Toby Studebaker

Last updated

Toby Studebaker is a former U.S. Marine who abducted a 12-year-old British girl in 2003 after grooming her via the Internet and was jailed for four and a half years. [1] [2] [3]

He was born in Constantine, Michigan, [1] in 1971, and trained in North Carolina with the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, an anti-terrorism unit. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, he was posted to Afghanistan, where he helped guard Taliban and al-Qaeda suspects at Kandahar International Airport.

He met Shevaun Pennington in July 2002 through Neopets when she was 11 years old, though she had originally claimed to be 17. She left her home in Leigh, Greater Manchester, on July 12, 2003, telling her parents she was going shopping. However, they flew to Paris and stayed in a hotel for two days, where he raped her, before traveling to Strasbourg. They were gone a total of five days, but he was finally arrested in Frankfurt and extradited to the UK in August. [1] [2] [3]

He pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court in front of Lord Justice Leveson to abduction and incitement to gross indecency, and was jailed for four and a half years on April 2, 2004. [1] He was deported to the United States at the end of this sentence, where he was jailed for another 11 years and 4 months by the federal court in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in April 2008, for the same offense. He was also charged under American law with transporting a child across international boundaries for sexual exploitation. He received a concurrent sentence of 7 years and 11 months for possessing child pornography. [4]

According to an affidavit filed in 1998 in Michigan, a 12-year-old relative complained that Studebaker fondled her while they were wrestling, but it was dropped during the preliminary proceeding. [5]

The case is credited with encouraging the creation of a law against child grooming over the Internet in Scotland, [6] after criticism that British courts were unable to consider offenses involving sexual intercourse because the activity happened abroad. [2]

David Harrower's play Blackbird was inspired by the events. [7] [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Dutroux</span> Belgian serial killer

Marc Paul Alain Dutroux is a Belgian convicted serial killer, serial rapist, and child molester. Initially convicted for the abduction and rape of five young girls in 1989, Dutroux was released on parole after just three years' imprisonment. He was arrested again in 1996 on suspicion of having abducted, tortured, and sexually abused six girls aged between 8 and 19, four of whom were killed. Dutroux's widely publicized trial ended with his conviction on all charges in 2004; he was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment.

Sexual grooming is the action or behavior used to establish an emotional connection with a vulnerable person – generally a minor under the age of consent – and sometimes the victim's family, to lower their inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. It can occur in various settings, including online, in person, and through other means of communication. Children who are groomed may experience mental health issues, including "anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts."

Richard William Sladdin is an English former cricketer who played for Derbyshire from 1991 to 1994 and for Somerset in 1997. He was born in Halifax, Yorkshire.

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 sexual abuse scandal in the English Benedictine Congregation was a significant episode in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United Kingdom. The dates of the events covered here range from the 1960s to the 2010s.

Sidney Charles Cooke is an English convicted child molester, murderer and suspected serial killer and serial rapist serving two life sentences. He was the leader of a paedophile ring suspected of up to twenty child murders of young boys in the 1970s and 1980s. Cooke and other members of the ring were convicted of three killings in total, although he was only convicted of one himself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005 is an Act of the Scottish Parliament. The Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences bill was announced to the parliament by the First Minister of Scotland, Jack McConnell, in September 2004. It was passed on 2 June 2005, receiving Royal Assent on 12 July. The act introduced new offences related to child grooming, which had been addressed in England and Wales under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Leveson</span> English law commissioner and retired judge

Sir Brian Henry Leveson is a retired English judge who is the current Investigatory Powers Commissioner, having previously served as the President of the Queen's Bench Division and Head of Criminal Justice.

The Rochdale child sex abuse ring involved underage teenage girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. Nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child in May 2012. This resulted in Greater Manchester Police launching Operation Doublet and other operations to investigate further claims of abuse. As of January 2024 a total of 42 men had been convicted resulting in jail sentences totalling 432 years. Forty-seven girls were identified as victims of child sexual exploitation during the initial police investigation. The men were British Pakistanis, which led to discussion on whether the failure to investigate them was linked to the authorities' fear of being accused of racial prejudice. The girls were mainly White British.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal</span> Sexual abuse scandal in England

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.

Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom concerns 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. However, the underreporting of cases and the motives of the offenders who often work in groups known as grooming gangs is a recurrent topic.

Child sexual abuse is a matter of concern in Australia, and is the subject of investigation and prosecution under the law, and of academic study into its prevalence, causes and social implications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alicia Kozakiewicz</span> American kidnapping survivor and advocate

Alicia Kozakiewicz, also known as Alicia Kozak, is an American television personality, motivational speaker, and Internet safety and missing persons advocate. Kozakiewicz is the founder of the Alicia Project, an advocacy group designed to raise awareness about online predators, abduction, and child sexual exploitation. She is also the namesake of "Alicia's Law", which provides a dedicated revenue source for child rescue efforts. Kozakiewicz has worked with television network Investigation Discovery (ID) to educate the public on, and effect change for, issues such as Internet safety, missing people, human trafficking, and child safety awareness education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dark Justice (group)</span> UK vigilante group working to catch paedophiles

Dark Justice were a vigilante group set up to catch paedophiles based in Newcastle upon Tyne operated by two men using the pseudonyms Scott and Callum (1994–2021). Neither were police officers, although their tactics were similar to those sometimes used by police. The duo posed online as children, normally between the ages of 11 and 15, in order to catch online child groomers. When they met a child groomer in real life, the members of Dark Justice wore bulletproof vests. Their evidence was used in court, resulting in convictions against over 115 online groomers including Roger Lee, and Barry Scott. In May 2018, the Evening Chronicle reported that Dark Justice have secured over 150 arrests with over 40 of those being jailed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Scully</span> Australian child sex offender, rapist, and murderer

Peter Gerard Scully is an Australian convicted murderer and child sex offender who is imprisoned for life in the Philippines after being convicted of one count of human trafficking and five counts of rape by sexual assault of children. Scully was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2018. In November 2022, he received a second conviction and was sentenced to an additional 129 years in prison.

The Huddersfield grooming gang was a group of British Asian 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 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.

Operation Voicer was a major police investigation into serious sexual offences against pre-school aged children and infants across England, launched in 2014. The perpetrators groomed the families of the young victims, in some cases before the babies were even born. By September 2015, seven offenders were jailed, 28 further suspects had been arrested, three victims were identified, and 33 children were safeguarded. Ten offenders received significant prison sentences.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Ex-marine jailed for abduction , BBC News, April 2, 2004. Retrieved October 17, 2007.
  2. 1 2 3 Internet groomer faces 30 years The Scotsman February 13, 2004. Retrieved October 17, 2007.
  3. 1 2 Nigel Bunyan and Marcus Warren, Paedophile escapes life for abduction , The Daily Telegraph, February 13, 2004. Retrieved October 17, 2007.
  4. ↑ Bowcott, Owen (23 April 2008). "Ex-US marine gets 11 years for abducting girl". The Guardian.
  5. ↑ Transcript: Toby Studabaker: Man With a Past? , CNN, July 17, 2003. Retrieved on October 17, 2007.
  6. ↑ Eddie Barnes, Paedophiles to face jail for sex grooming The Scotsman, February 15, 2004. Retrieved October 17, 2007.
  7. ↑ Ben Brantley, Sorting Through the Wreckage of a Love Most Foul , The New York Times, April 11, 2007. Retrieved October 17, 2007.
  8. ↑ Festival 2005: EIF Review, Edingburghguide.com, 2005. retrieved October 17, 2007.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.