Tag Archives: sexual abuse

Liebster Award, thank you Barbara!

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Liebster Award

Barbara of the blog Common Sense in an uncommon world has been so kind to award Dear Kitty. Some blog the Liebster Award! Thank you so much Barbara, and all the best for you and your blog!

Here are the rules for the Liebster Award:

Section 1. Add the award logo to your blog.

Section 2. Answer the eleven questions.

Section 3. Pass the award on to 11 other blogs, link to them and let them know. Ask them eleven new questions.

Barbara’s eleven questions for her nominees are:

1. What is your idea of the coolest pen name? At the moment, my Internet pen name is petrel41. Petrel because of the beautiful snow petrel which I was privileged to see near Antarctica. And 41 because of a number in a street where I used to live, but don’t live any more.

2. If you were King/Queen… I would abdicate and abolish the monarchy. I don’t believe in monarchies.

3. What was the coolest decade for being a teen? 1960s. All sorts of new music rising … standards of living rising for many people, not just for a minority of billionaires, like now.

4. If you made the laws, how would you stop child abuse? Child abuse and how to stop it are really complex issues. One cannot stop it by better laws only. The questions then would still remain: will these laws be put into practice? And: will the child abuse become known soon; or will it be like with British child abuser Sim Jimmy Savile, who died and got a luxurious tombstone with an inscription in golden letters? Only removed later when the truth came out?

Briefly, too briefly: quite some people think of typical child abusers as mysterious unknown people, lurking in bushes, waiting for children unknown to them. That is not true. The great majority of child abusers know their victims; and are often in some position of authority over the children. That often makes it harder for children, or their parents, to denounce the culprits. Sir Jimmy Savile was a “celebrity” with a “good” reputation; and with links to government and other establishment people. If a child rapist is a priest, then there is the idea that denouncing that rapist would be against the church, against God Himself. So, the truth about little Marietje Kessels only comes out now, over a century after she was raped and murdered. If people would be encouraged to think about authority less uncritically, then cases of child abuse might go down.

5. How would you end poverty if you had the power? UK-based charity Oxfam says the world’s 100 richest people earned enough in 2012 to end global poverty four times over. So, according to these Oxfam figures, if these 100 people would give up 25% of their yearly income, then they still would have plenty of money left to buy private warship yachts, private planes, private Hawaiian islands, etc.

6. When did you realize you wanted to write? Already as a pre-teen, I wrote stories and poems.

7. What is your favorite dessert? Fruit salad.

8. Who was the greatest influence in your life? My mother; with her subscriptions to bird and wildlife magazines, and much more.

9. What was your favorite subject in school? Biology.

10. If you could live anywhere on earth, where would that be and why? There are many beautiful places. I spent wonderful spring days around Tavira in the Algarve in Portugal. I saw fantastic migratory birds and nesting swallows. I saw medieval architecture and poetry as well. On the other hand, the weather there in mid summer might be too hot.

11. Do you like winning these awards? Yes!

My eleven nominees are:

1. usmanhashmi

2. The Panama Adventure

3. margosnotebook

4. Ruth E Hendricks Photography

5. Miss Ayo Délé

6. Flowers, Trees, & Other Such Gifts of Nature

7. Oil Pastels by Mary

8. Sunlight in winter

9. roy thoman

10. La Photographie de Mode

11. Life For a Forest

My eleven questions for my nominees are:

1. If you are a WordPress blogger: did you blog somewhere else before you started your WordPress blog?

2. If yes to question #1, what are the main differences between your previous blog site and WordPress?

3. Do you think you are using all WordPress features which might be useful?

4. Do you know how many “likes” your blog got so far? If so, how? This is an important question for me, as some bloggers know, and I don’t have any idea how many “likes” my blog got so far :)

5, Do you use the Get Polling Polldaddy feature?

6. If so, is it working well on your site? I tried Polldaddy, but somehow it did not work well on my site :)

7. What is your favourite animal species?

8. What is your favourite plant species?

9. Did you ever make a blog post which you expected would get few visitors, but which on the contrary got many views?

10. Did you ever make a blog post which you expected would get many visitors, but which on the contrary got few views?

11. What is your favourite song?

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British Conservative, nazi, other child abuse scandals

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This video is called National Socialist Wedding 1963 England (Colin Jordan).

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Top officials linked to ’80s child sex ring

Sunday 27 January 2013

by Our News Desk

A string of former Establishment figures have been linked to organised child sex abuse said to have taken place in the early 1980s.

The Metropolitan Police launched a full-scale criminal investigation, Operation Fernbridge, into the historic claims 10 days ago but was tight-lipped on its details.

But several former top Tories have since been named on the internet in relation to the case, including an ex-Cabinet member and other former government ministers, MPs, and officials of the right-wing Monday Club.

The claims have been published widely on the web in around 60 documents reported to have been part of a dossier compiled by concerned care worker Mary Moss.

Among others implicated are at least one ex-Labour MP, ex-Liberal MP Cyril Smith, former Richmond councillors and officials, a number of top lawyers, police officers and one-time leader of the National Socialist Movement in Britain Colin Jordan.

Images posted in recent days and purported to come from Ms Moss’s dossier feature typed and handwritten notes, names and addresses said to have been recorded by at least one care worker looking into allegations of systematic child sex abuse at the Elm Guest House in Barnes between 1979 and 1983.

The south London guesthouse is said to have been used to abuse young boys from the age of nine who were transported from care homes in Richmond and elsewhere to the premises.

Police visited the home of Ms Moss, who now goes under another name, two weeks ago as part of Operation Fairbank, which is investigating historical claims of child sex abuse.

It was launched following Labour MP Tom Watson’s October demand for an inquiry into an alleged paedophile ring which he claimed reached to the top of the British Establishment.

Ms Moss has since reportedly handed 19 files to the police, many of which were said to have been hidden with neighbours to protect them against seizure and destruction by third parties.

The Metropolitan Police has asked anyone with information to call its hotline on (020) 7161-0500.

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Savile child abuse, police, Thatcher failure

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This video from Britain is called Jimmy Savile & Margaret Thatcher.

By Paddy McGuffin in Britain:

Prosecutors and police: we failed to stop Savile

Friday 11 January 2013

Predatory paedophile Jimmy Savile could have been prosecuted for offences against at least three victims while he was alive but the complaints were not taken seriously enough, it was admitted today.

The disgraced TV presenter used his celebrity status to “hide in plain sight” and commit hundreds of sexual offences, a joint report by the Metropolitan Police and children’s charity NSPCC found.

Legal adviser to the Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Levitt QC said Savile could have been prosecuted in 2009 had police taken his victims’ allegations more seriously.

She found that “had the police and prosecutors taken a different approach” prosecutions could have been possible in relation to three victims.

Police and prosecutors treated the claims “with a degree of caution which was neither justified nor required,” Ms Levitt said.

Surrey Police received an allegation in May 2007 that Savile had sexually assaulted a teenage girl at Duncroft Children’s Home in the late 1970s.

As a result of that investigation, two more allegations emerged.

The first that around 1973 Savile had sexually assaulted a girl aged about 14 outside Stoke Mandeville hospital.

The second, in the ’70s and again at Duncroft, Savile had suggested to a girl aged about 17 that she perform oral sex on him.

And separately a complaint was made to Sussex Police in March 2008 alleging that around 1970 Savile had sexually assaulted a woman in her early twenties in a caravan in Sussex.

Ms Levitt found that Surrey Police had not informed the alleged victims that other complaints had been made, while Sussex police told the complainant that corroboration was needed and the prosecutor did not question why victims would not support court action or seek to build a case.

Surrey Police consulted the Crown Prosecution Service about all four allegations and it was decided in October 2009 that no prosecution could be brought because the alleged victims would not support police action.

A total of 450 people have come forward alleging sexual abuse by Savile since October. Among the recorded crimes are 34 rapes and 126 indecent acts.

Of his victims, almost three-quarters were children – the youngest of whom was eight years old at the time.

The earliest reported offence committed by Savile was in Manchester in 1955, and the final reported allegation was in 2009.

Commander Peter Spindler, who is leading the national investigation into Savile’s abuse, said: “Savile’s offending footprint was vast, predatory and opportunistic.

“He cannot face justice today, but we hope this report gives some comfort to his hundreds of victims.

“They have been listened to and taken seriously.”

NSPCC’s Peter Watt added: “The sheer scale of Savile’s abuse over six decades simply beggars belief.

“He is without doubt one of the most prolific sex offenders we have ever come across,” said Mr Watt.

From Civilsociety.co.uk:

Savile lobbied Thatcher to increase charitable tax relief, archives show

Tania Mason | 11 Jan 2013

Newly-published government papers dating back 30 years have shown that Jimmy Savile approached then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about increasing tax relief on charitable donations.

He also met her several times to drum up support for his Stoke Mandeville Hospital appeal – a successful campaign, as the government eventually donated £500,000 to the £10m appeal.

Official records of meetings and a number of letters between the pair were published by the National Archives just before the new year, under the 30-year rule.

Jimmy Savile was thanked in a letter from ex-PM Margaret Thatcher — after finding children’s party entertainers for her as he abused kids: here.

Savile’s extraordinary access to Thatcher detailed in secret files: here.

Revealed: Jimmy Savile’s close friendship with Margaret Thatcher: here.

Rape victim ‘pressured by police to drop claim against man who later killed’: here.

Police investigating allegations of child abuse have seized a list that includes names of government ministers and other prominent establishment figures: here.

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Sir Jimmy Savile abused little children

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Jimmy Savile shakes hands with Pope John Paul II

From Reuters:

Jimmy Savile Police Report: He Abused Hundreds Of People Over Six Decades; Youngest Victim Was 8

01/11/2013 1:47 pm EST

* Late BBC star suspected of 214 crimes including rape

* Savile given knighthood by Queen Elizabeth and Pope

* Abuse started in 1955 and continued until 2009

* Police looking into “informal network” of abusers (Recasts, adds details, quotes throughout)

By Michael Holden

LONDON, Jan 11 – The late British TV presenter Jimmy Savile, honoured by both the queen and the pope, sexually assaulted hundreds of people, mainly children, at BBC premises and hospitals over six decades of unparalleled abuse, a police-led report said on Friday.

Savile, one of Britain’s biggest TV stars in the 1970s and 1980s, abused youngsters at 13 hospitals where he did voluntary work as a porter and fundraiser, and even at a hospice treating terminally ill patients.

The youngest victim was an 8-year-old boy, and the last of the 214 offences of which he is suspected took place just two years before his death in 2011 at the age of 84.

“He groomed a nation,” said Commander Peter Spindler, who led the police investigation and said the scale of his crimes were without precedence.

A one-time professional wrestler, Savile became famous as a pioneering DJ in the 1960s before becoming a regular fixture on TV hosting prime-time pop and children’s shows until the 1990s.

He also ran about 200 marathons for charity, raising tens of millions of pounds (dollars) for hospitals, leading some to give him keys to rooms where victims now allege they were abused.

While many colleagues and viewers thought the cigar-chomping Savile was weird, with his long blonde hair, penchant for garish outfits and flashy jewellery, he was considered a “national treasure”, honoured not just by the queen but also by the late Pope John Paul II who made him a papal knight in 1990.

However, Friday’s report said he took advantage of his fame to commit predatory offences across Britain, including 34 rapes or serious sexual assaults. Of his alledged victims, 73 percent were under 18 and 82 percent were female. The oldest was 47.

In all, 450 people have given information about him and detectives said more victims were likely to come forward. However, the report, issued jointly by London police and the NSPCC children’s charity, said some would never feel able to break their silence.

“He hid in plain sight, behind a veil of eccentricity double-bluffing those who challenged him, from vulnerable children right up to and including a prime minister of the time,” said Peter Watt from the NSPCC.

He said Savile had “cunningly” built his life’s work around getting access to children to abuse.

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Welsh child abuse evidence destroyed

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This video from Britain says about itself:

Nov 12, 2012 by NEWSHD2012

The report into child abuse in north Wales written in the 1990s by John Jillings and then shelved to avoid legal claims has been found in council archives.

By Simon Basketter in Britain:

Tue 13 Nov 2012

Destroyed evidence of child abuse could have been ‘vital’

Photographs of men abusing boys in north Wales were deliberately destroyed.

That simple shocking fact has become lost in the media storm over whether politicians were involved in the abuse.

The cover-up of systematic abuse at Welsh children’s homes is continuing.

Sian Griffiths worked for Clwyd council in the inquiry office on the 1994 Jillings and 2000 Waterhouse inquiries into the abuse.

She said that photographs of abuse obtained by victim Steven Messham were ordered to be destroyed. Steven said he could see men’s faces clearly in the pictures but police officers said they could not identify them.

Asked what happened to the photographs, Griffiths said, “We were supplied with copies of court documents… there was an order made for the book of photos to be destroyed.

Asked to clarify that they had been destroyed she said, “They were. Well that’s what’s in court papers—official documents.” And asked whether those photographs could have been vital evidence she replied, “Yes.”

Griffiths added that there were people mentioned in the Waterhouse inquiry who probably got away with abuse.

Trashed

The Jillings report was trashed on the insistence of Clwyd council’s insurers, which feared a wave of writs from victims. It outlined the widespread abuse of children in care.

The then newly appointed chief constable of North Wales Police refused to meet the panel or help with access to the police major-incident database.

The report says that, “We were disappointed at the apparent impossibility of obtaining a breakdown of data. We are unable to identify the overall extent of the allegations received by the police in the many witness statements which they took.”

Some 130 boxes of material handed to the police by the council were not made available to the panel. The council didn’t allow the inquiry to place a notice in the local press seeking information. “This was considered to be unacceptable to the insurers,” says the report.

According to the report, the insurers—Municipal Mutual—suggested the chair of the council’s social services committee, Malcolm King, be sacked if he spoke out.

“Draconian as it may seem, you may have to consider with the elected members whether they wish to remove him from office if he insists on having the freedom to speak,” it is quoted as saying.

Allegations covered the period 1980 to 1988, and a four-year police inquiry saw 2,600 statements taken and 300 cases sent to the Crown Prosecution Service. Eight men were charged, and six convicted. How many children were abused is not clear.

Establishment fights to protect politicians

The backlash against allegations of child abuse in high places was fast and determined. Within days of the government announcing two inquiries into the north Wales child abuse scandal, the establishment regrouped.

There will be a new police inquiry into the abuse. And a judge will look at the last judicial inquiry—the Waterhouse inquiry, which began in 1996.

As Labour MP Tom Watson pointed out, “A narrow-down investigation is the basic building block of a cover-up.”

Next, David Cameron warned that gay men were at risk of a “witch hunt” after being confronted with a list of suspected paedophiles on television. But Cameron was the first person to link gay people and paedophiles in relation to the scandal.

The focus moved to the victims of the abuse in Wales. The Guardian ran a story saying Lord McAlpine had been wrongly identified as a child abuser.

Defamatory

The BBC’s Newsnight programme reported that Steven Messham said he was abused by a leading 1980s Tory politician but did not name Lord McAlpine. McAlpine said the claims were “wholly false and seriously defamatory”.

Messham issued a statement last week saying, “After seeing a picture in the past hour of the individual concerned, this is not the person I identified by photograph presented to me by the police in the early 1990s, who told me the man in the photograph was Lord McAlpine.”

This at the very least suggests that there are still questions to be asked of what the police were doing. Nonetheless the BBC descended into chaos as a series of resignations followed—though notably when its director general left it was with a £450,000 payoff in his pocket.

The Waterhouse Inquiry, which is being investigated for having covered up the scandal, is now regularly being used to discredit victims for “inconsistencies” in their evidence.

There is a concerted effort keep the scandal away from politicians. With the Leveson inquiry into press standards due to publish, the cops, the politicians and the media are all turning on each other.

Meanwhile the message to abuse survivors is a familiar one—shut up or be vilified.

Media hypocrites denounce victims

Sections of the media are gloating following several resignations at the BBC relating to the child abuse scandal.

The BBC’s director general, head of news and deputy head of news stood down after a Newsnight programme accused a senior Tory of abusing children.

It didn’t name the Tory, but he was later identified as Lord McAlpine. He denies the charges.

The Guardian has talked of abuse victims “telling tales”. The Daily Mail has denounced the BBC. Yet just days earlier, both were happy to repeat the claims.

One Mail report from Wednesday of last week was headlined, “Victims tell of horror inside North Wales care home where gang rape, strip searches and vicious canings were a way of life”. It added, “High-profile visitors to the home allegedly included two senior former Tories”.

Then the Mail on Sunday ran a disgraceful article on abuse victim Steven Messham last weekend. It said his evidence about abuse was “unreliable from the start” and tried to discredit him by falsely painting him as a violent criminal.

The media claim this is all about getting to the truth. In reality it will help protect powerful people while putting victims off reporting abuse.

Top Tories admit that they knew

Margaret Thatcher’s parliamentary private secretary Sir Peter Morrison has been accused of abusing children. Morrison was formerly deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.

Rod Richards, a former Conservative MP and ex-leader of the Welsh Tories, said that he had seen evidence linking Sir Peter Morrison to the North Wales children’s homes case.

Richards said, “What I do know is that Morrison was a paedophile. And the reason I know that is because of the North Wales child abuse scandal.”

Former Tory minister Edwina Currie said that Morrison had been protected by a “culture of sniggering”. In her diaries, she called him “a noted pederast”, with a liking for young boys.

Report reveals 12 deaths

At least 12 young men died after suffering abuse in north Wales during the 1970s and 1980s. An unpublished report into the abuse commissioned by Clwyd council includes the list, which it says “is not comprehensive”.

R1 fell to his death from a railway bridge. R2 committed suicide aged 16. R5 was found dead aged 18 due to “acute respiratory failure due to solvent abuse”. R7 died aged 27 from alcohol abuse. R10 died from an apparent heroin overdose. R12 was found hanged.

All had lived at Bryn Alyn or Bryn Estyn care homes. Most of the deaths took place around the time of a police investigation into the abuse. Some of those who died had made statements or given evidence.

The report noted that “perhaps insufficient thought has been given to the psychological or psychiatric stress of appearing in court as a witness in high-profile cases”.

An internal Clwyd council report, again unpublished, describes “numerous claims that senior public figures including the police and political figures might have been involved in the abuse.”

The Kincora scandal: child abuse and cover-up in 1970s Belfast: here.

A report out this week will debunk the myth that child sexual exploitation is the preserve of certain ethnic groups, saying that perpetrators can come from any background: here.

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Dutch bishop’s Icelandic sexual abuse scandal

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Roman Catholic cathedral in Iceland

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands:

6 November 2012 8:25

Gijsen, the former bishop of Roermond, stands accused in Iceland of covering up sexual abuse. A report of an Icelandic commission investigating sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic church says this.

Joannes Gijsen had become bishop in Roermond, the Netherlands, as one of several ultra-conservative Vatican appointees, against the wishes of most Roman Catholics in the diocese. His position in the Netherlands became untenable because of various issues, including sexual abuse at a seminary founded by Gijsen because he considered existing seminaries to be too liberal. The Vatican then moved Gijsen to Iceland, where there are few Roman Catholics.

Gijsen was the bishop of the Roman Catholic church in Iceland from 1996 to 2007. Then, a man wrote a letter about an Icelandic priest having abused him sexually. Gijsen destroyed that letter.

Overstepping the mark

The Hákonardóttir commission says that Gijsen was wrong. He should have started an independent investigation into the accusation.

…

In 2010 Gijsen was accused in the Netherland of being a peeping Tom as a young boy masturbated in the late 1950s. The Deetman commission did not call that abuse, but did say that Gijsen had overstepped the mark.

The Deetman commission was founded by the Dutch Roman Catholic church to investigate many complaints about sexual abuse, mostly of children, by priests.

From Iceland Review Online:

05.11.2012 | 10:10

Catholic Church Confirms Child Abuse in Iceland

The investigative commission of the Catholic Church in Iceland presented its report on Friday, confirming that Rev. Ágúst Georg, principal of the church-run elementary school Landakotsskóli, and one of its teachers, Margrét Müller, abused their pupils.

The commission questioned 30 of the school’s former pupils and people who had joined the Catholic Church’s summer camps as children. Eight of them stated they had been sexually abused and 27 that they had been subject to or witnessed mental abuse, ruv.is reports.

Hjördís Hákonardóttir, who chairs the commission, said the report is a serious blow to the reputation of the Catholic Church in Iceland.

It reveals that Joannes Gijsen, who served as Bishop of the Catholic Church in Iceland 1996-2007, destroyed a letter from a man who described how he was abused by Rev. Georg, ruv.is reports.

In doing so, the commission considers Gijsen to have failed his obligations; he should have launched an independent investigation by specialists into the matter.

…

In 2010, Gijsen was accused of sexual violations while teaching at a school of the Catholic Church in Holland in the 1950s and 1960s.

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British Thatcher aide accused of child abuse

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After Jimmy Savile, made a Knight Commander of St. Gregory the Great by the Vatican, and as Sir Jimmy Savile a member of the British nobility, news about another “Sir” …

This video says about itself:

24 October 2012

Prime Minister’s Questions: Labour MP Tom Watson wants an investigation into a powerful paedophile ring in Parliament and people who worked in the past at Downing Street.

By Scott Roberts in Britain:

Gay former Tory MP linked with abuse scandal

28 October 2012, 3:33pm

The late Sir Peter Morrison, a gay former Conservative MP and ex-parliamentary aide to Margaret Thatcher, has been described as a “paedophile” by the former leader of the Welsh Conservatives Rod Richards.

Mr Richards was a Welsh Assembly Member until 2002 and briefly led the party in the chamber during 1999.

According to the Mail on Sunday, Mr Richards has seen evidence linking Sir Peter to the North Wales children’s homes scandal, in which up to 650 youngsters in 40 homes were sexually, physically and emotionally abused during the seventies and eighties.

It is claimed Sir Peter made a number of “unexplained” visits to homes across Wales along with another senior Tory who is now dead.

Allegations have also been made in the Daily Star Sunday of a police cover-up of abuse involving senior politicians and that a complaint made by a teenage rent boy against an unnamed former cabinet minister was suppressed.

The paper claims the minister is still alive.

Attention towards Sir Peter Morrison’s private life was first raised last weekend by the former Conservative Health Minister Edwina Currie.

She told the Sunday Times that Sir Peter previously had engaged in sex with 16-year-old boys when the age of consent was 21.

Ms Currie said Sir Peter, a former deputy party chairman, was protected by a “culture of sniggering, of giggling and of nudge-nudge, wink-wink,” and that his behaviour was covered up by senior Tories.

Sir Peter died of a heart attack early in the morning of 13 July 1995, aged 51.

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Rod Richards said:

“What I do know is that Morrison was a paedophile. And the reason I know that is because of the North Wales child abuse scandal.”

Mr Richards was the MP for Clwyd North West until 1997 and served as a junior minister in the Welsh Office during the last Conservative government.

He helped establish an inquiry into the scandal and believes William Hague, who was Welsh Secretary at the time, “should have seen the evidence about Morrison” regarding his visits to children’s homes.

William Hague has denied being presented with any evidence linking Morrison to the child abuse scandal in North Wales.

On Saturday, Mr Hague’s spokesman said:

“Mr Hague established the North Wales Child Abuse Inquiry precisely because of the serious and widespread reports of abuse. It was set up to be as thorough as possible and its terms of reference were widely supported in parliament.”

Last week, Labour MP Tom Watson stunned the Commons when he asked Prime Minister David Cameron to examine historic allegations about a high-level paedophile network linked to a former Downing Street aide – who he later clarified on his blog was not Sir Peter Morrison, but another individual.

See also here.

Update 5 November 2012: here.

BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten has vowed to “find out the truth” as Savilegate gathered momentum over the weekend with the arrest of former pop star Gary Glitter: here.

Did the security services cover up for a child-abusing MP? Tony Robinson was a special branch cop in the 1970s. He said he saw a police dossier “thick” with allegations from boys claiming they had been abused by Cyril Smith, the former Liberal MP for Rochdale: here.

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Child abuse suspect Savile still Vatican knight

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This video from Britain is called Exposure – The Other Side of Jimmy Savile | 2012 | Full Documentary.

From Associated Press:

Vatican says it cannot posthumously remove Jimmy Savile’s papal honor; condemns sexual abuse

Saturday, October 27, 6:24 PM

LONDON — The Vatican said Saturday it never would have given Jimmy Savile his papal knighthood had it known of allegations the British TV star was a child sex predator, but that it can’t rescind the honor now that he has died.

The Catholic Church of England wrote to the Holy See last week, asking it to consider whether it could posthumously remove the honor awarded to Savile because of the many recent child sex abuse allegations against him. Savile, a much-loved BBC children’s television host, died last year at age 84. …

Savile was made a Knight Commander of St. Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II in 1990 for his charity work. He was also knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to charity and entertainment.

But police now believe Savile to be one of the most prolific sex offenders in Britain in recent history, with a “staggering number” of people reporting abuses by him after his death.

Some 300 potential victims have come forward with abuse allegations, police said. Most of them say they were abused by Savile, but some say they were abused by other people, Metropolitan Police said Friday.

See also here.

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Georgians demonstrate against sexual abuse scandal

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This video is called Torture Tape Rage: Thousands protest Georgian prison horror.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Protesters demand justice in shocking prison abuse scandal

Sunday 23 September 2012

Thousands rallied again on Friday in Georgia to demand the prosecution of ministers fired in a prison abuse scandal.

The protests, sparked by graphic videos showing guards in the Gldani prison in Tbilisi brutally beating prisoners and raping them with truncheons and broom handles, have ratcheted up the pressure on President Mikhail Saakashvili.

He has sought to contain the damage by sacking prison bosses but, despite that, protesters increased their demands as rallies went into a third day.

They inisted that Interior Minister Bacho Akhalaya and others be brought to justice.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered overnight outside Gldani, stopping several prison vans and asking prisoners inside whether they had been abused.

Protesters also gathered outside another prison in the city of Rustavi.

See also here.