UK: Muslim cleric assaulted boys at Stoke on Trent mosque

Mohammed Hanif Khan

A Muslim cleric has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two boys at a mosque in Stoke-on-Trent.

Mohammed Hanif Khan, 42, had denied charges of rape, attempted rape and sexual activity with a child.

A jury at Nottingham Crown Court found Khan, of Owler Lane, Sheffield, guilty of two counts of rape and one of sexual activity with a child.

The offences took place at the mosque on Capper Street between July and October 2009.

Khan has been remanded into custody and will be sentenced at a later date.

Religious education

The jury could not reach verdicts on other charges against the imam and were discharged from doing so.

Nottingham Crown Court heard Khan was imam of the mosque, where he led prayers and delivered religious education lessons to boys at evening classes.

Prosecutor Tariq Bin Shakoor had told the court one of the boys claimed in police interviews that he was singled out by Khan after evening prayer on several occasions.

He was assaulted in areas of the mosque not covered by CCTV, Mr Shakoor said.

The other boy was assaulted when he was an overnight guest at Khan's house, the jury heard.

In his defence, Khan said he had a close relationship with the boys because he tried to help them with their unruly behaviour.

'Exploited trust'

His lawyer, Robert Woodcock QC, asked him who had invited him to get involved in the families' business and he said it was mainly the boys' mothers.

Don Knapper, district crown prosecutor, said it was a case of abuse of young boys by a man who they and their families trusted.

"Khan was in a position of trust and exploited the access he was afforded as their teacher to abuse the boys," he said,

After the verdict, Det Insp Tim Martin from Staffordshire Police said it had been a thorough inquiry, and he realised the case had been cause for some "understandable concern" in the community.

There are other links to this story at BBC News.

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'Paedophile Ringleaders' jailed

Bristol, UK.

The leader of a paedophile ring which sexually abused young children and shared the images has been jailed.

Colin Blanchard, 40, of Rochdale, admitted a string of sex offences. He received an indeterminate sentence, and must spend at least nine years in jail.

Two women were also sentenced. Tracy Lyons, 41, of Portsmouth, was jailed for seven years and Tracy Dawber, 44, of Southport, for four years.

Plymouth nursery worker Vanessa George, 40, was jailed in 2009.

She received an indeterminate sentence, as did the fifth member of the ring, 40-year-old Angela Allen, of Nottingham. They were given minimum terms of seven years and five years respectively.

'Svengali-like influence'

Mr Justice Royce, sitting at Bristol Crown Court, said Blanchard was guilty of "breathtaking depravity", and described him as "warped, wicked, dangerous and devious".

He told the three defendants: "This case involving the three of you, together with Vanessa George and Angela Allen, has caused widespread revulsion and disbelief.

"Your influence Colin Blanchard, described this morning as Svengali-like, over four separate women so they engaged in sexual abuse of children in such tender years, is frightening.

"It is more extraordinary when one appreciates you never actually met three of them face to face.

"It is beyond the ken of decent people how any of you could stoop as disgustingly low as you did."

Prosecutors described five defendants as being involved in "one of the most sickening paedophile rings this country has seen".

Blanchard, an father-of-two, met the women over the internet and convinced them to sexually assault young children and send him the images.

The ring was broken when a colleague of Blanchard found child sex abuse images on his computer in June 2009 and called police.

'Dim woman'

The net closed in on the others when detectives identified George, Lyons, Dawber and Allen as being the other members.

George - who was described as being obsessed with Blanchard - abused young children at Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth.

Ex-prostitute Allen and mother-of-nine Lyons also assaulted youngsters to please Blanchard, an IT consultant. The two women were in regular contact on Facebook.

Dawber had a face-to-face relationship with Blanchard after meeting him on Facebook. She sexually assaulted a child and allowed Blanchard to take pictures of the abuse on his mobile phone.

Blanchard admitted taking indecent photographs of children, distribution of an indecent image and sexual assault of a child under the age of 13. He had previously admitted 19 other sex abuse charges.

Dawber, a former care worker and grandmother, was convicted in October of sexual assault, arrangement or commission of a child sex offence and five offences of permitting an indecent image to be taken.

Lyons admitted assault of a child by penetration, sexual assault of a child under 13, causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity and three offences of distributing indecent photographs of a child.

Greville Davis, for Blanchard, said his client was a "broken man" who had been diagnosed by a psychiatrist as suffering from bipolar disorder.

Stephen Smyth, representing Lyons, said Blanchard had a "Svengali" hold over his client, who was a "dim woman".

Thanks to BBC News.

Girls drugged for underage sex

Detective Supt.
Debbie  Platt

The ringleaders of a gang which groomed and abused teenage girls in Derby, England have been given indeterminate jail terms.

Mohammed Liaqat, 28, and Abid Saddique, 27, were found guilty at a trial in November of charges including rape.

At Nottingham Crown Court, Saddique was jailed for at least 11 years and Liaqat for a minimum of eight.

Many of the gang's victims were given alcohol or drugs before being forced to have sex in cars, rented houses or hotels across the Midlands.

Six other men have already been sentenced for their part in the abuse.

'Sexual predators'

A seventh man was cleared of sex charges but pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine.

Derbyshire Police Det Supt Debbie Platt said the two men were "sexual predators" who were looking for sexual gratification.

She praised the victims for coming forward and said that "without their bravery we would not have seen the outcome we saw today".

Liaqat, of Briar Lea Close, Sinfin, was found guilty of one count of rape, two of sexual assault, aiding and abetting rape, affray and four counts of sexual activity with a child.

Saddique, of Northumberland Street, Normanton, was convicted of four counts of rape as well as two counts of false imprisonment, two of sexual assault, three charges of sexual activity with a child, perverting the course of justice and aiding and abetting rape.

There were 26 girls involved in the case, with the youngest 12 and the oldest 18.

Derbyshire Police said the girls were from a variety of backgrounds and urged all parents to be aware of the risks of sexual exploitation.

A report published after the gang was convicted said there were "missed opportunities" by agencies to help the girls.

More from BBC News

Nursery worker arrested in UK on suspicion of sexual abuse

A male nursery worker from Birmingham (England) has been arrested on suspicion of the sexual abuse of a child.

Officers arrested the 20-year-old man at his home in Nechells in the early hours of Wednesday.

A number of items, including a computer, were seized and are currently being examined by specialist investigators, police said.

The man is an assistant at Little Stars Nursery in Nechells. Parents are being contacted by police.

The nursery, which currently has 55 children attending and 14 members of staff, has been closed, a police spokesman added.

A telephone line for parents has been opened with specialist staff on hand to offer advice and support. The number is: 0121 675 4806.

'Victim identified'

Assistant Chief Constable Anil Patani said: "The investigation is in its very early stages; however we believe that we have identified one victim who we believe attends the nursery.

"The family of this child have been told and police are supporting them at this very difficult time."

A joint investigation is being carried out by the force and Birmingham City Council's children's services.

Police said a meeting would be held for parents with children registered at the nursery where senior officers and council officials would provide an update on the investigation.

Mr Patani added: "West Midlands Police and Birmingham City Council do not underestimate the significance this news has on parents and the local community."

The nursery was issued with an improvement notice by Ofsted in August after an unannounced inspection revealed it did not have an effective safeguarding children procedure.

It was given a good rating after a subsequent inspection in November.

'Keep parents informed'

Ofsted said the nursery "supports children who speak English as an additional language".

The facility is also open to children with learning difficulties and disabilities.

In a statement Ofsted said it was aware of the investigation and was working closely with the police and the local authority to assist and consider what action needs to be taken.

"We fully understand how worrying this situation is for parents but it would be inappropriate to make any further comment at this stage of the police investigation.'

Birmingham City Council said it was also working closely with West Midlands Police and would continue to keep parents informed.

"We've set up a helpline with specialist staff to offer help and advice," the spokesman added.

The nursery is not run by the local authority.

We have reproduced this story from the BBC News website, with thanks.

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This is not a pleasant post to write but in the interests of complete honesty I believe that it needs to be written.

As you know I had an an assessment session with the counselling service last week and at the time was both relieved and happy that things were finally on course. Unfortunately the euphoria proved to be a little premature.

I'm used to dealing with persistent, unpleasant memories; they're part of my life and aren't going away. However I usually only have to deal with one slice of history at a time. I hadn't allowed for the fact that in the space of an hour I detailed the whole list of events covering the 15 years between the ages of 3 and 18.

It was like watching an out of control slide show and I was left completely helpless in the face of so much horror. Seeing yourself as a cowering toddler, an abuse victim, being bullied and then suffering at the hands of your stepfather is not something I'd recommend to anybody.

With the help of my superb GP and the Exeter Crisis Management Team I've got things under control again and now have access to help, should I need it, at any time from people who have access to the full story. Just knowing that the help is available makes an enormous difference.

I'm still certain that counselling is the right course and now I know what I'm dealing with I hope I can control things a little more.

Sorry this couldn't be a more uplifting post.

First steps on a long road

Things have finally started moving on the counselling front so I thought I'd post a brief update.

Yesterday morning I had a preliminary consultation with one of the psychologists running the counselling programme for adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse. My local health authority has only been working in this area for 2 years and this is actually the first fully planned programme.

The programme proper won't actually start until March next year and it will be group based. In the past I've resisted any attempts to bring me into group therapy because nobody was making any effort to ensure that participants were "like minded", there was a tendency to just lump everybody suffering from emotional problems into an homogenised group.

That isn't intended to disparage anybody suffering from depression for any reason whatsoever. The point is that suffering childhood abuse brings its own unique emotional issues and, as I've said more than once in the past, only those who were abused as children have the faintest idea what it's really like.

Perhaps the most startling revelation was that I won't be the oldest person in the group by a considerable margin. One of the people I'll be meeting next March is 10 years older than me and has recently, like me taken the decision to finally face the past. One of the key traits of abuse survivors is effectively denying our past and getting on with life, albeit somewhat ineptly.

There were a couple of other things that we discussed yesterday which I'll put into a follow-up post. Hopefully they'll spark some discussion.

'Rogue Clerics' is a book by Anson Shupe

An advert for this book appeared today on It's Getting Better - my, er, newsy blog.

I thought some of you might be interested, even though it was published in 2007.

I should point out that I haven't read this book, I haven't even read anyone's review of it.  I simply saw the advert and thought you might like to see it too.

Micky

"During the past several years the mass media in the United States has been awash with reports of priestly pedophilia, ecclesiastical cover-up, and clerical intimidation or financial settlements intended to silence victims. Based on journalistic accounts, or scholarly research, it might be assumed that this is a recent phenomenon. Journalist reports began only within the past few years. Similarly, most sociologists of religion and particularly specialists in deviance and criminology did not reflect awareness of clerical misbehavior in their work. Despite this, Anson Shupe shows that clergy deviance, whether it is sexual or otherwise, is not merely a recent problem. It is as old as the church itself and is inevitably bound to recur due to the nature of religious groups.

"This comprehensive analysis offers the first up-to-date analysis of sexual, economic, and authoritative clergy malfeasance across faiths and denominational authority structures. Drawing on examples taken from antiquity up until the present day, and using reports by historians, theologians, church spokespersons, therapists, social scientists, and journalists, Shupe critically evaluate clergy deviant behavior, dividing it into various types. He also makes use of the therapeutic literature, addressing victimization at the level of the individual, church, and community at large. In this way, he compares the response of the clergy to victims' attempts to mobilize movements calling for church reform. Perhaps most controversial, this book considers the possible relati

"Anson Shupe is professor of sociology at the joint campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and is a member of the graduate faculties at both institutions. A prolific writer dealing with religious movements, clergy misconduct, violence, and inequality, he has most recently authored Agents of Discord: Deprogramming, Pseudo-Science and the American Anitcult Movement with Susan E. Darnell."




The publishers website from which you can preview and buy the ebook or a printed version, I understand.


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London Court of Appeal: Diocese MUST compensate boys it abused

The Diocese of Middlesbrough has been refused the right to appeal against a court ruling that found it responsible for an £8 million compensation claim by victims of child sexual abuse.

The Court of Appeal in London rejected the diocese’s application to appeal against what is believed to be the largest award to abuse victims in English history.

The diocese was found liable in October for the claims of 158 former pupils who were abused at St William’s Community Home, in Market Weighton, near York, between 1960 and 1992.

Judges ruled that the De La Salle Christian Brothers, which staffed the home, had no legal responsibility, leaving the Catholic Child Welfare Society of the diocese liable for the compensation claim.

One of the victims, Graham Baverstock of Catterick, North Yorkshire, said he was pleased with the ruling.

“The Church has tried to evade their responsibility to the victims all along and they now need to say sorry,” he said. “We have been campaigning for years for them to apologise.”

Mr Baverstock, 52, was 14 when he first was sent to the home, which provided residential care and education for boys with emotional and behavioural problems, and spent more than a year there. He said he was systematically abused in 1973 and 1974 and subsequently attempted suicide.

Christian Brother James Carragher, now 74, who was principal at the home for more than 20 years, began serving a 14-year prison sentence in 2004 for a long list of sex crimes against students.

Attorney David Greenwood, who is representing the victims, said he hoped the Middlesbrough diocese would work to reach compensation settlements with each abuse survivor.

Following the Court of Appeal decision, the only option remaining for the diocese is to appeal directly to the Supreme Court.

“Our lawyers are considering the matter,” a diocesan spokesman said.

We found this story in the Catholic Herald

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Parents who adopt abused children hampered by lack of support

extracted from an article by Tracie McVeigh

Gay adoptive family
hopefully without
these extra challenges

Parents who adopt are being failed by a woeful lack of support and understanding of the needs of the country's most vulnerable children.

“While a shortage of adopters means that more than 85,000 children are in care across the UK, many families who do adopt complain of being unprepared for the difficulties and of facing threadbare or non-existent support services” said Jonathan Pearce, chief executive of the charity Adoption UK.

"Once children are adopted from the care system they become forgotten children. There's this 'happily ever after' myth, but the reality is far from that," he said, adding that many parents feel judged when they go back to social services asking for help.

Fiona, 42, from Perthshire
For parents trying to do what's best for their children, not knowing the full extent of their early experiences can be a huge hindrance. For Fiona, 42, from Perthshire, it was not until her daughter reached puberty and started to neglect her personal hygiene that she decided to go back to the adoption agency to check if there was any information that hadn't been shared with them at the time.

"When we had our daughter placed with us aged six, we were told she had been neglected by her birth mother who had learning difficulties and didn't really understand her needs. When at 13 her behavior became quite strange, I went back and demanded to read the files. That's when I found out she had been abused physically and, it was suspected, sexually," she said. "I was still offered absolutely zero help or support afterwards, although I was so disgusted with the social work team concerned that I don't think I'd have accepted any from them anyway. But at least then I finally understood what we were dealing with."

Hannah, 44, from Leicestershire, adopted Tom, now 14, 10 years ago.
"Then far less was understood about brain development and behaviour. But today I still hear adoptive parents asking the same questions I was asking, so I wonder what has changed.

"The thing I was never told is that you cannot parent these children like an ordinary child – you can't have a naughty stair or time out or controlled crying because you reinforce their understanding of abandonment. My son was weeing all over the place and his bedroom stank to high heaven, but only later was it explained that he was recreating the smells of his cot when he was a baby.

"The social workers kept telling me it was fine; he was attached because he was happy to give cuddles, it was normal. But they didn't understand, my son would give any stranger who came to the door cuddles – he just wanted adult attention.

"I was made aware that children like my son would need extra care. I totally believed that, give it three years and he would be as if he was born to me. What actually happened was that he was extremely distressed by his early experiences. With hindsight he was showing classic developmental trauma. He would push me away at the same time as wanting a hug, he would destroy things, threaten me, have tantrums that seemed to come out of nowhere, he would threaten to hurt himself and talked about killing himself – which came as such a shock as I did not realise four-year-olds could think like that.

"He would punch himself in the face, bang his head against the wall, his speech was delayed and he found it very difficult to be away from me at school. He was permanently excluded at the age of nine, unable to read or write.

"I asked for help from day one. I was told in a letter: 'There is nothing wrong with this child and you need to get on with being a family'. I discovered about Family Futures, a therapist unit in London, but was refused funding. When I finally got a charity to pay for an assessment four years later they said it was probably too late.

"As Tom got older he started to run away. I had police helicopters out searching for him when he went missing for 11 hours aged eight. One day on a walk with the dogs he came at me with a huge stick and then started throwing boulders at me. I was scared he was going to kill me. At the end of that tantrum he ran away from me and fell down sobbing that he wanted to die. It got worse and worse.

"I never stopped fighting for him and eventually got him into a residential unit at great cost to the local social services. They all agreed they did not have the right services available locally, but it took years to get to that stage. I had to prove I had tried everything.

"Support until then was non-existent, ineffectual or patronising. I was asked by emergency social services one evening as he was threatening me with a knife: "Have you tried after-school clubs?"

"In between this he was a lovely, kind boy. But being left to struggle was horrendous, its taken on a toll on my health and my income. My son is now 14 and doing well, but with hindsight had I known what I know now, things could have been a lot different for him, a lot earlier."

More from the Observer Newspaper

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What is The Grey Room?

Malcolm writes: The title of this blog "Leaving The Grey Room" was my idea. My original intention was to create a blog to pass on any helpful information from my forthcoming counselling sessions. After talking to Micky the idea evolved into a much broader concept; to reach out to anybody who has survived abuse in childhood and to break the taboo that surrounds this pernicious evil. Now I'd like to tell you the real meaning of the title...

In its most literal sense the Grey Room is my childhood and teenage bedroom. When I was 12 I was, for the first time in my life, allowed to choose the colour scheme when Dad decided my room needed redecorating. Almost without hesitation, and to my parent’s discomfort, I chose grey and resisted all pressure to select a brighter colour.

The colour seemed to epitomise my life at that time; there was hardly any fun left in it. Continuing abuse coupled with bullying at school was causing depression and I seemed to be constantly in trouble at home. I wasn’t allowed out even for a little while on school days all I did was study and practice my violin although, in fairness violin was my one joy. To make matters worse, First and Second Formers at my school wore grey shirts to identify them as the lowest of the school’s low.

I was being isolated from the boys I’d grown up with simply because they all went to the local Secondary Modern school while I went to Grammar school and my parents had high expectations.

My room was also the place to which I was banished following physical punishment, usually with the words “now get out of my sight!” ringing in my ears while I hastily readjusted my clothes. Thus my grey room became synonymous with punishment and imprisonment.

The Grey Room is also a metaphor for the effect those various forms of childhood abuse have had on my adult life. Depression, mood swings and a general feeling of inadequacy have been an almost constant feature and all too often the outlook has seemed well, grey.

My hope is that when I start my counselling sessions in December I can start to metaphorically repaint The Grey Room with a brighter colour scheme.

Nursery "provided an ideal environment" for woman's child abuse"

Jim Gould
- Report

A Plymouth nursery where a worker sexually abused children "provided an ideal environment" for her to abuse, an inquiry has found.

The review into abuse at Little Ted's nursery found that a lack of formal staff supervision was partly to blame.

Vanessa George, 40, from Plymouth, was jailed last year for a minimum of seven years after admitting abusing toddlers at the nursery and photographing it.

No other staff at Little Ted's were involved in the abuse.

The privately-run nursery was closed in June last year when George was arrested and police began an inquiry into the abuse, which started in December 2008.

A new pre-school facility called Greenshoots opened at the site two months ago.

Plymouth City Council initiated the serious case review into what happened at Little Ted's, in Laira, so that lessons could be learnt.

George admitted seven sexual assaults and six counts of making and distributing indecent pictures of children.

She used a mobile phone to take pictures of herself abusing toddlers and sent them to Colin Blanchard, 39, from Rochdale, who forwarded them to Angela Allen, 39, from Nottingham.

'Explicit' culture

Allen admitted four child sex assaults and one count of distributing an indecent image and was jailed for at least five years.

Blanchard pleaded guilty to 17 offences relating to indecent images of children and two sexual assaults on children and is awaiting sentence.

They shared indecent images over the internet after meeting on the social networking website Facebook.

The Plymouth Safeguarding Children Board review concluded that Little Ted's "provided an ideal environment within which George could abuse".

While evidence pointed to George having no sexual interest in children until she came into contact with Blanchard, it found there appeared to have been a complete lack of recognition of a culture in which explicit sexual references about adults in conversation were the norm.

The review concluded that there was a "weak governance framework" at the private nursery with "no clear lines of accountability".

It said the environment enabled a culture to develop in which staff did not feel able to challenge some inappropriate behaviour by George.

Staff 'worried'

Staff became increasingly uncomfortable and worried about George's behaviour, but felt they had nowhere to go with these feelings, it said.

It found an informal recruitment process was also partly to blame.

Because nurseries have had to be registered with the education watchdog Ofsted since 2001, the case review also looked at whether Ofsted's regulation regime was sufficiently thorough.

An inspection of Little Ted's in 2008, several months before George began abusing children there, rated the nursery as "good" for protecting children from harm or neglect.However, from staff interviews and discussions with parents as well as a review of the records, it was apparent that Little Ted's did not provide a safe, positive environment for children in its care.

The report said: "This would indicate that either the individual inspections were not rigorous enough, or the framework for inspection is not adequate."

However it found there was no indication "that any professional could have reasonably predicted that George might be a risk to children".

In a statement, Ofsed responded to the findings by saying: "Ofsted has already implemented a number of changes in the way we work as a result of this review and to address the recommendations made."

It said it had improved its complaints process and the way it shared information with local authorities.

'No stone unturned'

Brian Vincent, councillor for Plymouth's Efford and Lipson ward, said he was happy that "no stone's been left unturned" in the review.

He said: "I spoke with some of the parents ahead of this review and their main concern was that it wouldn't be a full one.

"I think they'll now be reassured because of the great length and depth that's gone into it.

"Once they realise this, they can get on with their lives and underneath it all that's what they want - to get back to normal."

The serious case review detailed a number of lessons learnt from the abuse, including the danger of mobile phones within day care settings, and an urgent need to develop effective staff supervision.

Staff need training to help recognise potential signs of abuse and to become confident in responding to the behaviour of colleagues, it added.

In its final conclusion, the report said while there were a number of factors that came together to support a culture where abuse was possible, ultimate responsibility must rest with George.

Thanks to BBC News for this report.

Stories of childhood abuse

Both our Story Pages have now been posted for you to read.

Just click on the tabs under the picture.

A third 'Story page' is coming soon.

We'd like to debate some of the issues raised in these personal accounts and are planning to do this on the general blog so that you can join in by using Comments and Emails.

If you email us we both receive a copy and one of us will always reply to you.

If you are a survivor of abuse and would like to share your own story, whatever form your ordeal took, you can do so (under a pen name if you wish).  Simply email us and either include your account in the text or attach it as a Word or Pages document or you could arrange to give us access and publish it privately as a Google document.

If you'd like to discuss things with us privately prior to submitting your own story of abuse then you're very welcome to do so.

This is a place where you can feel safe to publish your own story - perhaps for the very first time - and be sure that you'll receive a sympathetic response because we've been through it too.


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