And I try to cheer him up, but he ends up cheering me up instead of me cheering him up."
Sandusky

During the interview, Dottie Sandusky showed CNN's Carroll the basement room of the State College, Pennsylvania, home where some of the victims said they were abused. One accuser said his muffled screams went unheard by her upstairs.

"I would have heard it, yes," she said of his screams for help.

Dottie Sandusky was read part of letter her husband wrote to CNN. It said, "My biggest hope at the moment is that somehow people will realize how unfair everything was and that judges will have the courage to examine everything."

She said: "I believe God has a purpose and some purpose will come out of this, that he will see us through."