Latest news with #childabuse
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Unless you see it, you can't believe how bad it is': the peer demanding a minister for porn
When the Conservative peer Gabby Bertin arrived for a meeting with the the science and technology secretary, Peter Kyle, earlier this year she startled him by laying out an array of pornographic images across his desk. 'They were screengrabs showing little girls, their hair in bunches, and massive, grown men grabbing little girls' throats,' she says. She had selected images which appeared to depict child abuse, and yet were easily and legally available on a popular website. 'Unless you see it, you can't quite believe how bad it is.' The minister appeared shocked and upset by the images, she recalls, so she quickly tidied them away and later shredded them. Bertin has noticed that her desire to talk frequently and openly about extreme pornography is not shared by all her Westminster colleagues. 'I've definitely seen people swerve at lunch, not wanting to sit next to me for fear of what they're going to hear coming from my mouth,' she told fellow delegates at the launch meeting of her pornography taskforce this week, prompting a flutter of sympathetic laughter. Since being appointed by the former prime minister Rishi Sunak to lead an independent review into the regulation of online pornography in December 2023, Bertin has observed how a double taboo has made most politicians extremely reluctant to engage. Some simply find the subject hugely embarrassing; others stay silent because they do not wish to appear prudish by criticising the proliferation of extreme and often illegal pornographic material online. She is frustrated by this reticence. 'You can't leave the pitch on this stuff just because you're worried about being accused of being too strait-laced,' she says. The government needs urgently to appoint a minister for porn, she recommends, to ensure that the issue gets the attention it deserves, rather than being passed reluctantly between the Home Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. A former adviser to David Cameron, Bertin has gathered cross-party support for her work and says she emails Keir Starmer so regularly about the issue that she has 'practically become his pen pal' (if you can have a pen pal who delegates to officials the responsibility of replying). 'We're really British about it so we don't want to have a graphic conversation about sex and porn,' she says, in an interview in the Westminster office she shares with several other peers. 'But you've got to shout about it as loudly as possible. The reason why we've got into this mess is because nobody has really wanted to talk about it.' By mess she means a situation whereby online pornography (which is viewed by an estimated 13.8 million UK adults every month) is not regulated to the same degree as pornography watched in cinemas or videos, despite the fact that videos have been redundant for decades and vanishingly few people now visit cinemas to watch porn. The absence of scrutiny has created an environment where much of the content created is, she says, 'violent, degrading, abusive, and misogynistic'. She also means a situation where a member of her own party had to resign after twice watching porn (perplexingly tractor-themed) on his phone, as he whiled away time on the green benches in the House of Commons. 'People have slightly lost the plot on porn. Would someone 20 years ago have just taken Playboy into the Commons, and had it lying on their lap? It just shows what an extraordinary place we've got to,' she says. 'You can do what you like in your private life – I don't have a problem with that – but you can't watch porn in the House of Commons, and you shouldn't be watching porn at your desk. There's a place for these things and it's not in the office.' Her review, published in February, made 32 recommendations. Last week the first of these became government policy, when officials announced that pornography depicting strangulation would be made illegal. Her new taskforce of 17 people, bringing together representatives from the police, the advertising industry, anti-trafficking organisations and violence against women charities, will focus on how to ensure harmful online content is better regulated, trying to bring parity between the scrutiny of offline and online content. She pays tribute to the 'hugely innovative side' of the porn industry, which has long driven technological advances in webcams and internet speeds, fuelled by the sector's enormous capacity to turn profit, but she has not invited any representatives on to the taskforce, wary of anything that might let the industry 'mark their own homework'. This week Ofcom announced that major online providers, including the UK's most popular pornography site, Pornhub, had agreed to implement stronger age-verification measures in compliance with the Online Safety Act, to prevent under-18s from accessing adult material. Those platforms that do not comply with the measures face being fined 10% of global turnover or being blocked in the UK. Ofcom is also responsible for monitoring whether sites distributing user-generated pornography are protecting UK viewers from encountering illegal material involving child sexual abuse and extreme content (showing rape, bestiality and necrophilia, for example). However, other forms of harmful pornography that are regulated in physical formats are not subject to similar restrictions online. It is this grey, unscrutinised area that Bertin's panel will focus on, as well as calling for better processes to respond to stolen content, working out how people depicted in pornographic videos can request that the clips be removed from sites, and how to build safety mechanisms into AI tools that create sexually explicit content. Officials at the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) guided her through short clips of extreme material to help her understand the nature of easily available harmful content. She remains disturbed by the material she saw – content designed to appear to be child sexual abuse, set in children's bedrooms – roles played by young girls, who may be over 18 but are acting as children. 'The titles are very problematic, things like: 'Daddy's going to come home and give his daughter a good seeing to' or 'Oops I've gone too far and now she's dead' or 'Kidnap and kill a hooker.'' This content would be prohibited by the BBFC in the offline world, but is unregulated online. During research for her review, she met representatives from global tech companies, and told them how when Volvo invented the three-point safety belt they gifted the patent to the rest of the industry because staff realised the innovation was so vital to raising safety standards. 'My pitch was that they have a duty and responsibility to double down on trying to get technology that can clean up these situations, and they should share that technology,' she says. 'Taylor Swift can whip a song off a website as soon as anyone tries to pirate it. There's no reason why the firms can't come up with technology to sort this out.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Posing for photographs, she edges away from a watercolour of Margaret Thatcher hung on the wall by one of her colleagues. 'Let's do it without Thatcher in the background. That's not my doing by the way – I share the office,' she says semi-apologetically, before rapidly adding: 'I mean I love Thatcher, obviously.' But she may be making an important distinction. In a 1970 Woman's Hour interview, Thatcher said the rise of pornography was a 'frightening' manifestation of a newly permissive society that she believed was undermining family life. Bertin describes herself as a liberal conservative and wants to be clear she is neither anti-porn nor running a moral crusade. 'Consenting adults should be able to do what they want; I have no desire to stop any kind of sexual freedom. But restricting people from seeing a woman being choked, called a whore, and having several men stamp on her – for example – is not ending someone's sexual freedom. This is the kind of content we want to end.'
Malay Mail
4 hours ago
- Malay Mail
Melaka boy, 11, suffers head injury after father allegedly throws chair over lukewarm ‘kopi O'
KUALA LUMPUR, June 28 — Authorities have confirmed that an 11-year-old boy sustained a head injury after he was allegedly struck by a chair thrown by his father after the child served coffee that was deemed not hot enough. According to MalaysiaGazette, Melaka state executive councillor for women, family and community development, Datuk Kalsom Noordin, said the incident occurred when the boy was home alone with his father. His mother was at work at the time. 'The father asked the child to prepare a cup of hot kopi O. When the drink was not hot enough, he became angry after the boy insisted he had already heated it. 'Frustrated and disbelieving, the father threw a chair, which hit the boy's head,' she reportedly said. Kalsom added the man later cleaned the wound, and the boy only told his mother what had happened when she returned home. The child was first taken to a clinic in Cheng but was referred to Melaka Hospital due to the clinic's lack of X-ray and CT scan facilities. 'Scans at the hospital showed no serious injuries,' she added. She also said officers from the Social Welfare Department (JKM) would visit the family's home on Monday to record statements and assess the next course of action.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Man faces life in prison for impregnating an 11-year-old Jacksonville girl
On June 25, a Duval County jury found Sergio Pena guilty of sexual battery and child abuse. The crimes occurred between April 1 and June 30, 2008, when Pena was 21 years old. Pena was often alone with the 11-year-old victim when she returned home from school, during which he raped her multiple times. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< After Pena left Jacksonville in late June 2008, the victim began showing signs of pregnancy, which led to the discovery of the abuse. The victim disclosed the sexual abuse to her mother, who reported it to law enforcement. DNA evidence subsequently linked Pena to the sexual assault. Due to Pena's illegal immigration status, an arrest warrant was issued to the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force in 2008. Pena was arrested on May 10, 2023, after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. With the guilty verdict, Sergio Pena faces a mandatory life sentence. A sentencing date will be set on July 28. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
Daily Mail
12 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Paedophile Gary Glitter told hospital worker his Asia holiday to abuse girls was 'the time of his life'
Paedophile Gary Glitter boasted that a holiday to Asia where he abused girls was 'the time of his life', a health worker has revealed. The woman in her 30s, who cared for the shamed singer while he was having a knee operation at a hospital in Dorset in 2022, said he showed no remorse. She also said the 80-year-old was really 'pervy' with the female staff who were caring for him while he was handcuffed to the bed. Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was first jailed in 1999 for possessing thousands of indecent images of children. He then was locked up again for 16 years in 2015 for sexually abusing three schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980. Glitter was also expelled from Cambodia in 2002 amid reports of sex crime allegations. Speaking about the time she spent with Glitter, the woman told The Mirror: 'He tried to make friends with the nurses, talking about being in Cambodia and what a wonderful place it was and how he spent the time of his life there. 'I felt sick when I found he had been accused of abusing children there.' 'You would of thought he would have felt guilty about it but he was saying it was the best time of his life. It was chilling,' she added. Four years after he was kicked Cambodia, Glitter was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged ten and 11, in Vietnam and spent two and a half years in jail. He escaped serious charges of child rape — which carried a death sentence — and returned to the UK in 2008. The offences for which he was jailed in 2015 came to light as part of Operation Yewtree - the Metropolitan Police investigation launched in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal. He was forced to sign the sex offenders' register, but he was arrested once again in 2012 at his multi-million-pound home in Westminster. Police would later describe him as a 'habitual sexual predator who took advantage of the star status afforded to him'. In 2015 he was convicted of attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one of having sex with a girl under 13 in the 1970s and 1980s. The 80-year-old was automatically released from HMP The Verne - a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset - in February 2023 after serving half of his sentence. But just six weeks after walking free, he was dramatically taken back for breaching his licence conditions by allegedly viewing downloaded images of children. And he's remained inside since March 2023, having been refused bail in February 2024 when it was determined he remains a risk to children, who he had a 'sexual interest in'. Earlier this month it was revealed that Glitter will stay in jail for another two years after being told that his application to be released from prison had been rejected. Glitter's career grew at exponential rate in the early 1970s after releasing singles including Do You Wanna Touch Me, Rock and Roll, and I'm the Leader of the Gang. Rock and Roll was Glitter's breakout song, becoming one of the biggest hits of 1972, reaching number two in the UK charts and in the top ten in the US. He spent much of the next of the 12 months dominating the top ten, with singles I Didn't Know I Loved You (Till I Saw You Rock and Roll), Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah), and Hello Hello, I'm Back Again all charting, according to a biography. Glitter's first number one came as 'Glittermania' peaked in the Summer of 1973 with the release of I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am). He then hit number one again in the autumn with I Love You Love Me Love. By the time Glitter appeared on the charts again in 1984 with Another Rock and Roll Christmas and Dance Me Up, Glitter was playing more than 80 shows a year. Glitter no longer owns the master rights to his songs — meaning he no longer receives any royalties. In 2019, his song Rock and Roll Part 2 featured in hit movie The Joker, but rights holders insisted he would not receive any earnings.
Telegraph
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist arrested over child abuse images
A Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post photo-journalist has been arrested and charged with possessing child abuse images on his computer. Thomas Pham LeGro, 48, appeared before a federal judge in Washington DC on Friday where he was detained ahead of a bail hearing next week. The FBI said agents had executed a search warrant at Mr LeGro's residence on Thursday and seized a number of electronic devices. It said that after examining his work laptop agents found a 'folder that contained 11 videos depicting child sexual abuse material'. The agency added that while carrying out the search, agents spotted what appeared to be 'a broken pieces of a hard drive in the hallway outside the room where Mr LeGro's work laptop was found'. In its report of the arrest, the Post said that in charging papers, the FBI wrote that Mr LeGro was linked to an account identified in 2005 'as part of an investigation into E-Gold, a payment company used by child pornography websites'. LeGro 'placed on leave' by newspaper The newspaper said he had worked for the Post in two stints over the course of 18 years. The Post's website says: 'In 2018, Tom LeGro was part of a team of Post reporters who were awarded a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Senate candidacy of Roy Moore and a subsequent effort to discredit The Post's reporting.' It added: 'As Deputy Director of Video, Tom oversees an award-winning team of video journalists who work across the newsroom, including in National, Climate, Metro, Style and Technology. Tom joined Video in 2013.' There was no immediate response from the Washington Post to an inquiry from The Telegraph. It was not clear whether Mr LeGro had retained a lawyer or had a chance to enter a plea. In a brief statement, the Washington Post said it 'understands the severity of these allegations, and the employee has been placed on leave'.
