Tag: child abuse

Abuse trial told ‘witches pointed wands’ at child

Eleven people are on trial at the High Court in Glasgow accused of sexually abusing a number of children and causing them to participate in seances to communicate with spirits and demons.

They deny all the charges against them.

The children were said to have made allegations to a man who took notes and then sent them to police and social workers.

The man said he had got to know the children through his work and church and often saw them with his wife.

The girl, who would have been of pre-school age at the time of the alleged abuse, is one of a number of complainers who are aged under 13.

She was alleged to have said in her statement to the man: “I didn’t like it when all the witches pointed their wands at me.”

The older alleged victims said there was a large group of witches and wizards in a room who put a spell on the girl every day to make her a different animal.

They were also said to have claimed that a line of people blew drug smoke onto the girl’s face.

According to the man, the girl also alleged that she had been locked in a cupboard and trapped in an oven and a fridge freezer.

In his notes, the man said that the older children helped her to get out of the oven.

He also wrote that the older children said they adjusted the temperature of the fridge when the child was not in it so it was not too cold as it happened so often.

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Veteran RCSO officer kills himself amid investigation

A veteran officer with the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office has killed himself amid an investigation by his agency.

The body of Investigator Brian Manecke was discovered on a dirt road in Lincolnton on Friday night. He had apparently killed himself, and the GBI was investigating the death along with Coroner Tim Quarles.

The sheriff’s office issued a short press release late Friday: “On September 15, 2023 at approximately 6:20 pm, the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office was notified by the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office that they located an employee of RCSO in their personal vehicle, deceased with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The investigation into this matter is being held in the jurisdiction of Lincoln County and no other information is available for release at this time.”

The death came as the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office looked into complaints from other law enforcement officers in the region that Manecke had been posting pictures of their children on social media pages that were pro-pedophilia. He was accused of taking a photo of two children from a woman’s Facebook page and posting the image on a known pedophile site, claiming the girls were his. The sheriff’s office had taken out search warrants to look at his devices, including his phone and computer.

But before they could download the material, Manecke disappeared and did not answer phone calls from his supervisor. Then his body was discovered in Lincoln County.

The parents first complained last week to the sheriff’s office about Manecke posting their children’s pictures on social media. They complained again this week when they didn’t feel enough was done. They reached out to WGAC’s Austin Rhodes, who talked about the case on his afternoon radio show on Thursday and Friday.

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Former deputy district attorney in Colorado suspected of child sex assault

A man who served as the Deputy District Attorney for Colorado’s 4th Judicial District is suspected of child sex assault.

David McConkie was arrested on Aug. 29 and charged with sexual assault on a child, according to online court records. Those records state the alleged offense happened sometime between Sept. 16, 2004 through April 15, 2013.

KKTV 11 News reached out to the lawyer representing McConkie.

“Mr. McConkie wants the truth to come out and is confident his name will be cleared once it does,” a statement from Josh Tolini who is representing McConkie reads. ” At this time, he is not making any other statements on the advice of counsel.”

McConkie recently worked with the law firm Torbet Tuft & McConkie, according to the updated website the law firm now goes by Torbet & Tuft. A representative with the law firm tells 11 News they parted ways with McConkie on Sept. 11 and had no other statement to provide.

KKTV 11 News has requested the arrest papers for McConkie and we plan to follow up on this case.

According to the bio once posted on his former law firm’s website, McConkie was born in Colorado Springs and graduated from BYU in 2002. He served as the Deputy District Attorney in the 4th Judicial District from 2008 to 2011

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Ex-CIA agent convicted of largest leak in agency’s history faces NYC trial for child porn

A Manhattan jury is expected to hear opening arguments Tuesday at a former CIA engineer’s third New York City trial in as many years, this time including child pornography allegations.

Joshua Schulte – convicted in July 2022 of carrying out the most prolific leak in the CIA’s history — is accused of transporting and possessing thousands of images and videos showing the rape and sexual abuse of children.

The feds say Schulte brought the sick trove to New York in 2016 when he moved to the city from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., for a job at a financial services firm. It was allegedly stored on his home desktop computer, buried under layers of encryption, and categorized by victims’ identities and characteristics.

Prosecutors say the FBI found the disturbing libraries on Schulte’s computer, which included images of very young children, after decrypting files using a password on one of his cellphones during the probe into his leaks at the CIA.

Schulte has previously argued without evidence that the FBI framed him because of what he did at the CIA. He won’t be permitted to make that argument at trial.

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Boy Scout whistleblower: Mormon church swayed abuse policy

A Boy Scouts of America whistleblower says administrators blocked proposed child protection measures because they feared objections from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Driving the news: The whistleblower, Michael Johnson, was the BSA’s former director of child protection. He said in the film that he wanted to implement “what I felt were very medium-level policies and content training upgrades for youth protection.”

  • “I kept getting told that the Mormons may not like that, the Mormons don’t like that,” Johnson said.
  • A BSA executive told him: “You need to understand something … The Mormons are sacrosanct,” Johnson said.

The church did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment and did not participate in the film.

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North Texas Educator Charged with Sex Crimes Against Multiple Students

A North Texas educator has been accused of sex crimes involving multiple students.

The Arlington Police Department arrested Anthony Rashad Hawkins, 25, on Tuesday in Grand Prairie.

Police say Hawkins is a former employee of Sam Houston High School in Arlington Independent School District.

Hawkins was charged with three counts of improper relationship between educator and student—forcible rape and two counts of indecency with a child by sexual contact. All are second-degree felonies punishable by two to 20 years in prison.

According to Arlington police, detectives with APD’s Crimes Against Children Unit initiated an investigation on August 23, after school administrators were made aware of the allegations and immediately reported them to authorities.

Through the course of their investigation, detectives identified three victims.

Hawkins was booked into the Arlington City Jail on September 5 and released on a $100,000 bond ($20,000 for each offense).

State records show that Hawkins does not hold a Texas teaching certificate.

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U.K. Government Finally Admits It Can’t Scan for Child Porn Without Violating Everybody’s Privacy

The U.K. government finally acknowledges that a component of the Online Safety Bill that would force tech companies to scan data and messages for child porn images can’t be implemented without violating the privacy rights of all internet users and undermining the data encryption tools that keep our information safe.

And so the government is backing down—for now—on what’s been called the “spy clause.” Using the justification of fighting the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), part of the Online Safety Bill would have required online platforms to create “backdoors” that the British government could use to scan messages between social media users. The law also would’ve allowed the government to punish platforms or sites that implement end-to-end encryption and prevent the government from accessing messages and data.

While British officials have insisted that this intrusive surveillance power would be used only to track down CSAM, tech and privacy experts have warned repeatedly that there’s no way to implement a surveillance system that could be used only for this particular purpose. Encryption backdoors allow criminals and oppressive governments to snoop on people for dangerous and predatory purposes. Firms like Signal and WhatsApp threatened to pull their services from the U.K. entirely if this bill component moved forward.

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My editor trashed my inquiry into child sexual abuse. Now I know why

One morning, a fortnight ago, I checked the BBC headlines to find my old editor, Peter Wilby, peering out. He’d been exposed as a paedophile and convicted of possessing child sexual abuse images. I still feel sick at the discovery.

It would be disturbing enough to discover anyone you knew had done something so terrible – he was convicted of possessing images of children being raped since the 1990s. But Wilby wasn’t anyone. He was a pillar of the media establishment, an editor of the Independent on Sunday and the New Statesman, and a Guardian columnist.

Journalists who had worked with Wilby were appalled at his crimes, while others raged at his “hypocrisy”, but what shocked me was the creeping realisation that he had used his position as an editor and columnist to create what the writer Beatrix Campbell has called a “hostile environment” for victims of abuse.

It dawned on me that he had applied that “hostile environment” to me at the outset of my career when I was a freelance reporter at the Independent on Sunday, and he was its news editor.

In April 1991, I learned of mental and physical abuse at Ty Mawr children’s home in Gwent, south Wales, where some residents had attempted suicide. The claims emerged in the wake of abuse claims at other children’s homes – the “Pindown” scandal in Staffordshire where staff used violent restraint on children, and sexual abuse by social worker Frank Beck at homes in Leicestershire. I thought Wilby would be excited at the prospect of a scoop, but he couldn’t have been less interested. I took it to the daily Independent, which put it on the front page and made a campaign of it.

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TikTok star and English language teacher Luke Rockwell, 29, with 2m followers is arrested for ‘having sex with a minor he infected with STDs’ while working at private Christian schools in Bangkok

TikTok star and teacher Luke Rockwell has been arrested for allegedly having sex with a minor her mother says he infected with STDs while teaching English at private Christians schools in Bangkok.

The 29-year-old, from Florida, reportedly contacted a 16-year-old schoolgirl on social media before having sex with her ‘on multiple occasions’ while recording it and telling her to ‘keep it a secret’.

Last month the young girl fell ill with abdominal pains caused by chlamydia and gonorrhea passed onto her by Rockwell, who uses the name Teacher Luke for his TikToks, according to the girl’s mother.

Her worried mother rushed her to hospital before uncovering the alleged sex. 

The horrified mother filed a police report on August 29 and Rockwell was arrested yesterday at his luxury apartment for ‘sex with a minor’ and ‘recording the acts’. 

Speaking today, the shaken mother said: ‘My daughter had been messaging Teacher Luke for months using my phone. She deleted the messages after they chatted.

‘They met and had sex without me knowing, then my daughter caught gonorrhea and chlamydia from him.

‘I knew something was wrong when my daughter looked very sick. She looked pale and she was clutching her tummy complaining about the pain in that area. I kept on asking her questions until she told me about this man called Teacher Luke.

‘My daughter said the first time they had sex, Teacher Luke used protection but after he did not use any. She trusted him.

‘Teacher Luke told her to keep everything a secret until she turned 18. He told my daughter that he loved her and would let her come live with him when she’s no longer a minor.

‘My daughter messaged him the STD test result where she had tested positive for gonorrhea. He promised that he would take responsibility for the costs.

‘I’m not complaining to the police because I want money or compensation. I don’t care about the money.

‘I want every woman and child to know how evil Teacher Luke is. It’s embarrassing for me to tell people about what’s happening to my family but I hope it prevents Teacher Luke from ever taking advantage of any girl in the future.’

Rockwell is from Melbourne, Florida. He graduated from the University of Central Florida. He previously worked at the prestigious Wall Street English college in Bangkok, where he taught locals.

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Ex-Chris Christie aide arrested on suspicion of sex crimes

A former Chris Christie aide has been charged in connection with a child sex investigation, New Jersey Globe reports.

Kevin Tomafsky, 41, was arrested Aug. 15 after a grand jury indicted him in July, the report said. He was charged with engaging in sexual conduct with a child, conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child, permitting a child to engage in pornography, and the possession of child pornography, the report said.

Tomafsky’s arrest culminated a probe that began in October 2022 when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children alerted the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s office it received a report from Snapchat of an alleged incident depicting child sex was uploaded to the platform.

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