In October 2019, a 61 year-old [1] man from South Wales [2] was sentenced for 33 years for serious sexual offences against three of his daughters, spanning 20 years, one of whom was also his granddaughter. He frequently raped his daughters from the ages of 12, 13, or 14, fathering six of his own grandchildren with one. [1] [3] [4] [5] He also arranged for other men to rape his daughters. [6] [7] [8]
The offender cannot be named to protect the lifelong anonymity afforded to his victims. [2]
The offender brainwashed, manipulated and systematically raped three of his daughters during a 20-year period. [9]
He groomed and controlled his daughters by invoking magic. He immersed them in a "false world" involving "witchcraft and mysticism" [10] and convinced them that they were receiving emails from a psychic named Amelia Sanctuary, which were really from him. [11] [3] The messages demanded sex with him and with other men. [8]
The offender controlled and sexually abused his first daughter for about 20 years. He began raping her when she was 14 years old, making her pregnant in a matter of months. [12] She agreed to deceive social services by claiming the baby's father was a boy at her school. Then her father raped her "nearly every night", making her pregnant a second time at 16. [13] She became pregnant nine times in total, giving birth to six children. DNA evidence proved he is the father of all six. [14] Two of the pregnancies ended with a miscarriage [11] and one was ended by abortion tablets given to her by her father to conceal it. [13] He was extremely controlling towards her and emotionally manipulated her, [12] [14] saying for example: "We are soul mates, we have been together through so many lifetimes. We are meant to be together." He gave her a "witch's ring" and emailed instructions to her that he pretended were from the psychic Amelia, including to drink his urine. [13] He groomed her into believing all of this was "a normal upbringing". [1] When on bail following his arrest, he continued raping her, pitching a tent near a beach for this purpose. After he covered up a resulting pregnancy by giving her abortion tablets, she was too frightened of him to seek medical treatment and later recalled, "I was too chicken to go to the clinic". [13]
The offender raped his second daughter "hundreds of times" for four years [15] during her teens and also had her raped by a second man. [12] This daughter's first time being forced into sex by her father occurred in a forested area. Then he raped her "at least two to three times a week" in various locations including her bed and his car. [13] The second man, a family friend, [16] raped her in his own bedroom [17] in a nearby flat, [16] watched by her father. [12] [17] She believes he paid her father. [15] She eventually escaped the abuse by leaving her home. [12] She was initially too frightened to report the crimes due to fears about "losing contact with her siblings". She later reported the abuse to police because she feared for other "girls in the family of that age". [15]
The offender also controlled and systematically raped one of the daughters of his first victim [12] [9] from when she was aged 12 or 13 until her late teens. DNA evidence proved that he is both her father and grandfather. [2] He intimidated and controlled her by again invoking witchcraft [12] and by tying her up and sexually assaulting her when she rejected his demands, making her "too scared" to refuse him. He concealed the abuse by demanding she keep it a secret and by telling her "Nobody will believe you and you will be thrown in the loony bin". He raped her several times a week in various locations, such as the family home, his car, a caravan and a lay-by. He continued sexually abusing her while on bail following his arrest. [2]
In late September 2019, the offender went on trial in Swansea Crown Court for 36 rape counts and for an assault by penetration count. [18] One of the rape counts was for procuring rape. [19] He denied all counts. [20] [21] He cannot be named due to the legal necessity of protecting the lifelong anonymity of his victims. [2]
On 10 October 2019, the jury unanimously convicted him on all 37 counts, after deliberating for four and a half hours. He remained expressionless during the verdict [10] and was remanded in custody. [5]
Paul Jones, a Detective Chief Inspector at Dyfed–Powys Police, said the perpetrator committed "the most serious sexual offences" [13] with an impact that "is very difficult to summarise". [4] He thanked the victims for "their bravery and composure", which "led to the conviction of a very dangerous offender". [10] He added: "I want anyone who has suffered abuse to know that if you find the courage to come forward, you will be taken seriously, and police will work tirelessly to bring offenders to justice.” [11]
On 18 October, Judge Paul Thomas QC jailed the offender for 33 years, with a further seven years on extended licence, saying that his "totally evil" crimes "plumbed the depths of depravity". [1] He told the "cowardly" and "wicked" abuser: "You raped them countless times, well into the hundreds. You took advantage of their extreme vulnerability caused by their age and circumstances and abused them cynically, mercilessly, evilly." [1] [8]
Mary Katherine Fualaau was an American teacher who pleaded guilty in 1997 to two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child and subsequently married her former student. The case received national attention.
Jessica Marie Lunsford was an American nine-year-old girl from Homosassa, Florida, who was murdered in February 2005. Lunsford was abducted from her home in the early morning of February 24, 2005, by John Couey, a 46-year-old convicted sex offender who lived nearby. Couey held her captive over the weekend, during which she was raped and later murdered by being buried alive. The media extensively covered the investigation and trial of Couey.
Marcus Delon Wesson is an American mass murderer and child rapist, convicted of nine counts of first-degree murder and 14 sex crimes, including the rape and molestation of his underage daughters. His victims were his children, fathered through incestuous sexual abuse of his daughters and nieces, as well as his wife's children.
Robert Lindsay Hughes also billed variously as Bob Hughes and Robert Hughs, is an Australian-born British former actor who appeared in ABBA: The Movie and the television sitcom Hey Dad..!.
Swansea Crown Court is a Crown Court venue which deals with criminal cases at St Helen's Road in Swansea, Wales.
The Álvarez incest case was uncovered late March 2009 when 59-year-old Arcedio Álvarez was arrested in Mariquita, Colombia, accused of imprisoning and sexually abusing his daughter Alba Nidia Álvarez over a period of 25 years, beginning from when she was nine years old. The daughter also gave birth to 14 children, six of whom died due to lack of medical care.
Allegations of abuse of children in certain institutions owned, managed, and largely staffed by the Sisters of Mercy, in Ireland, form a sub-set of allegations of child abuse made against Catholic clergy and members of Catholic religious institutes in several countries in the late 20th century. The abusive conduct allegedly perpetrated at institutions run by the Sisters of Mercy ranged from overuse of corporal punishment to emotional abuse, and included some accusations of sexual abuse by lay persons employed at the institutions.
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.
The Moe incest case emerged in February 2007 when a woman, identified only as "M" for legal reasons, reported to Victoria Police in the Australian town of Moe, Victoria that her 63-year-old father, RSJ, had raped her, physically abused her and kept her prisoner in her own home between 1977 and 2005.
The 2009 Plymouth child abuse case was a child abuse and paedophile ring involving at least five adults from different parts of England. The case centred on photographs taken of up to 64 children by Vanessa George, a nursery worker in Plymouth. It highlighted the issue of child molestation by women, as all but one of the members of the ring were female.
The sexual abuse scandal in the Salesian Order is a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in various Western jurisdictions.
The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal consists of the organised child sexual abuse of girls that occurred in the town of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Northern England, from the late 1980s until 2013 and the failure of local authorities to act on reports of the abuse throughout most of that period. Researcher Angie Heal, who was hired by local officials and warned them about child exploitation occurring between 2002 and 2007, has since described it as the "biggest child protection scandal in UK history", with one report estimating that 1,400 girls, primarily from care home backgrounds, were abused by "grooming gangs" between 1997 and 2013. Evidence of the abuse was first noted in the early 1990s, when care home managers investigated reports that children in their care were being picked up by taxi drivers. From at least 2001, multiple reports passed names of alleged perpetrators, several from one family, to the police and Rotherham Council. The first group conviction took place in 2010, when five British-Pakistani men were convicted of sexual offences against girls aged 12–16.
Michael Madison is an American convicted serial killer and sex offender from East Cleveland, Ohio who was known to have committed the murders of at least three women over a nine-month period in 2012 and 2013. He was arrested and charged with the crimes in 2013 and was sentenced to death in 2016.
Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom includes the proliferation of indecent images, online exploitation, transnational abuse, and contact abuse. Efforts to prevent child sexual abuse include providing information to children and parents, and disrupting abusive situations. Perpetrators may act alone or as part of a group or street gang, and may either exploit vulnerabilities in children and young people or have long-standing sexual attraction to children. Underreporting of child sexual abuse and low conviction rates remain barriers to justice, among other factors. In the UK, high profile media coverage of child sexual abuse has often focused on cases of institutional and celebrity abuse, as well as offences committed by groups, known as grooming gangs.
The Huddersfield child sex abuse ring were a group of men who were convicted of sexual offences against girls in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. It is the largest gang ever convicted for sexual abuse in the United Kingdom. The offences took place between 2004 and 2011, and the men were charged following the Operation Tendersea inquiry by the police. The trials began in April 2017 and 20 men were convicted in 2018 in three separate trials. Since then, further men have been convicted in a series of trials, bringing the total number of perpetrators convicted to 41 by August 2021.
Hurtcore, a portmanteau of the words "hardcore" and "hurt", is a name given to a particularly extreme form of child pornography, usually involving degrading violence, bodily harm, and torture, typically relating to child sexual abuse. Eileen Ormsby, Australian writer and author of The Darkest Web, described hurtcore as "a fetish for people who get aroused by the infliction of pain, or even torture, on another person who is not a willing participant". An additional motivation for the perpetrator, next to their position of power over their victims, can be the reaction of their victims to the physical abuse, like crying or screaming of pain. This reaction can stimulate the arousal of the perpetrator even more.
The Kidwelly sex cult was a British cult that operated in Kidwelly, Wales, that raped children for decades until its perpetrators were arrested in 2010. Known by its members as simply "The Church", its leader Colin Batley psychologically terrorised and coerced vulnerable children into performing sexual acts, by using death threats and brainwashing. Batley, three female members, and a second man were convicted of child sex offences in 2011 and jailed.
Beechwood children's home was a care home for children in Mapperley in Nottinghamshire, England, where staff committed serious sexual and "sadistic" abuse against children spanning several decades before it closed in 2006. Some abusive staff received lengthy prison sentences.
The abuse of Kylie Freeman was a case of child sexual abuse perpetrated, recorded, and distributed by the victim's father, Kenneth Freeman.
Over a period of nine years, from July 2011 to October 2020, Dominique Pelicot, a man from Mazan in south-eastern France, repeatedly drugged and raped his wife, Gisèle Pelicot, and invited at least 83 male strangers to rape her while she was unconscious. Gisèle, who was unaware of the abuse being perpetrated against her, was raped at least 92 times by no less than 72 men while her husband filmed them. The crimes were discovered in September 2020 after Dominique was arrested for taking upskirt photographs of women in a supermarket; the ensuing police investigation uncovered thousands of images and videos on his computer equipment of men raping his wife.