Top Centers for Disease Control official indicted in child sex case

Lindsey, who joined the CDC in 1999, is second in command of the program office. Over her CDC career, she oversaw the allocation process for $1.5 billion in terrorism preparedness.

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crossroadsnews.com | Feb 22, 2013

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Dr. Kimberly Quinlan Lindsey, a deputy director at the CDC, and Thomas Joseph Westerman, 43, have been indicted by a DeKalb County grand jury on child molestation charges.

Lindsey and Westerman, who share a home in Decatur, are accused of involving a 6-year-old child in their sex acts.

The indictment, which was handed down on Jan. 31, said the alleged acts took place between January and August in 2011. The two are accused of committing “an immoral and indecent act to and with a child under the age of 16 years.”

Lindsey is a deputy director for the Laboratory Science Policy and Practice Program Office at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Westerman is a former resource management specialist at the CDC. Lindsey, who joined the CDC in 1999, is second in command of the program office. Over her CDC career, she oversaw the allocation process for $1.5 billion in terrorism preparedness.

Kimberly Lindsey

They were arrested in October 2011 after a medical professional alerted police about child molestation allegations. They face two counts each.

Lindsey is accused of exposing her breasts and buttocks to the child and allowing the child to spank her buttocks. She also is accused of letting the child touch her body with a sex toy while she was partially nude.

Thomas Westerman
Westerman is charged with supervising the alleged acts.DeKalb District Attorney Robert James called the allegations in the indictment “disturbing and troubling.”“We will prosecute both of these individuals to the fullest extent of the law,” James said.

LAPD combing through 12,000 pages of priest sex abuse records for leads

Reuters | Feb 6, 2013

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Los Angeles police are combing through some 12,000 pages of priest abuse records released last week by the city’s Catholic archdiocese to determine whether to open any new criminal investigations, authorities said on Tuesday.

Many of the cases detailed in the more 120 personnel files were already known to law enforcement, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman said, and others could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out.

But detectives wanted to make sure no leads had been missed in documents made public by the archdiocese as part of a 2007 civil court settlement, officer Bruce Borihanh said.

Vatican in rare reversal praises US media for attention on sex scandals

“Now that the list is available we want to be proactive and look at that list,” Borihanh said. He said he was not aware of any specific case that investigators were focused on and that it was possible no new leads would be discovered.

The probe marks the latest development following Thursday’s release of the files, which has already led Archbishop Jose Gomez to strip his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, of all public and administrative duties.

Mahoney’s former top aide, Thomas Curry, also stepped down as bishop of Santa Barbara. Both men had been linked to efforts to conceal the abuse.

In further fallout, the Los Angeles Unified School District severed its ties on Monday with a priest who, the files show, was once accused of molesting a teenage girl.

Father Joseph Pina, 66, took a job working for the school district in 2002, several years after he resigned as a pastor and was placed on inactive leave by the church. An attorney for Pina has declined to comment to Reuters on the matter.

The Los Angeles archdiocese, which serves 4 million Catholics, reached a $660 million civil settlement in 2007 with more than 500 victims of child molestation in the biggest such agreement of its kind in the nation.

Mahony at the time called the abuse “a terrible sin and crime.”

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Lisa Shumaker)

The Cardinal and the Truth: Mahony concealed decades of rape and intimidation of children

Cardinal Mahony with the pope. (Photo: CNS/L’Osservatore Romano) April 20, 2012

nytimes.com | Jan 27, 2013

No member of the Roman Catholic hierarchy fought longer and more energetically than Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles to conceal the decades-long scandal involving the rape and intimidation of children by rogue priests. For years, the cardinal withheld seamy church records from parents, victims and the public, brandishing endless litigation and fatuous claims of confidentiality.

The breadth of Cardinal Mahony’s cover-up became shockingly clear last week with the release in court of archdiocese records detailing how he and a top aide concocted cynical strategies to keep police authorities in the dark and habitual offenders beyond the reach of criminal prosecution.

Cardinal Mahoney Hid Child Sex Abuse Cases

“Sounds good — please proceed!” the cardinal, now retired, instructed in 1987 after the aide, Msgr. Thomas Curry, cautioned against therapy for one confessed predator — lest the therapist feel obliged to tell authorities and scandalize the archdiocese. The two discussed another priest, Msgr. Peter Garcia, who admitted specializing in the rape of Latino immigrant children and threatened at least one boy with deportation if he complained. Cardinal Mahony ordered that he stay out of California after his release from a New Mexico treatment center out of fear that “we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors.” Monsignor Curry worried that there might be 20 young people able to identify the priest in “first-degree felony” cases.

It was the cardinal’s obligation under the primacy of secular law to instantly notify authorities of any priest’s criminal behavior. Instead, he invoked a nonexistent church privilege to hide miscreant clergy and shield the church and his own reputation. Cardinal Mahony has repeatedly apologized in recent years and insisted that the archdiocese was mending its ways. A lawyer for the archdiocese insisted that the scandal and the cardinal’s cover-up were “part of the past.” Not really. While statutes of limitations on possible criminal charges may have run out, Cardinal Mahony and his former aide could be deposed in civil suits. Monsignor Curry also managed to advance up the hierarchical ladder and would seem to merit instant removal from his current post as auxiliary bishop for Santa Barbara.

Boy Scouts employ aggressive tactics in sex abuse defense

“They will tear you to shreds…”

Associated Press | Dec 25, 2012

When a lawsuit alleged that two young brothers in Michigan had been molested “hundreds of times” by a troop leader, the Boy Scouts denied responsibility and pointed the finger at someone else — the boys’ recently widowed mother.

The Scouts faulted the woman “for her failure to provide adequate parental supervision,” suggesting in court papers that she was responsible for any harm to her sons.

One of the boys’ lawyers called that argument excessive.

“The day their dad died, the perpetrator began to befriend the boys,” Kelly Clark said. “Then the Boy Scouts turn around and file papers saying Mom was the problem?”

The Scouts’ legal tactics in the ongoing lawsuit are part of an aggressive approach that the youth group has long used in defending itself in child sex abuse cases, some victims, their families and lawyers say.

Since 1,247 confidential files were unsealed in October detailing allegations of sexual abuse in its ranks, Scouting has taken a more conciliatory stance.

“We have heard from victims of abuse and are doing our very best to respond to each person with our utmost care and sensitivity,” Scouting spokesman Deron Smith said in October, offering an apology, counseling and other assistance.

But in the years before the files’ release, some who alleged abuse say, their accusations were met with denial, blame and legal hardball.

“The knives are out and you’d better get your knife out because if you don’t, they will tear you to shreds,” said Timothy Hale, who represents a Santa Barbara County, Calif., teenager who was abused in 2007 at the age of 13 by volunteer Scout leader Al Steven Stein.

Stein had a history of inappropriate behavior with children but a local Scout official tried to keep the boy’s mother from reporting the abuse to police, according to the teenager’s lawsuit. She did anyway, and Stein later pleaded no contest to felony child endangerment.

Some plaintiffs’ lawyers, including Clark, say the Scouts deserve credit for the victims it has helped, even when it had no legal obligation. And the Boy Scouts is entitled to defend itself: It’s not unusual for large organizations to employ aggressive legal strategies, including accusing plaintiffs of causing their own injuries.

Hale and others contend, however, that discouraging victims of sexual abuse from reporting crimes, or blaming them when they do, goes too far.

An Oregon man’s lawsuit alleged that Scouting allowed troop leader Timur Dykes to continue in the group after he admitted molesting 17 boys in the early 1980s.

At the trial in 2010, regional Scouts official Eugene Grant faulted parents for letting their sons go to Dykes’ apartment for merit badge work and sleepovers.

“His parents should have known better,” Grant said of one victim. “I think it’s criminal.”

The jury rejected that assertion, finding the Scouts liable for nearly $20 million in damages.

The Scouts’ files made public in October were submitted as evidence in the Portland, Ore., trial and spanned 1965 to 1985. More recent instances of the Scouts’ tactics are detailed in court records across the country.

In 2002, Jerrold Schwartz, a 42-year-old former scoutmaster in New York, admitted abusing a boy in his troop in the 1990s. After being secretly recorded saying he “did something very, very wrong” and apologizing to the boy, Schwartz pleaded guilty to four counts of sodomy and was sent to prison.

Despite the conviction and the victim’s testimony that Schwartz “raped me and forced me to perform oral sex on him,” the Scouts, in a motion to dismiss a subsequent lawsuit, contended that the sex was consensual, records show.

“To argue that an adult scoutmaster in his 30s can have consensual sex with a 13-year-old in his Scout troop is something dreamt up in pedophile heaven,” attorney Michael Dowd told the New York Law Journal in 2006 after a judge rejected the Scouts’ motion. The lawsuit was later settled; terms were not disclosed.

Boy Scouts officials declined to be interviewed or make their lawyers in sex abuse lawsuits available. In a statement, the group stressed its multifaceted child protection efforts, enhanced in recent years to include criminal background checks for all volunteers and mandatory reporting to police of all suspected abuse.

“We deeply regret that there have been times when Scouts were abused, and for that we are very sorry and extend our deepest sympathies to victims,” it said.

The Michigan lawsuit, which is pending, alleges that Assistant Scoutmaster Roger E. Young, a 25-year volunteer, had raped or otherwise abused both Scouts repeatedly at their home, his house and the church where the troop met.

The abuse occurred in 2006 and 2007, when both boys were younger than 14, according to the lawsuit. It also says that local Scouting officials knew of Young’s inappropriate behavior, including time he spent alone with the boys — in violation of the Scouts’ child-protection policies — but ignored warnings by police and others.

In 2007, a member of the Big Sister organization found the boys not wearing pants while alone with Young at their home and at a motel where the family was staying, according to court papers and a police affidavit. In at least one instance, Young was in his underwear, the records state.

Local Scouts officials took no action, allowing Young to continue with the troop even after police raised red flags about him, the lawsuit states. In October 2009, he was charged with possessing child pornography and criminal sexual conduct involving one of the boys.

He killed himself the next month.

Two years later, in November 2011, the Scouts filed court papers saying the mother had in effect abdicated her role and delegated “parental authority” to Young after her husband died.

“For the Scouts to say this is her fault, when they have said to single mothers all over the country … ‘We know you’ve got it tough: Give us your boys and we’ll help you raise them’ — to me, this is absolutely astonishing,” said Clark, the boys’ lawyer.

In at least one case, local Scout leaders faulted the victim and defended the perpetrator.

“They threw my son under the bus,” said the father of a Florida Scout who was 12 when a 16-year-old Scout lured him into a tent and molested him in March 2007.

The boy was so traumatized that he told no one for months, he and his father said in an interview. When the boy did speak up, local Scout leaders accused him of lying.

“(He) is quick to make up stories,” the troop’s merit badge counselor, Chuck Janson, wrote in a two-page memo supporting the assailant, who later admitted to the sexual assault in a plea deal.

The abuse occurred on a camping trip when the older Scout, Robert “Robbie” Brehm, who as senior patrol leader was the top elected troop member, invited the Sarasota boy into a tent to play cards, court records show. Instead, Brehm pulled a knife from a duffel bag and put it to the boy’s throat.

“I told him I wanted him to perform oral sex on me,” Brehm later said in a lengthy sworn statement. “I told him that he had to or else I was going to hurt him.”

Brehm testified that he also threatened the younger Scout if he told anyone.

“I was just so freaking scared, like, I didn’t know what the hell to do,” the boy, now 18, told the Los Angeles Times. “I just went back into my tent. … I was in shock. I was so violated.”

Six months later, he revealed his secret to his high school counselor, who notified authorities.

Local Scout leaders including Janson, who had clashed with the boy’s father over troop issues, sided with Brehm and said the boy was lying.

He and at least two other adult leaders planned to testify for the accused, according to interviews and Brehm’s sworn statement.

“The worst thing you can do to a child victim is call him a liar,” said Adam Horowitz, the victim’s lawyer in a pending lawsuit. “The reason so many children don’t come forward in the first place is that they fear adults won’t believe them.”

In a recent interview and a follow-up email, Janson defended his actions.

“I came up with an honest interpretation of what I knew,” he said. “Can you fault someone for having an honest opinion?”

The boy said he felt betrayed by Janson and the other leaders.

His father said their support of Brehm made it nearly impossible for his son to get justice.

For more than three years, he said, he pressed prosecutors to file charges. When they did, and confronted Brehm with the prospect of 15 years in prison, he confessed to the sexual assault and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of aggravated battery.

“Looking back, I was a bully,” Brehm said in statement.

The victim’s father calls the five-year ordeal “beyond a nightmare.” His son’s relationships have been affected, his grades have suffered and he’s had flashbacks, the father said.

At times during the first year after the attack, he said, the boy was in twice-weekly therapy, with only part of its cost covered by his health plan.

Had the Boy Scouts stepped up early on, he said, his son’s lawsuit might never have been filed.

“After we got the conviction, one would have thought they’d say, ‘Oh, my God, we were wrong in our assumptions. What can we do to help this child and his family?’ ” he said. “But it was just more of the same — attack, attack, attack.”

CIA able to keep its secrets on child porn, fraud, other misconduct

IG documents reveal porn, fraud, other misconduct

Washington Times | Nov 13, 2012

By Jim McElhatton

A former office of general counsel attorney was investigated for time and attendance fraud, as was a national clandestine-service officer. A senior manager came under scrutiny for false expense claims. Yet another investigation delved into “possible unauthorized intelligence collection by Directorate of Intelligence Officers,” according to records.

Both of the child pornography investigations were closed during the second half of 2010, one stemming from materials found on an agency laptop and other on an agency network.

The documents make no reference to the sex scandal involving David H. Petraeus, who resigned last week as CIA director, but reveal a watchdog agency somewhat hamstrung early this year by budgetary constraints.

“Over the past decade, the resources provided to the OIG have not kept pace with the dramatic growth in CIA operations and spending,” CIA Inspector General David B. Buckley wrote in a January report, which detailed his agency’s activities over the previous six months.

“In fact, unlike the [inspectors general at the Defense and State departments and USAID], the CIA OIG received no supplemental or operational funding during the contingency operations in Iraq, Afghanistan or the War on Terror, and did not forward deploy to the war zones,” Mr. Buckley wrote.

He also outlined his office’s work on 21 audit reports and six inspection reports covering “various covert action, proprietary, field station and other intelligence activities of the CIA.”

Given the agency’s penchant for secrecy, however, the documents weren’t released to the public even in redacted form as a matter of policy.

“The CIA inspector general’s reports are classified and therefore they are not publicly available,” Mr. Golson said Tuesday. He added, however, that the reports are sent to the CIA’s director, who forwards them to intelligence oversight committees in Congress.

Scott H. Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight Group, a nonpartisan watchdog, said there could be more transparency without compromising national intelligence.

“Unfortunately, the CIA IG prohibits public access to any specific plans or reports highlighting waste, fraud, abuse or ethics violations,” Mr. Amey said.

“It is really hard to imagine that every audit or investigation involves classified programs, methods or sources, and therefore a more balanced position regarding public access should be on the table.”

Former CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz, an adjunct law professor at the University of Virginia, said he understands the need to keep the work of the internal watchdog secret as well as arguments pushing for more transparency.

But he said the notion that the inspector general’s office doesn’t have the resources it needs does raise concerns.

“There are plenty of ways in which the CIA IG, if he or she feels strangled for dough, can make that known,” Mr. Hitz said.

Mr. Buckley raised concerns about funding in a Jan. 13 letter to Mr. Petraeus that was included in a report on the inspector general’s activities.

In the same message to Mr. Petraeus, Mr. Buckley also sought greater statutory authority for the watchdog office.

“As previously reported, I had determined that our ability to best conduct investigations of allegations of wrongdoing by CIA employees and contractors, pertaining to CIA activities, is hampered by the lack of statutory authority to support the conduct of such investigations, enjoyed by the other inspectors general,” he wrote.

When he appeared before the Senate in 2010 for a confirmation hearing, Mr. Buckley was asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, whether the CIA inspector general’s office had all of the powers it needed to operate in a “vigorous and effective” way.

“Madam Chair, I, as I understand the authorities of the office today and the mission that lies ahead I believe so,” he responded at the time.

Mr. Golson said the inspector general’s office had, indeed, sought “statutory enhancements” and that the requests have since been sent to congressional oversight committees.

Air Force Brought Abusers to Child Sex Orgies

Thatcher’s friends. Website for this image…

aangirfan.blogspot.com | Nov 1, 2012

According to the Daily Star:

Police investigating a child sex ring at the heart of Margaret Thatcher’s government were warned: “Stop investigating if you want to keep your jobs.”

A teenage rent boy told police that a Cabinet minister had been abusing him.

Related

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The boy said that he was one of a number of boys regularly having sex with top people.

Boys from Europe would also fly in to attend the top people’s child sex orgies.
Daily Star Sunday

Belgium’s Dutroux gang supplied girls to the elite, to be tortured and murdered.

 

According to the Daily Star:

The boy named a British Cabinet minister, who is still alive.

The boy referred to judges, members of the European elite and senior civil servants.

The boy disappeared, after blowing the whistle.

Daily Star Sunday

According to the Daily Star:

The police received allegations against the minister from a number of sources.

The police ­discovered top people were ­paying the boys to attend sex parties at ‘millionaire properties’.

Some of the top child abusers were said to have flown in via Royal Air Force Northolt on the outskirts of London.

. . .

Full Story

Ex-Penn State president charged in cover-up of Sandusky sex abuse case

‘Conspiracy of silence.’ Former Penn State President Graham B. Spanier (L) was charged Thursday with hushing up child sex abuse complaints against Jerry Sandusky (R), making him the third school official to be accused of crimes in the alleged cover-up.

Associated Press | Nov 1, 2012

By Mark Scolforo

New charges were also added against Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz in what Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly calls a ‘conspiracy of silence.’

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Former Penn State President Graham B. Spanier was charged Thursday with hushing up child sex abuse complaints against Jerry Sandusky, making him the third school official to be accused of crimes in the alleged cover-up.

Prosecutors also added counts against the two former underlings, Timothy M. Curley and Gary C. Schultz, who were already charged with lying to the grand jury that investigated the former Penn State assistant football coach.

Spanier was charged with perjury, obstruction, endangering the welfare of children, failure to properly report suspected abuse and conspiracy. Curley and Schultz face new charges of endangering the welfare of children, obstruction and conspiracy.

“This was not a mistake by these men, this was not an oversight,” said state Attorney General Linda Kelly. “It was not misjudgment on their part. This was a conspiracy of silence by top officials to actively conceal the truth.”

Curley and Schultz have repeatedly asserted they are innocent, and Spanier’s attorneys have insisted he was never told there was anything of a sexual nature involving Sandusky and children. Messages left for their respective attorneys Thursday were not immediately returned.

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“All three of these men knowingly testified falsely and failed to provide important information and evidence,” Kelly said.

The charges were filed with a suburban Harrisburg district judge, who said the defendants were expected in his courtroom no earlier than Friday.

Sandusky, who spent decades on the Penn State staff and was defensive coordinator during two national championship seasons, was convicted in June of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years. He has maintained he is innocent and was transferred to a maximum security prison on Wednesday, where he is serving a 30- to 60-year sentence.

Curley, 58, the athletic director on leave while he serves out the last year of his contract, and Schultz, 63, who has retired as vice president for business and finance, were charged a year ago with lying to the grand jury and with failing to properly report suspect child abuse. Their trial is set for early January in Harrisburg.

Spanier, 64, of State College, had been university president for 16 years when he was forced out after Sandusky’s November 2011 arrest.

Prosecutors said Spanier, Curley and Schultz knew of complaints involving Sandusky showering with boys in 1998 and 2001.

“They essentially turned a blind eye to the serial predatory acts committed by Jerry Sandusky,” Kelly said.

The grand jury report included with the charges said “the actual harm realized by this wanton failure is staggering,” and listed each instance of abuse that happened after 1998.

“The continued cover-up of this incident and the ongoing failure to report placed every minor child who would come into contact with Sandusky in the future in grave jeopardy of being abused,” jurors wrote.

Spanier has said he had no memory of email traffic concerning the 1998 complaint _ which came from a woman who said that Sandusky had showered with her son _ and only slight recollections about the 2001 complaint by a team assistant who said he stumbled onto Sandusky sexually abusing a boy inside a campus shower.

The grand jury report indicates Curley, Schultz and Spanier told the university’s lawyer they had no documents that addressed inappropriate conduct with boys by Sandusky.

But Schultz did retain a Sandusky file in his office, the jury concluded. He told his administrative assistant Joan Coble never to look at it, according to the grand jury.

“She said it was a very unusual request and was made in a `tone of voice’ she had never heard him use before,” according to the jury report.

Another Schultz assistant, Kimberly Belcher, took the file from his office at the time of Schultz’s arrest, made a copy and gave the file to him, jurors said. Kelly said it was eventually obtained by the grand jury.

A large section of the presentment outlines how, the report claims, Spanier concealed details about the investigation from the Penn State board of trustees after his grand jury testimony last year, even after a story had appeared in The Patriot-News of Harrisburg. At a May 2011 trustees meeting, he was asked by the board about the matter and did not tell them it involved the school and Sandusky, the jury said.

“Quite to the contrary, Spanier specifically informed the board that the investigation had nothing to do with Penn State and that the investigation was regarding a child in Clinton County without affiliation with Penn State,” the jury wrote. “Spanier also told the board that he could say little more about the matter” because of grand jury secrecy.

Decisions by the three men were criticized in a detailed report commissioned by Penn State and issued this summer by a group led by former FBI Director Louis Freeh. That report concluded Spanier, Curley, Schultz and then-coach Joe Paterno concealed Sandusky’s activities from the university trustees and “empowered” the abuse by giving him access to school facilities and the prestige of his university affiliation.

The Freeh report said the investigation turned up emails from 1998 in which the administrators discussed the matter, including a May 5 email from Curley to Schultz and Spanier, with “Joe Paterno” in the subject line. It read: “I have touched bases with the coach. Keep us posted. Thanks.”

Spanier told the Freeh team that he believed in 2001 that the encounter witnessed by graduate assistant Mike McQueary amounted to “horseplay,” although an email sent by him to Curley at that time reflected a much more somber tone.

In that email, Spanier was reacting to a proposal by Curley in which they would not report Sandusky to authorities but instead tell him he needed help and that he could no longer bring children into Penn State facilities.

“The only downside for us is if the message isn’t `heard’ and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it,” Spanier wrote in 2001. “The approach you outline is humane and a reasonable way to proceed.”

Spanier’s lawyers have called the Freeh report a myth, and said he would have acted in 1998, 2001 or any time if he knew a predator like Sandusky was on campus.

In July, Spanier revealed in a letter to the board that he had been physically abused by his father as a child.

“It is unfathomable and illogical to think that a respected family sociologist and family therapist, someone who personally experienced massive and persistent abuse as a child, someone who devoted a significant portion of his career to the welfare of children and youth … would have knowingly turned a blind eye to any report of child abuse or predatory sexual acts directed at children,” Spanier wrote.

British paedophile ring protected by Parliament and Downing Street

belfasttelegraph.co.uk | Oct 25, 2012

A powerful paedophile network may have operated in Britain protected by its connections to Parliament and Downing Street, a senior Labour politician suggested yesterday.

Speaking from the back benches of the House of Commons, Tom Watson, the deputy chairman of the Labour Party, called on the Metropolitan Police to reopen a closed criminal inquiry into paedophilia.

Indicating his anxiety that there had been an establishment cover-up, Mr Watson referred to the case of Peter Righton, who was convicted in 1992 of importing and possessing illegal homosexual pornographic material.

Related

Arch Paedophile Jimmy Savile: Catholic Church seeks to strip star of his Papal knighthood

Righton, a former consultant to the National Children’s Bureau and lecturer at the National Institute for Social Work in London, admitted two illegal importation charges and one charge of possessing obscene material. He was fined £900.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Watson said the evidence file used to convict Righton “if it still exists, contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring”.

He told a hushed Commons: “One of its members boasts of a link to a senior aide of a former Prime Minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad.

“The leads were not followed up, but if the files still exist, I want to ensure that the Metropolitan Police secure the evidence, re-examine it, and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10.”

In the aftermath of Mr Watson’s remarks, media outlets speculated that he was referring to the late former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath – who was the subject of unsubstantiated rumours about sex with under-age boys – or to Sir Peter Morrison, a former Downing Street aide who died in 1995.

However, The Independent understands that Mr Watson’s comments were not aimed at either Sir Edward or Sir Peter, but at a living person associated with Margaret Thatcher’s administration.

They are thought to involve the activities of the Paedophile Information Exchange, a pro-paedophile group in existence between 1974 and 1984, which believed there should be no age of consent.

Responding to the remarks, David Cameron said the MP had raised “a very difficult and complex case”, adding he was unclear which former Prime Minister Mr Watson was referring to.

Criticising the BBC’s record on Savile – who was never caught and died last year aged 84, the Prime Minister said: “These allegations do leave many institutions – perhaps particularly the BBC – with serious questions to answer – I think above all the question, ‘How did he get away with this for so long?’.”

He told MPs: “The most important thing is that the police investigation is properly resourced and is allowed to continue.”

Arch Paedophile Jimmy Savile: Catholic Church seeks to strip star of his Papal knighthood

The Pope meets Jimmy Savile in 1982 Photo: PA

Jimmy Savile could become the first person to be stripped of a Papal knighthood posthumously after the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales asked the Vatican to investigate removing the honour.

Telegraph | Oct 26, 2012

By Tom Rowley, and Sam Marsden

There is growing disquiet among senior members of the church, which has itself been rocked by child abuse scandals, that the disgraced late TV presenter’s name remains on the list of recipients of one of the highest awards the Pope can bestow.

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, has now written to Rome asking whether Savile’s Papal knighthood can be annulled in recognition of his victims’ “deep distress”.

Church sources said there was no established process to remove a Papal honour posthumously because the award dies with the recipient.

However, senior Roman Catholic clergy in Britain feel that the Vatican should look at whether it can do something to recognise its disgust at the “deeply shocking” series of allegations of child sexual abuse made against the former Jim’ll Fix It presenter.

There is no guarantee that the church will be able to remove the honour and no fixed timetable for Rome to reply to the Archbishop of Westminster.

Related

Arch Paedophile Jimmy Savile was a devout Zionist and an Israel supporter

British paedophile ring ‘protected by Parliament and Downing Street’

A source said: “The honour itself goes when the person dies but nevertheless it would appear on Papal honours lists. I don’t know if you remove it entirely or whether there is an asterisk to say, ‘well, actually…’”

It is thought that a Papal knighthood has never previously been removed posthumously. “It would be very, very rare if not unprecedented,” a source said.

Savile, who described himself as a devout Catholic, was made a Knight Commander of St Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II in 1990 for his charity work.

The honour is awarded to Catholics, and on occasion non-Catholics, who have demonstrated “pre-eminent” service to their faith, community, or the work of the Vatican.

Other recipients have included Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire media tycoon, Sir Matt Busby, the former Manchester United Manager, and John Hume, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Northern Ireland politician.

A spokesman for the Archbishop of Westminster said: “The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, wrote last week to the Holy See asking the competent office to investigate whether the Papal Honour awarded to Jimmy Savile for his charitable works could be posthumously removed and its effects nullified, recognising the deep distress of all those who have suffered abuse and the disquiet at Mr Savile’s name remaining on Papal Honours lists.

“While the outcome of the current police investigation is awaited, the allegations of abuse are deeply shocking and our thoughts go first to all those who have been abused. The Church invites all those who have suffered abuse to come forward to the appropriate authorities.”

There have also been calls for the UK Government to strip Savile of the British knighthood he was awarded in 1990.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, hinted earlier this month that the honour could be removed.

However, the Cabinet Office said that honours ceased to exist when a person died, although there is a campaign to change the law so that they can be revoked after death.

 

Report by former FBI director finds Penn State concealed child sex abuse over 14 years

Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials hushed up child sex abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade ago for fear of bad publicity, allowing the former assistant football coach to prey on other youngsters

FoxNews.com | Jul 12, 2012

Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials hushed up child sex abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade ago for fear of bad publicity, allowing the former assistant football coach to prey on other youngsters, according to a scathing report issued Thursday on the scandal.

“Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State,” said former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who was hired by university trustees to look into what has become one of sports’ biggest scandals. “The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”

After an eight-month investigation, Freeh’s firm produced a 267-page report that concluded that the Hall of Fame coach, President Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz “repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse.”

Paterno “was an integral part of this active decision to conceal” and his firing was justified, Freeh said at a news conference. He called the officials’ disregard for child victims “callous and shocking.”

Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 45 criminal counts for abusing 10 boys.

The university’s board of trustees held a late-afternoon press conference where they acknowledged the report and its “sobering” findings. They called the report “critical” in their attempt to move forward and never again allow a similar scandal at the school.

Karen Peetz, the chairwoman of the board, said at this point there will be no more resignations on the 32-member board. She said the board owns the responsibility of the oversight.

Penn State Probe Accuses Paterno of Cover-Up

“We are grateful for the report,” she said. “We will study the document as we push forward.”

Peetz said the panel believes Paterno’s “61 years of excellent service to the university is now marred,” by the scandal and how he handled the accusations.

Another trustee, Kenneth Frazier, said, “Our hearts remain heavy and we are deeply ashamed.”

“You have to measure every human by the good they’ve done, and the bad they’ve done,” he said. “We have to take some time … and distance before we start thinking about how we think about Joe Paterno’s entire life and entire body of work.”

The scandal led to the ouster of Paterno and Spanier. Curley and Schultz are awaiting trial on charges accusing them of lying to a grand jury and failing to report abuse. They have pleaded not guilty.

Freeh also said Sandusky’s conduct was in part a result of the school’s lack of transparency, which stemmed from a “failure of governance” on the part of officials and the board of trustees.

Freeh had said officials had opportunities in 1998 and 2001 to step in.

Asked whether the officials’ actions amounted to a crime such as conspiracy or obstruction, Freeh said that would be up to a grand jury.

School leaders “empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted and unsupervised access” to campus and to affiliate with the football program, the report said. The access, the report states, “provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims.”

Sexual abuse might have been prevented if university officials had banned Sandusky from bringing children onto campus after a 1998 inquiry, the report said. Despite their knowledge of the police probe into Sandusky showering with a boy in a football locker room, Spanier, Paterno, Curley and Schultz took no action to limit his access to campus, the report said.

The May 1998 complaint by a woman whose son came home with wet hair after showering with Sandusky didn’t result in charges at the time. The report says Schultz was worried the matter could be opening “Pandora’s box.”

Then, in 2001, after a member of Paterno’s staff saw Sandusky in a campus shower with a boy, officials did bar him from bringing children to campus and decided not to report him to child welfare authorities.

“There’s more red flags here than you could count over a long period of time,” Freeh said.

In a statement, Paterno’s family said the longtime coach made mistakes that he acknowledged but “never interfered with any investigation” and was fooled by Sandusky.

“The idea that any sane, responsible adult would knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept. The far more realistic conclusion is that many people didn’t fully understand what was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events,” the statement said. “If Joe Paterno had understood what Sandusky was, a fear of bad publicity would not have factored into his actions.”

Defense lawyer Caroline Roberto, who represents Curley, was reading the report and had no immediate comment, according to a spokeswoman. Messages were left for lawyers for Spanier and Schultz.

The report also singled out the revered Penn State football program — one built on the motto “success with honor” — for criticism. It says Paterno and university leaders allowed Sandusky to retire in 1999, “not as a suspected child predator, but as a valued member of the Penn State football legacy, with future `visibility’ at Penn State’,” allowing him to groom victims.

Investigators, however, found no evidence linking his $168,000 retirement package to the 1998 police investigation. Freeh called the payout unprecedented but said there was no evidence it was an attempt to buy Sandusky’s silence.

Sandusky’s trial last month included gut-wrenching testimony from eight young men who said he abused them as boys, sometimes on campus, and included testimony that showed he used his prestige as a university celebrity to manipulate the children.

By contrast, Freeh’s team focused on Penn State and what its employees did — or did not do — to protect children.

More than 430 current or former school employees were interviewed since November, including nearly everyone associated with the football program under Paterno. The Hall of Fame coach died of lung cancer in January at age 85, without telling Freeh’s team his account of what happened.

Some of the report’s most damning evidence against Paterno consists of handwritten notes and emails that portray him as being involved with a decision by the officials not to tell child welfare authorities about the 2001 encounter.

Spanier, Schultz and Curley drew up a plan that called for reporting Sandusky to the state Department of Child Welfare. But Curley later said in an email that he changed his mind about the plan “after giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe.”

Spanier concurred but noted “the only downside for us is if the message isn’t (heard) and acted upon and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it.”

The emails also show Paterno closely followed the 1998 allegation.

With the report now complete, the NCAA said Penn State now must address four key questions concerning “institutional control and ethics policies,” as outlined in a letter sent to the school last fall.

“Penn State’s response to the letter will inform our next steps, including whether or not to take further action,” said Bob Williams, the NCAA’s vice president of communications. “We expect Penn State’s continued cooperation in our examination of these issues.”

The U.S. Department of Education is examining whether the school violated the Clery Act, which requires reporting of certain crimes on campus, including ones of a sexual nature. The report said Penn State’s “awareness and interest” in Clery Act compliance was “significantly lacking.”

Only one form used to report such crimes was completed on campus from 2007 through 2011, according to the Freeh findings. And no record exists of Paterno, Curley or assistant coach Mike McQueary reporting that McQueary saw Sandusky in a shower with a boy in 2001, as they would be obligated to do under the Clery Act.

As of last November, Penn State’s policies for Clery compliance were still in draft form and had not been implemented, the report found.

U.S. Department of Education said it was still examining whether Penn State violated the Clery Act, but declined to comment on Freeh’s report.