U.S. - Most people don’t know about our nation’s foster care to sex trafficking pipeline, but the facts are sobering. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) found that “of the more than 18,500 endangered runaways reported to NCMEC in 2016, one in six were likely victims of child sex trafficking. Of those, 86 percent were in the care of social services when they went missing.”
The outcomes of law enforcement efforts against sex traffickers repeatedly support the NCMEC estimate. In a 2013 FBI 70-city nationwide raid, 60 percent of the victims came from foster care or group homes. In 2014, New York authorities estimated that 85 percent of sex trafficking victims were previously in the child welfare system.
In 2012, Connecticut police rescued 88 children from sex trafficking; 86 were from the child welfare system. And even more alarming: the FBI discovered in a 2014 nationwide raid that many foster children rescued from sex traffickers, including children as young as 11, were never reported missing by child welfare authorities.
https://www.newsweek.com/we-have-set-system-sex-traffic-american-children-779541
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There's A Team Of Retired U.S. Navy Seals And Police Detectives Saving Teens From Sex Trafficking.
What special forces have are a very particular set of skills. Skills we have acquired over a very long career, skills that make us a nightmare for people like sex traffickers and child porno rings . Let our children go now and that will be the end of it or...
“People don’t realize this is going on in their own backyards."
DAN CLARENDON @SIXFOURDAN FEB 01, 2018.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline fielded 7,621 cases of reported human trafficking in 2016, including the daughter of a couple PEOPLE identifies as Maureen and David. The girl disappeared with a friend that January, and three weeks later, Maureen and David contacted Saved in America (or SIAM), a volunteer group of U.S. Navy Seals, police detectives, and other specialists. Within a week, SIAM had helped locate and rescue the 16-year-old from the sex trafficking ring into which she had been sold.
In fact, thanks to this San Diego-based group's expertise in investigation, surveillance, and police collaboration, it has assisted in 57 successful child recoveries over 36 months, according to the SIAM website. And the group also connects the rescued juveniles with treatment and rehabilitation options.
https://articles.aplus.com/a/saved-in-america-human-trafficking-navy-seals
A woman that has dedicated her life to fighting human trafficking says it's still not something people want to talk about.
Karly Church is now a crisis intervention counsellor with Victim Services in the Durham Region.
"It's not a pretty conversation," she told CKAT. "So I truly believe telling my story will help other people."
Church, a survivor of human trafficking, told a conference in North Bay Tuesday that human trafficking, in reality, is a lot different than the way it’s portrayed in the movies and on television where someone is kidnapped and taken.
"I went through something that was quite negative in my life and I believe I can turn that into a positive."
That's why Church brought her message to North Bay. She says girls don't know what they are getting into.
"When I was being trafficked I had absolutely no idea that that was what was happening to me, so I'm a big believer that education is power."
She wonders if someone like her had come to her high school to speak that perhaps she could have avoided the situation.
“People are lured into the sex trade with the promise of a future or the promise of being taken care of by somebody. Somebody looks at someone’s vulnerabilities and the needs that are not being met and begins to meet those needs,” she says.
Church says nearly two-thirds of all human trafficking cases in Canada are in Ontario, and communities near highways like North Bay are especially vulnerable.
She spoke at the Faith Speaks Out event, a collaboration of community organizations, faith leaders and the OPP within the District of Nipissing.
https://www.baytoday.ca/local-news/people-are-lured-into-the-sex-trade-with-the-promise-of-a-future-says-counsellor-1478843
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Woman charged with sex assault of minors worked at male Highland Shores Children's Aid Society group-home at time of alleged offences.
February 1, 2019 7:16 pm By Alexandra Mazur Online Reporter Global News.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4916584/woman-charged-with-sex-assault-of-minors-worked-at-male-cas-group-home-at-time-of-alleged-offences/
Woman charged with sexual exploitation worked at Children’s Aid at time of alleged offences.
Belleville police say two male victims came forward claiming incidents of sexual assault with the accused, 48-year-old Sandra Forcier.
https://globalnews.ca/video/4917374/woman-charged-with-sexual-exploitation-worked-at-childrens-aid-at-time-of-alleged-offences
Youth worker charged with historical sex assault.
Police in Belleville, Ont., have charged a 48-year-old woman with five counts of sexual assault dating back to 2012-2013, when she was employed as a youth worker.
The woman is charged with two counts of sexual assault, two counts of sexual exploitation of a youth under 18 and one count of sexual interference.
The woman was employed by the Highland Shores Children's Aid Society (CAS) when the alleged assaults took place. Police said a lengthy investigation resulted in two victims being identified.
Highland Shores CAS executive director Tami Callahan said the accused was a supervisor at a residence for youth run by the society before leaving in December 2013.
Callahan said Belleville police have not been in touch with the CAS, and she didn't know whether the complainants were in the society's care at the time of the alleged assaults.
The accused also worked at Belleville and Quinte West Community Health Centre as a counsellor. The centre's executive director, Sheila Braidek, said the accused has been on leave for an extended period of time.
The centre would not provide any further information, citing privacy concerns.
The woman is due back in court in February after being released from custody with numerous conditions.
Anyone with more information should contact Belleville police at 613-966-0882 ext. 2328
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/youth-worker-sex-assault-belleville-1.5001086
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Children’s Aid executive facing 20 charges in child abuse case. By Alexandra Mazur and Mike Postovit Global News. 2018.
OPP has charged William Sweet, a resident of Picton, Ont., after allegations of wrongdoing during his work as the executive director of the Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society between 2002 and 2010.
After investigating cases of children placed with foster parents who themselves were convicted of child abuse, this led the OPP to look into Sweet’s involvement as executive director of the child care organization.
The 67-year-old Picton resident was charged with 10 counts each of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and failure to provide the necessities of life. The accused appeared at the Ontario Court of Justice in Picton on May 2.
Sgt. Carolle Dionne, provincial media relations coordinator, says that although Sweet never fostered any children of his own, he is being charged because as she said, “he ought to have known better” than to place children with the foster parents who have since been convicted in child abuse cases.
For a period of eight years, nine foster children were placed with six foster parents who have since been convicted of sexual abuse against those children.
According to Dionne, Sweet’s investigation encompassed a review of those previous abuse investigations and convictions between 2013 and 2016. Police then conducted additional interviews, executed search warrants and seized evidence to put before the court for Sweet’s charges.
OPP officers are not commenting on specific details of the allegations as the matter is now before the courts.
Children’s Aid Society moves on
Mark Kartusch is the current executive director of the Highland Shores Children’s Aid Society. In 2012, after the Ministry of Children and Youth Services reviewed the Prince Edward County Children Services, Sweet left his post, and his branch dissolved. What came from that was an amalgamation of several children’s aid offices, an organization which Kartusch now heads.
He says that Sweet’s charges are bringing up bad memories, but that he hopes people will have faith in the workers.
“We didn’t have a lot of people coming forward to become foster parents,” said Kartusch, although he said that things have changed in the last few years.
He also emphasized that events like those that happened to the children placed out of the Prince Edward County children’s aid are highly unusual.
“Kids are safe in foster homes,” Kartusch emphasized.
He finished by saying that although there are employees from the now defunct Prince Edward Country chapter working within the Highland Shores organization, they were not involved in any criminal activity.
“The charges are isolated with Bill,” said Kartusch about Sweet.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4182170/childrens-aid-executive-charged/
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A 14-year-old girl is a ‘sexually mature young woman,’ not a child, children’s aid society lawyer argues in sex abuse suit.
Kenora-Rainy River Districts Child and Family Services tells the Star it disagrees with what its lawyer argued in an ongoing sexual abuse court case, but refused to say whether it plans to rectify the statement in court.
NEWS 01:49 PM by Jacques Gallant Toronto Star
A 14- or 15-year-old girl is not a child, but rather a "sexually mature young woman," according to a lawyer for a Northern Ontario children's aid society.
The statement by Toronto lawyer Gary McCallum is contained in a July 2018 affidavit in an ongoing civil court case, in which a woman is suing Kenora-Rainy River Districts Child and Family Services, claiming she was sexually abused as a child by her foster father in the 1980s while under the care of the agency's predecessor organization.
It was again referenced in a January 2019 ruling from the lengthy case, which is playing out in a Toronto court.
The statement has been described to the Star by other lawyers and a professor of social work as "offensive," "shocking," and "appalling" — doubly so because it was made by the lawyer for the very agency charged with protecting the most vulnerable children.
"This is outrageous," said Melissa Redmond, assistant professor of social work at Carleton University. "You represent the organization that is responsible for protecting children in this community, protecting children from exactly the sorts of horrific circumstances that this child found herself in."
820 Lakeview Drive Kenora Ontario P9N 3P7 Canada Phone: 807-467-5437 Fax: 807-467-5539
Ontario's Child and Family Services Act, which governs children's aid societies, is also clear. "'Child' means a person under the age of eighteen years," it reads.
Kenora CFS refused to say when it became aware its lawyer had made the statement, but told the Star this week it disagrees with McCallum and called his position "inaccurate."
The agency also refused to say whether it plans to rectify the statement in court.
McCallum declined to comment to the Star, saying in an email that "I will not be making any statements on matters that are currently being litigated and I will not be making any statements inconsistent with those of my client."
The statement is part of a voluminous court record that stretches back years. It appears in a July 2018 affidavit in which McCallum states he is responding to the affidavit of the plaintiff's lawyer, Simona Jellinek, which McCallum said is "rife with errors, imprecisions, and misrepresentations." (Jellinek declined to comment to the Star.)
"She states that the alleged assaults took place while the plaintiff was 'in childhood,'" McCallum states before noting that the plaintiff's year of birth indicates she would have been about 14 or 15 in the early 1980s.
"A fourteen or fifteen (sic) girl is a sexually mature young woman, not a 'child,' as the term is conventionally understood," McCallum states.
The statement is again referenced in a January 2019 decision by Superior Court Justice Jessica Kimmel, who ruled that the plaintiff's action could proceed. In her decision, Kimmel makes no comment on the statement itself, other than to say it was identified as a "live" issue by McCallum surrounding the allegation of sexual assault.
"He's speaking on behalf of a children's aid society, so it's deeply concerning that there's a children's aid society out there that takes the view that youngsters of 14 or 15 are sexually mature," said lawyer Loretta Merritt, whose practice is almost exclusively focused on representing plaintiffs in civil cases involving sexual abuse.
"If that's their view, the view of an organization charged with responsibility for caring for vulnerable children, then that's deeply concerning to me."
Kenora CFS executive director Bill Leonard told the Star in an email exchange this week that he can't really comment as the court case is ongoing.
"Mr. McCallum's statement is before the court and as you point out, it has been before the court for some time," he said. "But to be clear my agency does, and always has, considered 14 and 15 year old young persons to be children as defined by legislation and as such are deserving of our full protection from any form of abuse."
It's "disappointing" if Kenora CFS didn't know at the time that their lawyer had made such a statement in court, said Allen Wynperle, president-elect of the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association, which represents lawyers acting for plaintiffs.
Jacques Gallant is a Toronto-based reporter covering legal affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @JacquesGallant
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/9237081-a-14-year-old-girl-is-a-sexually-mature-young-woman-not-a-child-children-s-aid-society-lawyer-argues-in-sex-abuse-suit/
Between 2014\15 the Ontario children's aid society claim to have spent $467.9 million dollars providing protective services that doesn't seem to extend to the 90 to 120 children that die in Ontario's foster care and group homes that are overseen and funded by the CAS.
In a National Post feature article in June 2009, Kevin Libin portrayed an industry in which abuses are all too common. One source, a professor of social work, claims that a shocking 15%-20% of children under CAS oversight suffer injury or neglect.
Several CAS insiders whom Libin interviewed regard the situation as systemically hopeless.
A clinical psychologist with decades of experience advocating for children said, “I would love to just demolish the system and start from scratch again.”
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What happens in Ontario when police are charged with sexual assault?
CBC News · Posted: Mar 28, 2019.
On Wednesday, a London judge handed down a not guilty verdict in a sexual assault case against a Waterloo Regional Police Service officer, and while that case has concluded, another sexual assault case against a WRPS officer is making its way through the court system.
Caleb Roy, an officer who served for 26 years, was charged with sexual assault after an investigation by Ontario's Special Investigations Unit.
He was also charged with breach of trust in relation to incidents between October 2010 and December 2012 and remains suspended with pay.
Same rights
So, what does the process look like for officers facing criminal charges — specifically, for sexual assault?
According to criminal lawyers Lawrence Greenspon and David Butt, police who are charged with criminal offences have the same rights as anyone else in a court room.
"That's the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. They have the right to a trial," said Greenspon, who is based in Ottawa.
However, court trials of police officers are often moved to another jurisdiction.
"Police officers, of course by the very nature of their work, tend to develop close relationships — just because they're working every day with crown attorneys. They're testifying every day in front of local judges and so they become known people to those local crown attorneys and judges," said Butt, who has represented police officers.
"When you have to prosecute a police officer, to preserve both the appearance and the substance of independence it is almost always the case that you use an out-of-town prosecutor and an out-of-town judge," he said.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/ontarios-process-when-police-charged-with-sexual-assault-1.5065964
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Ex-Chatham cop charged with sexual assault for third time.
DALE CARRUTHERS. Updated: November 27, 2018.
A longtime Chatham-Kent police officer who recently resigned from the force is charged with sexually assaulting a woman while on duty – the third such accusation he’s faced since 2015.
Ontario’s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), announced Tuesday that it had arrested Kenneth Miller, 46, and charged him with sexual assault and breach of trust.
This is the third time since 2015 that the SIU has charged Miller – a 20-year police veteran who resigned in March before he was sentenced to 60 days in jail – with sexual assault and breach of trust related to alleged on-duty incidents.
The head of the Chatham-Kent Sexual Assault Crisis Centre expressed frustration over the latest set of charges against Miller.
“He was a police officer in a position of trust, in a position of authority,” executive director Michelle Schryer said.
“It’s extremely concerning.”
Most recently, Miller was given a 60-day sentence in March – to be served on weekends in protective custody at the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre in London – after pleading guilty to breach of trust in a May 4, 2013, incident involving a 33-year-old woman who reported being sexually assaulted inside a police cruiser. The sexual assault charge was withdrawn.
Miller, who resigned from his job the day before he was sentenced, was also charged with sexual assault and breach of trust after a woman, 23, reported being sexually assaulted inside a police cruiser on Aug. 23, 2015. Both charges were later withdrawn in court.
Until his resignation, Miller had been suspended with pay – Ontario police chiefs don’t have the power to withhold pay from suspended officers – after the SIU launched its first investigation on Aug. 27, 2015.
In the latest case, Chatham-Kent police contacted the SIU on March 28, 2018, to report a sexually related complaint by a woman, whose identity wasn’t made public, about a man working as a police officer at the time, the SIU said.
“Because the case is before the courts, I can’t comment any further on this matter.” SIU spokesperson Monica Hudon said Tuesday.
Miller was released from custody on several conditions including not communicating directly or indirectly with the complainant. He’s scheduled to appear in a Chatham court on Dec. 11.
Chatham-Kent police didn’t respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Created in 1990, the SIU probes all cases of serious injury, death and allegations of sexual assault involving police.
dcarruthers@postmedia.com
twitter.com/DaleatLFPress
https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/watchdog-charges-ex-chatham-police-officer-with-on-duty-sexual-assault
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Durham cop charged with sex offences.
Child porn, sex assault charges date to 2000.
NEWS Jan 11, 2012 by Jeff Mitchell Oshawa This Week.
DURHAM -- A three-month investigation has led to charges, including sexual exploitation and making child pornography, against a veteran Durham police officer.
The Province's Special Investigations Unit director Ian Scott said Wednesday there are reasonable grounds to believe the officer committed criminal offences involving a female over the course of several months between 2000 and 2001.
The investigation was launched after the SIU, which investigates allegations of death, serious injury or sexual assault involving police officers, was contacted Oct. 4, 2011. The allegations were reported to the SIU by Durham police, said SIU spokesperson Monica Hudon.
Ms. Hudon wouldn't comment on particulars of the allegations, or if it's alleged they occurred while the accused man was acting in his capacity as a police officer.
The SIU normally doesn't investigate allegations involving off-duty officers in their private lives, Ms. Hudon said.
WHY THE FUCK NOT????
But if it's alleged police property or equipment was involved, or if the accused person identified himself as a cop, the SIU has jurisdiction to investigate, she said.
Charged is Constable Scott Andrew Terry, 47. He faces one count each of sexual assault; sexual exploitation; breach of trust by an official; making child pornography and possession of child pornography.
Const. Terry has been an officer since 1986, Durham police spokesman Dave Selby said. He confirmed Durham police contacted the SIU.
"We were made aware of the allegations about three months ago and informed the SIU," he said.
Durham police have assisted with the investigation since, he added.
"We helped where we needed to help," Mr. Selby said.
Last fall Durham police assisted SIU investigators as they executed a search warrant at an Oshawa home. The SIU would not confirm Wednesday if that search was related to the allegations involving the officer.
Const. Terry, who in 2006 was commended for 20 years of service with Durham police, is suspended with pay as his charges make their way through the courts.
Const. Terry was released on bail with several conditions Wednesday. He's due in court in Oshawa again Feb. 7.
https://www.durhamregion.com/news-story/3501220-durham-cop-charged-with-sex-offences/
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Ottawa police officer charged with sexual assault.
Ottawa police officer charged with sexual assault after alleged off-duty incident, the charges stem from alleged incident on Rideau Street in April. (what a great work ethic, he only rapes people when he's off-duty?)
CBC News · Posted: May 03, 2019 11:26 AM ET | Last Updated: May 3
Ottawa police Const. Sharmarke Ali has been charged with sexual assault and forcible confinement after an alleged incident reported last month by an 18-year-old woman. Const. Sharmarke Ali was arrested and charged Friday morning by investigators in the police force’s sexual assault and child abuse unit and has been suspended., a news release from Ottawa police said.
The woman told police in April she was approached by a stranger on Rideau Street at about 3 a.m. on April 13.
Ottawa police said Ali was off duty at the time, but released no more information about the incident.
Ottawa police have launched an internal investigation through its professional standards unit.
They also contacted Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, which has a mandate to investigate allegations of sexual assault involving police officers, but the SIU has decided to leave the case to Ottawa police.
Ali was released from custody without conditions and is expected back in court June 6.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-police-officer-sexual-assault-1.5121622
https://globalnews.ca/news/5236676/ottawa-police-officer-charged-with-sexual-assault-after-alleged-off-duty-incident/
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Kingston police officer charged with sex assault after SIU investigation
STAFF REPORTER Updated: December 23, 2018.
A Kingston police officer has been charged by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit following an investigation into a sexual assault it says occurred in the spring of 2017.
In a brief news release posted Friday, the SIU said the province’s police watchdog started to investigate the case in November 2017 after a woman reported to Kingston police that she had been assaulted by an officer sometime between March 1 and April 30, 2017.
Tony Loparco, director of the police watchdog, said he had formed reasonable grounds to believe an officer “committed a criminal offence” in the case.
As a result of the SIU investigation, Const. Peter Shaun Trafford has been charged with one count of sexual assault.
Trafford is to appear before the Ontario Court of Justice in Kingston on Jan. 24, 2019.
The agency provided no further details on the matter.
The SIU is an arm’s length agency that investigates reports involving police where there has been death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/kingston-police-officer-charged-with-sex-assault-after-siu-investigation
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OPP officer arrested for sexual assault.
Officer Arrested For Sexual Assault - Crimes Happened While On Duty
Source: OPP
Posted on: May 23, 2017 Submitted editorial@pdgmedia.ca
On Friday May 19 an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer from Eastern Ontario was arrested as a result of an ongoing domestic investigation conducted by the OPP Professional Standards Bureau (PSB). The investigation stems from incidents that are alleged to have occurred while the officer was off duty.
As a result a 39-year-old, 16-year veteran of the OPP has been arrested and charged with one count of criminal harassment and two counts of sexual assault.
The officer was held in custody and was released on a recognizance of bail with conditions on May 23. Additionally, the officer has been suspended from duty with pay in accordance to the Police Services Act of Ontario.
In order to prevent any re-victimization, the OPP will not be releasing the name of the officer or the location of the court, as this could potentially identify the victim.
https://www.hometownnews.ca/opp-officer-arrested-sexual-assault/
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/7330524-opp-officer-facing-criminal-harassment-sexual-assault-charges/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/opp-officer-charged-sexual-assault-1.4128378
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/opp-officer-charged-with-criminal-harassment-and-2-counts-sexual-assault-1.3426264
https://www.newhamburgindependent.ca/news-story/7330524-opp-officer-facing-criminal-harassment-sexual-assault-charges/
http://ontariofreepress.com/cgi-bin/pr.cgi?46137
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Former RCMP officer sentenced to 26 months for luring underage girls.
A former RCMP officer convicted of luring two underage girls for a sexual purpose when he was stationed in Hopedale has been sentenced to a total of 26 months behind bars.
Ian Kaulback's jail time breaks down to 14 months for one of the two charges and 12 months for the other. The sentences will run consecutively. One of the complainants was in Hopedale at the time of the crime; the other was in Twillingate, and the luring happened via computer.
Judge Phyllis Harris also imposed a 161 order, which was requested by the Crown.
That restricts Kaulback,32, from having contact with people under the age of 16 at work, home or in public, and from having any contact with a child without the supervision of a person whom the court considers appropriate. The judge said it would be amended slightly since Kaulback's partner, who he lives with, has two kids, ages seven and 10.
He is prohibited from going to a park, playground, community centre unless he is accompanying his partner's children, with the permission of his partner. He also can't go near the residences of either complainant and cannot go to Hopedale.
He is prohibited from using the internet unless it's for finding work or for a job. He can have a cellphone for calling and texting only.
Harris said it is mandatory that Kaulback be put on the sex offender registry for life. The Crown requested a firearms prohibition, but Harris didn't impose that, saying there was no violence or threat of violence in this case.
"Mr. Kaulback took advantage of the tools available to him to attempt to obtain photos from two young girls. He chose two victims who were known to him, who would be aware of his position as a police officer," Harris said.
"There could be little doubt that, knowing he was an RCMP officer, likely contributed to an added vulnerability in that there would have been an inherent trust for someone in that position."
The judge also noted that "such attacks on the vulnerable in our society have to be viewed as despicable acts."
Kaulback, who was 26 at the time of the offences, was convicted March 19.
Last week, the Crown asked for 18 to 24 months behind bars for one case and 18 months for the second case, and wanted the terms to be served consecutively. The defence had argued for 12 to 16 months for each offence, to be served concurrently.
Lured via social media
The offence against one of the complainants happened from December 2012 until February 2013, while Kaulback's criminal behaviour against the second complainant happened between Feb. 1 and Feb. 8, 2013.
Crown attorney Trina Simms said there was evidence of Facebook contact from Kaulback, as well as a Skype chat in which he asked a girl to take off her top, on his computer.
Simms said there was also evidence within the chats that pointed toward his identity, such as references to his employment as an RCMP officer.
A girl who was 15 years old at the time of the alleged offences testified in August that Kaulback messaged her on Facebook and offered to send her money. She testified the conversation became sexual when she was speaking on Skype with someone she believed to be Kaulback
Final arguments made in child luring case against former Hopedale RCMP officer
Former RCMP officer guilty of child luring
Kaulback's lawyer, Jason Edwards, argued that while there may have been communications between [the girls] and somebody, it was not with his client. Edwards also challenged forensic evidence police gathered by computers seized at the time of Kaulback's arrest.
The two complainants cannot be named because their identities are protected by a publication ban.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ian-kaulback-sentenced-1.5151243
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Smiths Falls police officer charged with spousal assault and domestic mischief
NEWS Jun 11, 2018 by Evelyn Harford.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The charges listed below were withdrawn on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019.
https://www.insideottawavalley.com/news-story/8654570-smiths-falls-police-officer-charged-with-spousal-assault-and-domestic-mischief/
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Smiths Falls Collegiate Institute teacher charged with sexual assault, exploitation
CBC News · Posted: Jul 21, 2016 4:52 PM ET | Last Updated: July 21, 2016.
A 36-year-old Smiths Falls Collegiate Institute teacher has been charged with numerous sex offences following a police investigation.
On June 10 the Smiths Falls Police Service started investigating claims of a teacher's "inappropriate actions."
On Thursday they announced they'd charged Blair Cathcart with six counts of sexual assault, five counts of sexual interference and one count of sexual exploitation.
Police said Cathcart was suspended by his school board at the start of their investigation. He is still listed as a teacher on the school's website.
Cathcart has since been released from custody on a number of conditions and is set to return to court on Aug. 22.
Smiths Falls police are asking anyone with information to call them at 613-283-0357. Anonymous tips can be called in to CrimeStoppers at 1-800- 222-8477.
Trial date expected for former SFDCI teacher facing sex-related charges.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/smiths-falls-teacher-sex-assault-1.3689928
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/smiths-falls-teacher-charged-with-sexual-assault-1.2997039
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/12-sex-related-charges-laid-against-smiths-falls-teacher
https://torontosun.com/2016/07/21/smith-falls-teacher-faces-12-sex-related-charges/wcm/e830118c-3042-44f6-86f3-7f2bbc6ab819
NEWS Jan 17, 2018 by Evelyn Harford Smiths Falls Record News.
The trial is set to go ahead this month in the case of the former Smiths Falls District Collegiate Institute teacher facing sex-related charges.
Blair Cathcart faces 12 counts of sex-related crimes. He was originally charged by the Smiths Falls Police Service with six counts of sexual assault, five counts of sexual interference and one count of sexual exploitation.
Police started the investigation into Cathcart on June 10, 2016. The investigation concluded 10 days later with Cathcart’s arrest. After his arrest on June 20, 2016, Cathcart, then 36 years old, was suspended by the Upper Canada District School Board.
These charges and allegations against Cathcart have not been proven in court. This case is also covered by a publication ban.
With files from Desmond Devoy
https://www.insideottawavalley.com/news-story/9028692-trial-to-go-ahead-this-month-for-former-smiths-falls-district-collegiate-institute-teacher-facing-sex-related-charges/
https://www.insideottawavalley.com/news-story/8077974-trial-date-expected-for-former-sfdci-teacher-facing-sex-related-charges/
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Former Babysitter Charged With Multiple Child Sex Offences In Both Ontario And BC.
A sex offender has been convicted in not just one, but two provinces. A former babysitter has been charged with multiple child sex offences in both Ontario and B.C. 33-year-old Wesley Clarkson is alleged to have sexually assaulted different young girls under the age of 10 in B.C.
READ ALSO: Ontario Police Warn Public That A Convicted Sex Offender Is Moving Into A GTA Neighbourhood
He also currently faces similar charges in Ontario, where he is alleged to have sexually assaulted a female child on several occasions from February 1, 2019 to March 12, 2019.
He was also charged with sexual assault in Ontario back in 2015. The suspect was previously known for being a babysitter during the same time he allegedly committed the offences, according to Global News.
READ ALSO: Ontario Daycare Worker Sentenced For Making Child Porn Featuring Toddlers In His Care
https://www.narcity.com/ca/bc/vancouver/news/another-canadian-childcare-worker-charged-with-making-child-porn-and-sexual-assault-with-a-weapon
The New Westminister Police released a news statement to the public revealing that Clarkson had been charged yesterday on April 3. In B.C., the suspect faces five counts of sexual assault and five counts of touching for sexual purposes a person under the age of sixteen years, says their news release. He is currently in police custody and will have to appear in court.
Windsor Police have now charged Wesley Clarkson with sexual assault, sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, breach probation and breach prohibition order.
"Wesley Clarkson is currently in-custody in British Columbia for similar offences, involving female victims under the age of ten years, from that jurisdiction," reads the news release from Windsor Police Services.
"Detectives from the NWPD Major Crime Unit believe there could be more victims who have yet to come forward," said Sergeant Jeff Scott in the New Westminister Police news release.
"The victims of these alleged offences are all girls who were under the age of 10 years old at the time. Mr. Clarkson has been convicted of similar offences in the past in Ontario."
Police are now asking more victims of Clarkson's alleged offences to come forward with information. They are asking to either contact Detective Michelle White at 604-529-2536 or to reach out to their local police department.
https://www.narcity.com/news/ca/bc/vancouver/former-babysitter-charged-with-multiple-child-sex-offences-in-both-ontario-and-bc
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Canadian Childcare Worker Charged With Making Child Porn And Sexual Assault With A Weapon.
On Thursday, March 14, an Ontario daycare worker was sentenced to nine years in prison for using toddlers that he was taking care of to make child pornography. Today, we learn that another Canadian childcare worker was just charged with making child pornography in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.
According to local police, Daniel Jon Olson, 52, was charged with one count of possessing child pornography, one count of making, printing, publishing or possessing child pornography for the purpose of publication, eight counts of sexual interference and two counts of sexual assault with a weapon.
READ ALSO: Ontario Daycare Worker Sentenced For Making Child Porn Featuring Toddlers In His Care
The troubling charges are shocking but even more worrisome considering Olson had access to children through his profession. Olson worked as a child and youth care worker in the Maple Ridge school district where he interacted with children regularly.
https://www.narcity.com/ca/bc/vancouver/news/another-canadian-childcare-worker-charged-with-making-child-porn-and-sexual-assault-with-a-weapon
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Ex-N.S. pastor charged with sex assault in Ontario.
Dec 28, 2018 at 5:01 p.m.
A former Nova Scotia pastor is facing multiple charges in connection with sexual assaults against two children.
York Regional Police arrested Richard Rose concluding a six-day investigation after a man told police about an incident that occurred when he was a child, said a police news release.
The 59-year-old Port Colborne, Ont., resident faces four counts each of sexual assault and sexual interference.
During the investigation, police took on additional reports made to the Niagara Regional Police Service that allegedly happened in Port Colborne in 2017.
Rose lived in Markham, Ont., from 1991 to 2015, where he was a pastor and hockey team manager. He also operated a daycare out of his home, said police.
Previously, the 59-year-old was a pastor in Nova Scotia.
The accused has had “access to children in multiple areas of his life,” stated police.
“Investigators are releasing an image of the accused to ensure that there are no further victims.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact York Regional Police at 1-866-876-5423, ext. 7071, or Crime Stoppers.
https://www.trurodaily.com/news/local/ex-ns-pastor-charged-with-sex-assault-in-ontario-271709/
https://www.thevanguard.ca/news/local/ex-ns-pastor-charged-with-sex-assault-in-ontario-271709/
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Ontario police charge 122 with child pornography offences in November, four from Kingston. By Steph Crosier. Published on: December 7, 2018.
Law enforcement agencies working in partnership against the creation and circulation of child pornography are celebrating the arrest of 122 people in Ontario this past November, four of whom are from Kingston.
The Provincial Strategy to Protect Children from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation on the Internet was created in August 2006. Since then, it has identified 2,009 victims of child pornography in Ontario and internationally.
“It is our fundamental and moral responsibility to ensure every child grows up safe,” Deputy Commissioner Rick Barnum of the Ontario Provincial Police’s Investigation and Support Bureau said in a news release sent out by the OPP. “On behalf of the OPP, I want to make this message very clear: we will not stand for anyone hurting our kids. We will do everything we can to reduce the threat child predators pose to our children.”
Last month, 551 charges were laid against the 122 accused, including 11 youth. The charges include: sexual assault, sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, possessing of child pornography, making child pornography available, distributing child pornography, making child pornography, accessing child pornography, luring, and making sexually explicit material available to a child.
The investigations identified 55 victims. They have been referred to appropriate community-based resources for assistance. Police also seized a total of 17 firearms, three of which were loaded handguns.
In November alone, police found 843 unique IP addresses associated with the dark crimes. Police describe these numbers as the “tip of the iceberg” in relation to online child sexual exploitation in Ontario, the news release said.
Det. Joel Fisher of Kingston Police’s Internet Child Exploitation unit, said on Friday that the provincial strategy and his force’s administration supports his unit by purchasing investigative tools and funding cutting-edge training.
“[They also] allow us the time and space to run with the cases we think are important,” Fisher said. “Without both organizations being completely on board with what we’re doing, we wouldn’t be able to be as effective as we’ve shown we can be.”
When Kingston Police arrested and charged the four local men, they released the information to the public. In most of the cases, the men’s names were not released because the charges had not been sworn yet or there was a publication ban. The OPP released their names on Friday.
First on the list is 43-year-old Robert Burns, who has been charged with 11 counts of agreement or arrange to commit a sexual offence against a child, two counts each of failing to comply with a sexual offender information registration act condition and attempting to make child pornography, as well as one count each of possessing child pornography and making child pornography.
Then there is 31-year-old David Malcolm, charged with possessing, making and accessing child pornography, and 50-year-old Jody Macdonald, charged with possessing and accessing child pornography.
The fourth individual charged has since died, and the Whig-Standard will not be publishing his name as there is a publication ban on it.
From its inception in August 2006, the entire provincial strategy has completed 50,403 investigations and laid 20,901 charges against 5,686 people.
“Perpetrators of online sexual exploitation often minimize their actions by saying they were ‘just looking,’” Staff Sgt. Sharon Hanlon, OPP co-ordinator of the strategy, said in a news release. “Let me be clear: anyone who possesses, distributes, accesses or otherwise supports the supply and demand chain for child sexual abuse images are complicit in the sexual exploitation of children.”
https://www.thewhig.com/news/local-news/ontario-police-charge-122-with-child-pornography-offences-in-november-four-from-kingston
scrosier@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/StephattheWhig
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2016: 80 arrested, 274 charges laid in massive Ontario-wide child porn bust
“There’s always been a misconception that a lot of this material is produced in third world type countries,” OPP Det. Staff-Sgt. Frank Goldschmidt told reporters at a press conference Thursday morning.
“But it’s our experience and the investigations that we’ve completed, just as much of that material is produced right here in Ontario.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/2667299/arrests-made-in-ontario-wide-internet-child-porn-probe/
Child porn images will revictimize: Kingston Police
https://www.thewhig.com/2016/08/17/child-porn-images-will-revictimize-kingston-police/wcm/6d8766ab-9664-fd1c-c6df-598dd57e71b1
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2013: Project Spade.
How Police Cracked Canada's Largest Child Pornography Ring
Inside the year-long effort to take down a criminal organization hiding in plain sight
BY ROBERT KOLKER
Updated 9:15, Sep. 17, 2018
Many of the customers arrested occupied positions of authority and trust: forty teachers, six members of law enforcement, nine clergymen.
About 100 people were arrested in Canada in connection with the Azov case, most of them in Ontario and Quebec.
School teachers, doctors and actors were among those arrested, Beaven-Desjardins said. The investigation was known internally as Project Spade.
The United States Postal Inspection Service was closely involved in the investigation, as were authorities in Sweden, Spain, Australia, South Africa, and Hong Kong, among others. Several were represented at the Toronto news conference.
Among those present were Gerald O’Farrell, acting deputy chief inspector of the United States Postal Inspection Service, Insp. Brian Bone of the same agency, and Signy Arnason, associate executive director of Cybertip — the Canada Centre for Child Protection.
Inspector Joanna Beaven-Desjardins, head of Toronto’s Sex Crimes Unit, said they enlisted the help of the United States Postal Inspection Service since many of the videos were being exported to the U.S. and began a joint investigation.
After a seven-month long investigation, officers executed search warrants across the city of Toronto including at the business, located in the city’s West End.
Investigators catalogued hundreds of thousands of images and videos of “horrific sexual acts against very young children, some of the worst they have ever viewed,” Inspector Beaven-Desjardins said at the press conference.
As a result of the investigation thus far, 50 people were arrested in Ontario, 58 in the rest of Canada, 76 in the United States, and 164 internationally.
What was most alarming, Inspector Beaven-Desjardins said, was that many of the arrests were of people who worked with or closely interacted with children.
Among those arrested were 40 school teachers, nine doctors and nurses, six law enforcement personnel, nine pastors and priests and three foster parents, she said.
Det. Cst. Lisa Belanger of the Toronto police child exploitation section said many of the pictures and videos were shot in people's apartments, backyards and "dingy saunas."
“Sometimes they set up in backyards,” she said.
Beaven-Desjardin said that 24 Canadian children were rescued as a result of Project Spade. She said the children were not necessarily involved in the production of Azov material, and their exploitation was discovered when police were investigating people who bought material from the company.
Police said at the home of a retired teacher, they found 350,000 pictures and more than 9,000 video showing child sexual abuse. They say some of the children were known to the man, who is also accused of abusing a child in his family.
Spinoff investigations led to caches of images and hundreds of children from around the world.
At least two teachers and nine medical professionals were among the Canadians arrested.
Toronto police Chief Bill Blair called the investigation "extraordinary."
"There is no greater responsibility of those who serve and protect than the protection of our children," he said. "And exploitation of children is a crime for which law enforcement comes together united around the world to do our very best."
Project Spade arrests by the numbers
Ontario: 50
Rest of Canada: 58
United States: 76
International: 164
In Canada:
40 teachers
9 doctors and nurses
32 volunteers
6 law enforcement personnel
9 faith leaders
3 foster parents
https://thewalrus.ca/how-police-cracked-canadas-largest-child-pornography-ring/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/hundreds-arrested-in-international-child-porn-case-1.2426176
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/nearly-400-children-rescued-348-adults-arrested-canadian-child-pornography-flna2D11599561
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/child-porn-probe-began-with-toronto-man-ends-with-348-people-arrested-police-1.1542666
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Fifty children saved as international paedophile ring busted
23 May 2019.
Fifty children have been rescued and nine people arrested after an Interpol investigation into an international paedophile ring.
The arrests were made in Thailand, Australia and the US and more are expected, Interpol said.
The investigation began in 2017 and focused on a hidden "dark web" site with 63,000 users worldwide.
Police believe 100 more children have suffered abuse and are working to identify them.
Operation Blackwrist was launched by Interpol after it detected images showing 11 boys aged under 13 being abused on a site where people can use encrypted software to maintain secrecy.
The dark net is an internet area beyond the reach of mainstream search engines.
The US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) department traced the IP address of the website, which was hosting photos and videos of abuse.
Should child sex offenders be allowed to travel?
What is the dark web?
Police say the abusers uploaded new images on a weekly basis and often masked the children's faces to make it harder for investigators to identify them.
The first arrests came last year, when the site's main administrator, Montri Salangam, was detained in Thailand, and another administrator, Ruecha Tokputza, was caught in Australia.
Salangam, who abused one of his nephews, was sentenced to 146 years in prison in Thailand, while an accomplice, a pre-school teacher, got 36 years.
Tokputza was sentenced to 40 years on Friday after pleading guilty to 51 charges against 11 babies and boys, the heaviest sentence ever handed down in Australia for child sex offences.
Police found thousands of images taken in both Thailand and Australia on his devices. In some of them Tokputza was the main abuser. The youngest victim to be identified was 15 months old.
"You are a child's worst nightmare, you are every parent's horror, you are a menace to the community," Judge Liesl Chapman said in Adelaide.
The identities of the others arrested are yet to be released, but some are residing in the US and held public positions of trust, said Eric McLoughlin, the HSI's regional attache in Bangkok.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-48379983
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FBI: 231 children rescued during 'Operation Safe Summer II'
More than 200 children who were missing or exploited are in safe hands.
The rescue operation dubbed "Safe Summer II" was a joint effort with 27 different Georgia law enforcement agencies headed up by the FBI's Metro Atlanta Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking (MATCH) task force.
Between the start of the month and May 24, 231 children were located across the metro Atlanta area.
"Thanks to the month-long efforts of our partners, 231 children are no longer vulnerable to predators who would seek to exploit them," said Chris Hacker, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. "Operation Safe Summer is another example of the FBI's commitment to protecting our children before they become victims."
In 2018, more than 23,500 runaways were reported with one in seven believed to be part of child sex trafficking across the country. The FBI said 11 percent of endangered runaways turn to gangs. About 419 missing or runaway children are believed to be on the streets of the five-county metro region as of March 2019, according to the FBI.
The end of the operation coincided with National Missing Children's Day, May 25.
http://www.fox13news.com/news/fbi-231-children-rescued-during-operation-safe-summer-ii
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Could you spot a pedophile? Here are the warning signs.
SOME child molesters jump out of bushes and molest your child on the way home from school.
But more likely, he is your friendly neighbor or attentive shopkeeper.
He could be a charming relative or the son of a friend who is all too willing to babysit your children.
The pedophile in your midst may be the schoolteacher, the bus driver, the youth worker or the lay preacher at your church.
The Australian Royal Commission into institutionalized child sex crimes, running since April, has entered a new round of hearings and a concurrent inquiry is continuing into child sex offences in the Catholic Church's NSW Hunter Valley diocese.
Child-related workers
While pedophiles can work anywhere, they do find ways to be around children as often as possible.
It may not be their principal profession, such as a teacher or priest, but a voluntary or weekend position as a sports coach, camp counsellor, school bus driver, daycare worker, Boy Scout leader, church or secular youth worker can provide the contact with children they need.
Some well-known pedophiles have placed themselves as teachers or leaders of artistic bodies such as dance schools, where they have surrounded themselves with adoring and aspiring performers.
Andrew Manners was a convicted pedophile who had committed offences against minors in Queensland in 1998. He was on parole and prohibited from working with children when he surfaced in 2002.
Manners turned up as a fill-in teacher at his mother's Scottish dance school, where he was spotted by an observant parole officer.
Former performing arts schoolteacher, Peter Gerard Boys, was also a band leader of the musical troupe the Marching Koalas in the NSW Hunter Valley region when, aged in his 40s, he began having a sexual relationship with four of his students.
He was convicted and sentenced to eight child sex offences against girls aged 10-16 years, and on his release from prison is believed to have subsequently married one of the girls who had come of age during his incarceration.
Watch out for teacher adoration beyond the bounds of a normal crush, accompanied by "secret" phone calls and special individual attention.
The every-man
When looking out for a child sex offender, don't be fooled by a person's appearance, outward respectability or importance in the community.
Pedophiles are almost always men, more often married adult males and they work in a very wide range of occupations, from unskilled work up to corporate executives.
What to look out for is someone who relates better to children than to adults, and has either very few adult friends or whose friends might also be sex offenders.
Signs to watch for: pedophiles usually prefer children in one specific age group, such as infants and toddlers, children between six and ten years old, or "tweens" and young teenagers up to the age of 16.
Pedophiles can be bisexual but more commonly will prefer children or the one gender, males or females.
https://www.news.com.au/national/could-you-spot-a-paedophile-here-are-the-warning-signs/news-story/a0502e8c3edd265972204ce6fb435982
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BORIS BYTENSKY DEFENDS ONE OF THE LARGEST CHILD PORNOGRAPHY RINGS EVER.
KITCHENER — A local software security entrepreneur is caught up in a global bust of one of the largest child pornography rings ever seen, a network that circulated graphic images of kids as young as five.
Kitchener’s Paul Anton Sop, 42, is accused of being a customer of the child porn website Azovfilms.com, which was exposed this week after a three-year probe called Project Spade involving detectives in Toronto, investigators in the United States and police overseas.
Sop is fighting three charges — two counts of downloading child porn and one count of possessing child porn, dating back to 2010. His criminal lawyer, Boris Bytensky, described the allegations against his client as purchasing “naturist videos.”
Also charged in the widespread sting is a 62-year-old Guelph man, Terence Keleher, who’s already sitting in a U.S. jail for possession of child porn.
More than 100 Canadians were swept up in the massive probe. Another 76 were arrested in the U.S. Police say paying customers included teachers, police officers, coaches, clergy and doctors.
https://youtu.be/XioDjGGwYHc
https://crimlawcanada.com/boris-bytensky-defends-one-largest-child-pornography-rings-ever/
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Ontario portrayed as pedophile paradise in U.S. ruse to capture predators..
A website set up by Homeland Security promoted the bogus firm Precious Treasure Holiday Co., which promised to arrange illegal encounters in Ontario for pedophiles. October 10, 2011.
U.S. authorities have defended their online portrayal of Ontario as a haven for child-sex tourism, saying the ploy helped them catch four predators.
A controversial website set up by the Department of Homeland Security promoted the bogus firm Precious Treasure Holiday Co., which promised to arrange illegal encounters in Ontario for pedophiles.
Four people — two Germans and two Americans — fell for the sophisticated ruse and signed up for a trip.
A pamphlet
that came with the website offered one night hotel accommodations in Canada and travel under the guise of “boyfriend and girlfriend going to gamble at casino.”
The pamphlet said transportation to Cleveland, meals and “condoms, lube, etc. . . ” were not included in the travel package.
But it was the use of Canada as a safe haven for sex tourism that raised questions about how the country was portrayed in the sting.
“Canada made for a more plausible scenario,” Brian Moskowitz, the special agent in charge of the investigation, told Postmedia News shortly after the indictments were announced.
“It was never our intent to take anyone to Canada and no children were involved. It was merely part of a scenario that we built.”
He said that Canada wasn’t used in the scenario over any perceived weaknesses or legal vulnerability.
Canadian authorities, such as those in Windsor, across the river from the Detroit offices of Homeland Security where Moskowitz is based, are alerted whenever such a sting is underway to prevent them from wasting resources on chasing the American operation, he said.
Homeland Security first set up the website in 2009. It remained online in several reincarnations until it was finally outed in March as a government sting by The Smoking Gun website.
“Sex tourism is a scourge and must be combated with every available resource,” Moskowitz said in a release when the convictions were announced in early September.
“These cases show international borders are no longer a hindrance for predators.”
The two German men convicted in the sting paid up to $1,600 to have sex with girls and boys between the ages of 10 and 13. One, a 49-year-old doctor from Stuttgart, was allegedly found with lingerie, sex toys, bondage ropes, straps, a mask, lubricant, 17 condoms as well as four stuffed unicorns and a paint-by-number set, Homeland Security said.
Two Ohio men also pleaded guilty to sex trafficking offences and possession of child pornography as a result of the sting. In one case, a 38-year-old man tried to organize a sexual encounter with an eight-year-old girl. In the other case, a 25-year-old man wasn’t legally allowed to enter Canada because he was on parole for a molestation conviction, Homeland Security said.
https://nationalpost.com/news/ontario-portrayed-as-pedophile-paradise-in-u-s-ruse-to-capture-predators
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2011: Soft-porn writing teacher resigns from watchdog.
The former head of the discipline committee of the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) is facing professional misconduct charges for his role in co-authoring a sexually explicit novel for teens.
Jacques Tremblay resigned his position as chair of the OCT’s disciplinary committee, a position that involves overseeing sexual assault cases, in 2011 after his part in writing a soft porn novel titled “The Sexteens and the Fake Goddess” was exposed in a Toronto Star investigation.
The book “is a lurid tale of striptease, breast fondling, bum grabbing, orgasms, drugs and blackmail,” reported the Star’s Kevin Donovan in the exposé.
The cover of the book depicts the backs of a boy and a girl naked from the waist up looking at a silhouette of the CN Tower.
The other authors of the book are identified as Tremblay’s wife, Marie-Ange Gagnon, and Frederic Tremblay.
Following Jacques Tremblay’s resignation the OCT launched an investigation into the situation, although the teachers’ watchdog had earlier maintained that Tremblay’s writing did “not have an impact on his ability to act in the public interest.”
Tremblay himself had argued that his book was “entirely separate” from his work at the College and service to the public, saying the book was meant to “empower teenagers, to encourage them to be strong and resist or avoid peer pressure.”
However, in an article on his website Tremblay says the purpose of his novel is to help teens “find their inner voice” which will affect their “future sex life” because “having higher self-esteem below the belt leads to better sex.”
He also warns teens that having negative attitudes about sex could have a “direct impact on orgasm.”
https://mychristiandaily.com/teen-sex-novel-lands-former-ontario-teachers-disciplinary-head-in-hot-water/
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Ontario’s top teacher watchdog has quit.
Jacques Tremblay, who the Star reported was a writer of soft porn replete with questionable administrator-teacher-student conduct, resigned Tuesday. He was the chairperson for five years of the Ontario College of Teachers’ disciplinary panel, which sits in judgment on hundreds of teachers accused of misconduct.
In the novel, main character Leila Montana is introduced as a “young teen” just starting high school. She is also joining a group called the Sexteens’ Select Society.
As she awaits initiation into this mysterious alliance, the book describes her appearance as follows: “Her half-open shirt divulges the roundness of her gorgeous bosom. Leila’s particularly short skirt exposes her barely fleshy buttocks.”
There are several other detailed references throughout the book about the bodies of Leila and other girls.
Taking an oath to the mysterious society, Leila promises to “develop my teenage life at my own rhythm inspired by the aphrodisiac cult, which is based on the power of love and the emancipation of my sexuality.”
On the day after the initiation, “Leila wakes up and feels a new energy swelling within her. . . . Despite her efforts, however, Leila can’t remember what really happened. She is peaceful and undisturbed by this lapse of memory. Meanwhile, Leila feels a very light, but quite pleasant, tingling on her upper right buttock.”
(Nothing at all creepy about this is there and everything about this little scenario is perfectly normal, right?)
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2011/10/05/top_teacher_watchdog_who_wrote_porn_resigns.html
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/2221198-soft-porn-writing-teacher-resigns-from-watchdog/
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Date rape drugs facts: It’s Not Just Roofies Anymore.
Date rape drugs are drugs used to assist in a sexual assault, which is any type of sexual activity a person does not agree to.
These drugs can affect you very quickly and cause victims to become weak, confused, and even pass out. You may not remember what happened while you were drugged.
The most common date rape drugs -- also called "club drugs" -- are flunitrazepam (Rohypnol), also called roofies; gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), also called liquid ecstasy; and ketamine, also called Special K.
These drugs may come as pills, liquids, or powders.
Alcohol may also be considered a date rape drug because it affects judgment and behavior and can be used to help commit sexual assault.
The club drug "ecstasy" (MDMA) has also been used to commit sexual assault.
Protect yourself by not accepting drinks from others, not sharing drinks, watching your drink, and by avoiding creepy societies and having a non-drinking friend with you to make sure nothing happens.
If you suspect you have been exposed to a date rape drug or have been sexually assaulted, call 911 and get to an emergency room immediately.
Date rape drugs can also cause seizures and even death.
Adverse Effects of Club Drugs
Uncertainties about the sources, chemicals, and possible contaminants used to manufacture many club drugs make it extremely difficult to determine toxicity and associated medical consequences. Nonetheless, we do know that:
Coma and seizures can occur following use of GHB.
Combined use with other drugs such as alcohol can result in nausea and breathing difficulties. GHB and two of its precursors, gamma butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4 butanediol (BD), have been involved in poisonings, overdoses, date rapes, and deaths.
Rohypnol may be lethal when mixed with alcohol and/or other CNS depressants.
Ketamine, in high doses, can cause impaired motor function, high blood pressure, and potentially fatal respiratory problems.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/chairman-of-teachers-discipline-committee-resigns-over-blue-teen-novel
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Nearly half of children in Crown care are medicated.
Psychotropic drugs are being prescribed to nearly half the Crown wards in a sample of Ontario children's aid societies, kindling fears that the agencies are overusing medication with the province's most vulnerable children.
According to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail under Ontario's Freedom of Information Act, 47 per cent of the Crown wards - children in permanent CAS care - at five randomly picked agencies were prescribed psychotropics last year to treat depression, attention deficit disorder, anxiety and other mental-health problems. And, the wards are diagnosed and medicated far more often than are children in the general population.
"These children have lots of issues and the quickest and easiest way to deal with it is to put them on medication, but it doesn't really deal with the issues," said child psychiatrist Dick Meen, clinical director of Kinark Child and Family Services, the largest children's mental health agency in Ontario.
"In this day and age, particularly in North America, there's a rush for quick fixes. And so a lot of kids, especially those that don't have parents, will get placed on medication in order to keep them under control."
Psychiatric drugs and children are a contentious mix. New, safer drugs with fewer side effects are the salvation of some mentally ill children. But some drugs have not been scientifically tested for use on children, and recent research has linked children on antidepressants with a greater risk of suicide.
Yet the number of children taking these drugs keeps rising, even in the population at large.
Pharmacies dispensed 51 million prescriptions to Canadians for psychotropic medication last year, a 32-per-cent jump in just four years, according to pharmaceutical information company IMS Health Canada. Prescriptions sold for the class of antidepressants, including Ritalin, most prescribed to children to tackle such disorders as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) rose more than 47 per cent, to 1.87 million last year; a new generation of antipsychotic medication increasingly prescribed to children nearly doubled in the same span, climbing 92 per cent to 8.7 million prescriptions.
And with close to half of Crown wards on psychotropic medication, their numbers are more than triple the rate of drug prescriptions for psychiatric problems among children in general.
With histories of abuse, neglect and loss, children in foster care often bear psychological scars unknown to most of their peers. But without a doting parent in their corner, they are open to hasty diagnoses and heavy-handed prescriptions. Oversight for administering the drugs and watching for side effects is left to often low-paid, inexperienced staff working in privately owned, loosely regulated group homes and to overburdened caseworkers legally bound to visit their charges only once every three months.
Unease over the number of medicated wards of the state is growing: This September, when provincial child advocates convene in Edmonton for their biannual meeting, the use of medication to manage the behaviour of foster children across Canada will be at the top of their agenda.
'whole range of disorders'
Nowhere is concern greater than in Ontario, where the provincial government recently appointed a panel of experts to develop standards of care for administering drugs to children in foster care, group homes and detention centres.
The move was made after the high-profile case last year of a now-13-year-old boy in a group home outside Toronto came to light. The boy was saddled with four serious psychiatric diagnoses, including oppositional defiant disorder and Tourette's syndrome, and doused daily with a cocktail of psychotropic drugs before his grandparents came to his rescue. Now living with his grandparents, he is free of diagnoses and drugs.
Marti McKay is the Toronto child psychologist who, when hired by the local CAS to assess the grandparents' capacity as guardians to the boy, discovered a child so chemically altered that his real character was clouded by the side effects of adult doses of drugs.
"There are lots of other kids like that," said Dr. McKay, one of the experts on the government panel. "If you look at the group homes, it's close to 100 per cent of the kids who are on not just one drug, but on drug cocktails with multiple diagnoses.
"There are too many kids being diagnosed with ... a whole range of disorders that are way out of proportion to the normal population. ... It's just not reasonable to think the children in care would have such overrepresentation in these rather obscure disorders."
The report from a government investigation into the case obtained by The Globe uncovered group home staff untrained in the use and side effects of the psychotropic drugs they were doling out; no requests from the psychiatrist to monitor the boy for problems, and little evidence of efforts to treat the boy's apparent mental-health issues other than with heavy-duty pharmaceuticals.
James Dubray, executive director of the Durham CAS where the boy was a Crown ward, acknowledges that the agency's monitoring of children on medication was lacking.
But it is no small feat, he said, for agencies like his to raise challenging children and adolescents - including some with behaviours so insufferable that their parents turn them over - when there is a chronic shortage of children's mental-health services across Canada and disruptive young people are stranded on waiting lists for psychiatrists and therapies for as long as a year.
With few specialists available, growing numbers of child-welfare workers are turning to family physicians, typically with next to no training in psychiatric disorders and no expertise in the new cutting-edge psychotropic drugs.
Are children being overmedicated out of expedience?
"I don't think that's an unfair conclusion," Dr. Dubray allowed. "I find it hard to make a judgment. I just know we tend to see kids for which there are either no resources or their parents can't handle them."
Behaviour management
For Judy Finlay, Ontario's chief child advocate, the use of psychotropic drugs is a burning issue.
Since the inquests into the deaths of a handful of troubled adolescents being forcibly restrained in group homes a few years ago - and the tougher regulations on the use of physical restraints that followed - she has observed a growing trend among group homes to turn to chemical restraints to control unruly behaviour.
These children have trauma and loss in their backgrounds and, as they grow older and foster parents can no longer tolerate their behaviour, they are moved to group homes operating on a culture of strict curfews and rules. Here, too often, troubled teenagers live in close quarters, staff turnover is rapid, police visits are not uncommon, and watching television is the usual pastime.
"It's more about behaviour management than it is about intervening into mental health issues," Ms. Finlay said.
"It's the adolescents who are being given medication usually, and it's adolescents who are noncompliant. But they're supposed to be," she added. "That's their job. So as adolescents grow and challenge the system or challenge staff, it's at that time that we begin to medicate them. They are going to be challenging, and medicating isn't the way to help them through adolescence."
In fact, child psychiatrists and physicians say they face a tricky call when confronted with a tormented child or adolescent whose behaviour appears to be the symptom of a disorder that, if not treated with drugs and other therapies, will inevitably grow harder to tame.
The newer drugs are safer and backed by a growing stack of research, and physicians insist they allow some mentally ill children to function normally when nothing else works. Yet many drugs have never been tested on children by the pharmaceutical companies funding most of the research; have been studied for only short periods that fail to measure the impact of prolonged use; and are not formally approved to treat the condition being addressed.
"Just because it's safe and effective in adults doesn't mean it's safe and effective in a young person, and that's one of my concerns about the lack of research in young people," said Stan Kutcher, a child psychiatrist and Sun Life Financial chair in adolescent mental health at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax.
"Young people aren't little adults. They have different physiologies. They have different metabolisms. Their brains react differently. Their bodies react differently to drugs."
And therein lies a "horrible conundrum" for doctors. "I'm uncomfortable with kids being really sick," Dr. Kutcher said, "and I'm uncomfortable with the treatments that we have."
The National Youth in Care Network, an advocacy group for young people raised in the child welfare system, is just completing a three-year study, funded by Health Canada, of psychotropic drug use among children and adolescents in care across the country.
The researchers have found that not only were psychotropic drugs prescribed to a clear majority of the current and former wards interviewed, but most were diagnosed with mental-health disorders by a family doctor, never visited a child psychiatrist or another doctor for a second opinion, and doubted the accuracy of their diagnosis.
A disturbing number, the network's research director, Yolanda Lambe, added, have traded the child-welfare system for a life on the street.
"A lot of people are using drugs now," she said. "There's a lot of homeless young people who have been medicated quite heavily."
By the numbers
47%
Children in Crown care at five randomly selected Ontario agencies taking psychotropics
51 million
Psychotropic prescriptions sold to Canadians last year
1.87 million
Antidepressants prescribed to children for attention disorders
Doctors' orders
Stan Kutcher, a child psychologist and Sun Life Financial Chair in Adolescent Mental Health at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, estimates that between 2 and 6 per cent of children ages five to seven suffer from mental-health disorders requiring treatment; for early adolescents under 14, the number rises to 7 to 11 per cent; by the late teens, research indicates roughly 18 per cent have diagnosable mental-health issues.
The documents obtained by The Globe and Mail included Crown wards reviews at the Children's Aid Society of Toronto, Toronto Catholic Children's Aid Society, Durham Children's Aid Society, Family and Children's Services of Niagara, and Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society. The children in permanent care with those agencies accounted for a little more than 18 per cent of the province's roughly 9,400 Crown wards.
Psychotropic drugs most commonly prescribed to children:
ANALEPTICS
Examples are Ritalin, Adderall XR, Biphentin and Concerta.
Used to treat inattention, distractibility, agitation, impulsiveness and hyperactivity.
Approved by Health Canada for use with children.
Doctors in Canada recommended their use to treat children 17 and under an estimated 1,125,000 times in 2006.
ATYPICAL ANTIPSYCHOTICS
Examples are Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel and Clozaril.
Used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and mania.
Not approved by Health Canada for use with children.
Doctors in Canada recommended their use to treat children 17 and under an estimated 363,000 times in 2006.
SEROTONIN REUPTAKE INHIBITORS
Examples are Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Luvox and Anafranil.
Used to treat depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder and eating disorders.
Not approved by Health Canada for use with children.
Doctors in Canada recommended their use to treat children 17 and under an estimated 360,000 times in 2006.
Sources: IMS Health Canada, Health Canada
Ritalin's reign
Ritalin, the brand name for methylphenidate hydrochloride, has been the drug of choice to treat children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for nearly 40 years.
Developed by the pharmaceutical company Ciba in 1954, it was initially prescribed to adults as a treatment for depression, chronic fatigue and narcolepsy.
Beginning in the 1960s, the central-nervous-system stimulant began to be prescribed to hyperactive children for its calming effect. In particular, it increased the time children could stay focused on an activity.
During the 1980s, prescriptions in the United States for children really began to climb. Canada wasn't far behind, with the psychotropic drug's popularity soaring in the 1990s. Prescriptions were up 500 per cent from the previous decade.
Pediatricians began to take notice of the worrying trend and recommended in 2000 that Ritalin be prescribed only in very limited circumstances, and, even then, only for as long as necessary.
Worldwide, about 75 per cent of Ritalin prescriptions are for children, with four times as many boys on it as girls.
The Public Health Agency of Canada in 2004 reported that many adolescents were taking Ritalin as a recreational drug to stay awake, to increase attentiveness, to suppress appetite and to get high.
Research out of Atlantic Canada found that about 8.5 per cent of children in Grades 7 to 12 had taken Ritalin for non-medicinal purposes, compared with 5.3 per cent who were prescribed it.
Unnati Gandhi
:::
Child luring convictions may be overturned following Supreme Court case, lawyer says. By Michael Mui Star Vancouver Tues., March 19, 2019.
VANCOUVER—A large number of child sex-exploitation convictions across Canada could end up being overturned after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Criminal Code provisions that made it easier to convict people of child luring, according to a lawyer who argued the case.
In the R. v. Morrison decision on Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down two areas of the country’s child-luring charge under Section 172 of the Criminal Code, impacting cases in which police officers pretend to be minors to catch suspected predators online.
Mark Halfyard, a lawyer who argued the Supreme Court of Canada case, said the result means similar child-luring cases could now be successfully challenged and potentially overturned, resulting in new trials for the previously convicted.
“On an individual, case-by-case basis, the Crown’s office is going to have to look at which ones should be reprosecuted,” Halfyard said.
“A person shouldn’t be standing out there, whoever they are, whatever their circumstances, convicted on the basis of an unconstitutional law.”
In undercover sting operations, officers approach child-luring suspects online, disclose that they are underage and see whether the suspect plays along.
Read more:
Police overwhelmed by rampant, ‘hidden evil’ of child exploitation online
B.C. privacy watchdog investigating 'Creep Catchers' who expose alleged sex predators
First of its kind report outlines sexual abuse against nearly 1,300 students in Canadian schools over past two decades.
Halfyard’s client, Douglas Morrison, was one of those suspects and was being investigated by an undercover officer pretending to be a 14-year-old. They exchanged conversations of a sexual nature over a few months in 2013, including making plans to meet and engage in sexual touching, but the meeting never happened. Morrison was arrested and charged with child luring but maintained that he thought he was speaking to an adult and that the conversation was sexual role-play.
The Criminal Code charge for child luring presumed a suspect understood they were dealing with a minor if that’s what they were told by a police officer, Halfyard said. The court ruled that this violates a suspect’s presumption of innocence, as the suspect is free to disbelieve such a claim.
Additionally, the accused had been obligated by law to show they took reasonable steps to verify the person they were dealing with was not a minor, or else be found guilty. The court ruled that it is the Crown’s job to prove guilt. The accused could argue he took reasonable steps to verify as part of a defence, and the Crown is free to refute that defence — but the lack of verification is not proof in and of itself that the accused believed the other party was underage.
“People that are still luring children, police still have the exact same tools to build a case against them, it just won’t be presumed in law — just because they throw an age at a person in chat conversations, that (the suspects) necessarily believe they’re talking to a child,” Halfyard said.
The Creep Catchers vigilante group, which conducts similar sting operations and films encounters with suspects who agree to meet, said the group is now reviewing the court decision.
“It’s not going to change the way we expose people. When it comes down to exposure, people who are watching or seeing who we’re exposing ... they don’t care about technicalities, they don’t care that this person said this first, or they have a defence, the bottom line is: they still came to meet,” said Nicole Hunter, a director of the Creep Catchers group.
“The whole point, the reason of why there is Creep Catchers, is because there isn’t enough charges in these stings, there isn’t enough investigations, there isn’t enough law enforcement out there to catch these guys. They may not be the ones raping children yet, but they’re still willing to come and meet them. That’s our whole point.”
Michael Mui is a Vancouver-based investigative reporter. Follow him on Twitter: @mui24hours
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2019/03/19/child-luring-convictions-may-be-overturned-following-supreme-court-case-lawyer-says.html
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