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Margate social worker struck off after becoming infatuated with a 16-year old girl

January 22, 2013, 9:44 am
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This is Kent -- A social worker from Margate whose life was left in ruins following his infatuation with a 16-year-old girl he was supposed to care for was today struck off the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC).
A disciplinary panel found that other clients of the Social Services could be at risk if Steven Thomas Snook, who pleaded guilty at Canterbury Crown Court last summer of sexual activity with a child, was allowed to continue as a social worker.
Snook, a married 41-year-old, who at the time of his court hearing was living at Park Close, Queen Elizabeth Avenue, Margate, was made the subject of a two year Community Order at the court last year and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for five years.
At last year's hearing in Canterbury the court was told that the girl concerned had gone missing on many occasions and that Snook had been given the job of looking after her.
However, Judge Michael O'Sullivan said as he sentenced him : "You became infatuated with her although in my judgment it was an obsession. Your life is now in ruins."
The court had been told that Snook had hugged and kissed the girl and become sexually aroused despite having been told to stay away from her.
Today, as he was struck off the HPCP panel chair, Graham Aitken, said the allegations found against him were too serious for no action to be taken. 
He continued : "There has been a single but very serious breach of both professional standards and the criminal law by Mr Snook."
He said that the Panel had decided that striking Snook off was the "only appropriate action."
He added : "The Panel has concluded that if Mr Snook were to return to social work practice there would remain a risk to female service users. Reported by This is 10 hours ago.
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Ilfracombe man banned from seeing 15-year-old girl following 'inappropriate relationship'

January 23, 2013, 5:50 am
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This is North Devon -- A student has been banned from parts of Ilfracombe to keep him away from a 15-year-old with whom he had an 'inappropriate relationship'. Kyle Millward, 21, was cleared of two charges of child abduction after he agreed to a restraining order which will prevent any contact with the teenager. Millward, of Green Close Road, Ilfracombe, denied abducting the girl on two occasions last year when he was aged 20 and she was just 14. The prosecution offered no evidence after he agreed to a restraining order which forbids him from seeing or speaking to the girl or going near her home in Ilfracombe. Miss Emily Pitts, prosecuting, said:"The order will last for two years and will prohibit him from contacting or approaching the complainant in any way or from entering areas which have been marked on a map of Ilfracombe. "In the circumstances the Crown propose to offer no evidence on the two allegations of abduction. The reason this order is necessary is because of his inappropriate relationship." Mr Nigel Wraith, defending, said Millward agreed to the order. Judge Erik Salomonsen told Millward:"You came here to be tried before a jury on two counts of abducting a child, which are serious charges that can, in certain circumstances, on conviction lead to a prison sentence. "At the time of the allegations you were 20 and she was 14. The fact that the prosecution are offering no evidence does not mean they were not right to bring this before the court. "I am satisfied you were with this child and this relationship was inappropriate and you acknowledge that fact. "I am told you now accept there must be no contact between you and this girl, directly or indirectly, whether you approach her or she approaches you. "I formally enter a verdict of not guilty in respect of these two charges and make the restraining order prohibiting you from contacting her or entering the areas shown on the map of Ilfracombe for two years. "You need to understand this is a sanction with teeth and if you break the order in any way, you are liable to be arrested, brought back before the court and may be imprisoned or punished in some other way. "The members of the girl's family should have a copy of this order and the map." Reported by This is 15 hours ago.
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Afghan rape victim 'attacked again by government workers protecting her'

January 23, 2013, 8:34 am
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Girl aged 15 says she was raped by employees and security guard at provincial women's affairs department

A teenage Afghan rape victim who secured a rare conviction of her attacker has said she was assaulted this month for a second time, by a group of government employees tasked with protecting her.

The 15-year-old schoolgirl, from Daikundi province in Afghanistan's freezing, poor central highlands, was first raped four months ago while she was on her way to school, said Nowruz Ali Ataee, head of the provincial criminal investigation department.

In an unusual move for a young girl in conservative rural Afghanistan, where a rape is often considered to bring shame on an entire family, she reported the attack. Equally unusually, for a country that passed a law banning violence against women four years ago but has been slow to implement it, police found and arrested her rapist. He was recently jailed for 16 years and an accomplice was given a five-year sentence.

But the girl had to travel to the provincial capital for the case, and was temporarily living in an "education reform" centre that Daikundi officials said shelters women and children with no family.

After four months, and with her attackers in prison, judges last week ordered that the victim should be sent to a shelter or back to her family, Ataee said.

Her home was not really an option, however. She comes from a remote district, where the roads are now blocked by heavy snows, and it was not even clear if her family wanted her back. The girl's father had died when she was young, and her mother remarried, to a man who one government source said did not treat his stepdaughter well, forcing her to spend long hours herding sheep.

And in Daikundi town there were no suitable shelters, said Ataee, so she was sent to spend the night in the provincial women's affairs department. "The next morning she made an accusation. When the acting chairman of the women's department went to her office and asked her if it was OK, she said some employees and one security guard raped her," Qurban Ali Uruzgani, governor of Daikundi province, told the Guardian.

The victim was not sure how many men had raped her, one source said, because she had lost consciousness at the start of her ordeal, but several men have already been detained.

"We arrested four employees and one security guard of the building and put them in jail," Uruzgani said. The acting chairman of the women's department was briefly held but then released, he added.

After details of the case leaked to the Afghan media, the president, Hamid Karzai, sent a delegation to investigate, something he has done before in cases of extreme violence against women, contested civilian casualties or other cases that catch public attention.

The team, which included representatives from the ministry of women's affairs and the attorney general's office, has now returned to Kabul and is likely to report back within weeks. But regardless of the outcome, the case has already raised fears that a trend of rising violence against women, recorded last year, is continuing into 2013.

• Additional reporting by Mokhtar Amiri Reported by guardian.co.uk 12 hours ago.
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Bedsit Disco Queen by Tracey Thorn – review

January 23, 2013, 11:13 pm
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This is a modest and sensitive memoir from the Everything But the Girl frontwoman and former Marine Girl

There are a number of things about Tracey Thornext's Bedsit Disco Queen that would be incongruous in any ordinary pop star autobiography. When her original band, the Marine Girlsext, was already relatively successful, she went to Hull University anyway and got a first in English. Her contemporaries used to call her "Popstar Trace". She's a thoughtful, trenchant feminist, and had reservations about the place of women in music that went far beyond "Shall I take off my top for Top of the Pops?" It is plain that she sees her appearance only as a prop in her wider self-fashioning when she says that by 1983, "I'd had the black curls chopped off in reaction to seeing one too many photos of myself in the press looking doe-eyed and ringletty, and my hair was now long and spikey on the top and shaved all round the back and sides … deliberately trying to look as unlike the music we were making as possible." If she's not without vanity, she is without physical vanity – it's salutary and a bit depressing to think how unusual that would be now, while in the 80s it would have been unthinkable to make the kind of music she made and be any other way. From a rock'n'roll point of view (I mean the attitude, not the sound – she hates rock'n'roll), the most unusual thing about Thorn is that she made music with her lover, Ben Wattext, continuously for 17 years, without the relationship ever becoming bigger than the project. Or even anything like as big – they were so quiet about the fact they were together that when Everything But the Girlext had their mid-90s resurgence, even asking whether or not they were a couple would have been filed under "rude to pry".

Yet the remark I found to be most unlike any music memoir I could think of had nothing to do with the raw facts of an unusual life. Talking about the object of an unrequited affair that spurred much of her early songwriting, Thorn pans out and writes: "He was only a boy, 17 years old, totally unprepared to face a world of girls. I'm 50 now, and I have a boy of my own. Every day I watch the sixth-form boys mooch out of the gates of the school over the road. Lanky, awkward, sucking on fags and cans of Tango, they loiter outside our house, sometimes leaning on the car, then leaping shamefacedly out of the way if one of us approaches." I'm trying to imagine Keith Richardsext refracting the passions of his youth through the prism, not of maturity, but of parenthood, that defining state of obsolescence. Thorn seems to be without the obliterating ego we take to define a performer, and perhaps as a result, she describes her early songwriting and stagecraft as a painful process, with a lot of hiding in wardrobes to practise and vomiting. Yet, in other ways, she meets perfectly the criteria you expect from outstandingly creative people, the marriage of bulldozerly single-mindedness and exquisite sensitivity, so that if her own sensibilities ever went head-to-head with her determination, it would be like watching a rabbit smashed to death with a pneumatic hammer.

Simply as a straight memoir – that is, if she had never become famous – I think this would function as a critical but sensitive portrait of an idiosyncratic but intensely appealing character. Arguably, the gift of an interesting protagonist allows its author to be somewhat reticent about the aspects that other musicians would have to go large on. There are very few drugs (one brush with barbiturates – in 17 years!) and no sex at all (bar a member of the touring band disappearing in Italy and coming back with muddy knees). The demise of the Marine Girls is tantalisingly vague – Thorn gives her own point of view, states very precisely that the others disagree, but doesn't reveal their perspective. As for rock'n'roll – it's easy to forget that, as music's intersections with politics used to be much more intense, so the politics of music were much more heated, and there was more of a narrative: in the early days of Thorn's career, guitar-heavy man-rock had been slain by punk and wouldn't reappear in any credible sense until Nirvanaext and Pixiesext. Deliberate amateurism was more than an attitude – it conveyed elements of anarchy without needing to conform to any agenda of destruction. Thorn sees problems with her early, ramshackle sound but never loses the political threads that give so much density and permanence to the work. It's fascinating to hear the arguments and context, then see them blossom into her most openly issue-driven lyrics – Everything But the Girl's 1984 single "Mine", for instance, about a single mother, distils that peculiar poetry of song, where so much is condensed into simple, impressionistic phrasing. It's no wonder people fall in love with singers; the listeners themselves bring so much to the table.

Musos will love the trainspottery chronicle – "The Buzzcocks had called it a day as early as 1981, along with the Specials and Delta 5. The Undertones and the Au Pairs had split up in 1983, Gang of Four and the Raincoats in 1984 and even Orange Juice were on their last legs …" She describes music in a very professional, brisk, germane way, never using more than two adjectives, which gives those sections the atmosphere of studio notes rather than prose. Musos will love that too, I imagine; anybody who lived through any of the period will fall for the modest, often bathetic anecdotes, where Paul Weller has to phone their nearest phonebox, or they're booked on to an Italian TV show with someone whose song is called "Bum Bum", or Thorn charts their fall from fashion with a list of their deteriorating hotels as they tour Europe.

I fell for the deceptive simplicity, the way Thorn can make you feel as if you were at the gig or in the damp cottage, precisely because she doesn't exaggerate, doesn't surrender to the slightest nostalgic overstatement. She seizes your attention because she never asks for it, and in that her authorial voice is very like her singing voice, soft and low, magnetic. Reported by guardian.co.uk 23 hours ago.
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Teacher kept nude photo sent by pupil

January 23, 2013, 11:04 pm
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This is Kent --

A TEACHER's sordid Facebook chat with a teenage pupil who sent him a nude snap of herself has ruined his career, ended his marriage and landed him in the dock.

Michael White appeared at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday on charges of making an indecent photograph by storing it on his computer and inciting a girl under 16 to indulge in sexual activity while he was in a position of trust .

White, 33, of Godwin Road in Canterbury, sent several sexual e-mails to the young girl but told police they were purely fantasy and he did not act on them.

The maths teacher had already been warned about his conduct with another youngster.

White kept the picture on his computer and admitted kissing the girl on her head but said he did not do anything more extreme.

The girl refused to support the prosecution or give evidence against him, but he admitted the charges.

Donna East, prosecuting, said the offences came to light when the girl boasted to a friend she was having an affair with White.

The friend told her mother, who informed the school where White worked and police in July 2011.

The girl told the friend she'd kissed and cuddled White in his car.

Miss East said: "The defendant sent messages over Facebook which in content were highly explicit with charged sexual references.

"The girl sent him a naked picture of herself saying 'you can't see my head'."

When police interviewed him, White claimed the text and Facebook messages were fantasy and he was not going to act on them.

Miss East said the girl was naive and thought she was indulging in a romance with a teacher.

Thomas Restell, defending White, said: "He was foolish, his actions were ill-considered and he hadn't thought where the escalation of matters would end – he didn't have an exit strategy.

"He should have deleted the photograph straight away.

"Mr White's behaviour was reprehensible and an abuse of his position as a teacher.

"He shouldn't have gone down this road.

"He kissed the girl's forehead and put his arm around her.

"Not only has his teaching career ended but it has cost him his marriage as well. He's brought shame upon himself and the teaching profession."

Sentencing White to an eight-month jail term suspended for two years, Judge Heather Norton said White had overstepped the boundaries of behaviour expected of a teacher.

She said: "Parents should have trust in those who teach their children.You had been warned previously over inappropriate behaviour with a pupil.

"You said the messages were fantasy but they were highly explicit and prolonged.

"You showed a breathtaking lack of responsibility. You knew it was wrong and the risk of harm was great.

"Although the offence was on a lesser scale, I am concerned about the risk to children.

"I am also deeply concerned about your complete lack of insight.

"You have heaped shame upon yourself and those around you."

White was also given a two-year supervision order and barred from working with children. Reported by This is 23 hours ago.
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Three arrested after missing Exeter girl found

January 24, 2013, 2:43 am
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This is Exeter --

THREE city men have been arrested on suspicion of abduction after a 14-year-old girl went missing. The schoolgirl disappeared from her home in Exeter for six days before she was discovered by police.

After growing concerns by police for the safety of the young girl, detectives from Exeter CID were joined by neighbourhood officers and the force's Tactical Support Group in an operation to locate the missing teenager.

Information received by officers led to the arrest of three men, aged in their 40s, on suspicion of child abduction.

The girl was discovered later the same day at a city property linked to a man in his 20s.

Investigating officer, Acting Detective Sergeant Adrian Hawkins said: "A police search for the girl was launched and, following information received, three males were identified as being linked to the female and her ongoing disappearance.

"Officers from Exeter Neighbourhood Policing team and the force Tactical Support Group were led by CID officers to arrest three males in their 40s on suspicion of child abduction and they were taken to Heavitree Police Station to be questioned.

"At 5.20pm on the same day, the missing teenager was located at another address in Exeter, linked to a male in his 20s.

"The joint involvement of police and social services led to her safety being secured."

Police warned people that they commit an offence and face arrest if they keep a child from their parent or guardian.

Acting Det Sgt Hawkins said: "The Child Abduction Act is in place to assist cases of this nature. The police are committed, as part of a joint agency approach, to ensure all vulnerable members of our society are safe.

"Where a child is unaccounted for by someone who has a responsibility for their lawful control, that child will be deemed as 'missing'.

"If a member of the public should 'remove' or 'keep' the missing child from this person an offence is committed."

He added: "The arrest of three males on Sunday, January 20, was a police effort to end the 14-year-old's missing status and to secure her safety.

"The arrests should act as a warning to members of the public who seek to obstruct police or assist a missing child.

"We do not wish to discourage members of the public who come to the aid of children in distress.

"However, if you have a child with you, especially if it has been overnight, the police should be advised.

"This is even more important if you believe the child's guardian is unaware of their presence.

"People who obstruct police or actively help the child to remain missing should anticipate being arrested."

The three arrested males have been released on police bail. Reported by This is 20 hours ago.
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Paignton teenager rescued from Dartmoor

January 24, 2013, 1:51 am
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Paignton teenager rescued from Dartmoor This is South Devon -- A PAIGNTON teenager was rescued from Dartmoor last night after injuring herself in a sledging accident. The 18-year-old girl was trapped in snow for three hours after injuring herself while sledging with friends at Yartor Down near Dartmeet. She hurt her ankle and is recovering in hospital. Dartmoor Rescue Group volunteers who rescued her said she was "OK, very cold and a little hypothermic". Spokesman Dave Tutty said: "The situation was getting worse, the snow was getting bad but eventually we found the girl on a steep slope. "We were able to get her on a stretcher back up to the control vehicle." Members of the Ashburton group of the Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team took part in the operation, which began at around 6.30pm. A spokesman said: "The team arrived through some very snowy country to assist with a young female sledger with a suspected fractured leg. "It had been snowing on and off during the day and when our volunteers arrived the moor was covered in a thick carpet of snow with more falling and a dense hill fog. "Once the casualty's location was ascertained she was attended to by team doctor and nurse as well as the paramedic. Her injury was stabilised and then she was transferred on to our stretcher and transported back to the waiting ambulance. "A successful result and we wish the young lady a speedy recovery." Reported by This is 21 hours ago.
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Stephen Sleaford sentenced to life for murdering Janusz Smoderek

January 24, 2013, 8:55 am
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Stephen Sleaford sentenced to life for murdering Janusz Smoderek This is Lincolnshire -- Boston man Stephen Sleaford has been handed a life sentence and will serve a minimum of 23 years after being convicted of the murder of Janusz Smoderek. The 39-year-old had denied stabbing the 48-year-old Polish flower packer in Boston on September 11, 2011. Lincoln Crown Court heard Sleaford intervened when he discovered Smoderek molesting an 18-year-old girl in the town. He claimed Smoderek pulled a knife and he simply disarmed him. The jury of seven women and five men reached their verdict after retiring on Tuesday afternoon. Sleaford pursued Mr Smoderek along Sleaford Road, where he inflicted five stab wounds to the victim's chest area, leaving him to die. Sleaford then returned to the girl and walked her to meet her boyfriend. Mr Smoderek's body was found later that morning in the garden of a property in Sleaford Road. Sleaford then went on the run for a period of 11 days, travelling to Newcastle and then back to Lincolnshire before eventually being arrested at a former girlfriend's address in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. The jury were told that Sleaford had a previous conviction for GBH in 1994, when he had been sentenced to 11 years for shooting a man. Det Supt Stuart Morrison said, "This was a vicious and cowardly attack on an unarmed man. "Irrespective of the circumstances in which Sleaford intervened that night, the level of violence used on Mr Smoderek was utterly disproportionate and resulted in a family losing a husband, father and grandfather. "When people carry knives, there is always the potential for a tragedy to occur, and in this case, the knife was in the possession of a man with a history of violence who thought nothing of taking a man's life". Reported by This is 13 hours ago.
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RAF veteran molested girl

January 15, 2013, 9:43 pm
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This is Somerset --

An RAF veteran who has been honoured with the British Empire Medal sexually molested a 14-year-old girl who was visiting his home, a court heard yesterday.

The frightened girl pretended to be asleep when Raymond Manghan, 63, went into her bedroom and fondled and kissed her breasts, Gloucester Crown Court was told.

Disgraced Manghan wept as prosecutor Lisa Hennessy told how he also tried to pull down the girl's trousers and rubbed her bottom and groin as her father slept in the next room.

The girl, from Farnham, Surrey, was "frozen with fear" during the assault, Mrs Hennessy said.

Manghan, of Pirton Meadow, Churchdown, Gloucestershire, who served 31 years in the RAF, admitted sexually touching the girl on June 6 last year. Judge Jamie Tabor QC sentenced him to a two-year community order with two years supervision and ordered him to attend 60 sessions of a sex offender programme, as well as signing the sex offender register for five years.

The judge told him: "You are spoken of as a man of integrity, honesty and a devoted family man – and it has come to this. I suspect no-one feels the disgrace more than you do.

"The really serious part is that those who sit in this court as I do every day know and understand that one act by an adult on a child such as yours can undermine that child for years. Women, and not always young women, who have had such an experience, find themselves completely upset and concerned. That is what is so serious about this." Reported by This is 1 week ago.
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Man on rape charge due to give evidence

January 15, 2013, 10:07 pm
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Man on rape charge due to give evidence This is Plymouth --

A MAN accused of raping a drunken teenage girl in a park was due to give evidence today.

Craig Goldstone, 28, is on trial at Plymouth Crown Court for allegedly dragging the schoolgirl into bushes.

A jury heard that he later escaped from Charles Cross police station through an insecure door.

Goldstone, of no fixed address, denies rape in Devonport Park on the night of Thursday July 5 last year.

The jury yesterday heard two police interviews of Goldstone from the day after the alleged attack.

He repeatedly denied meeting the girl and said his DNA would not be found on her body.

Goldstone told officers: "I am telling you the truth. I have never met her in my entire life."

But in a series of facts agreed by the defence, Lee Bremridge, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said DNA matching Goldstone had been found on the girl's body.

He said a forensic scientist had concluded the chances of the sample coming from anyone other than Goldstone or a relative were less than a billion to one.

Cross-examining the girl, Ali Rafati, for Goldstone, had earlier claimed the pair had consensual sex in the park. He told the jury his client suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

The jury also heard more about the escape from custody on the Saturday morning, about 36 hours after he was arrested.

DC Yvette Rundle, the officer in the case, said she escorted Goldstone from a secure area of Charles Cross police station to an insecure part of the building.

She said he was due to take part in a video identification parade.

DC Rundle added: "My role was to escort him 18 to 20 metres to the identification suite and the identification officer takes over from me.

"He was in a waiting room and he left through an insecure door. He exited the police station down some steps into the city centre."

She said Goldstone was wearing a paper suit and flip-flops at the time.

Pc Chris Woodman had earlier told the court he had found the teenager "crying uncontrollably" after a passer-by had called the police on July 5.

He said she was curled up on the ground near the entrance to the park at Durrant Close when he arrived at about 10.30pm.

Pc Woodman said: "Quite clearly, she said she had been raped. She said he had dragged her into some bushes."

He added paramedics examined the girl and she was taken home to her parents.

Pc Woodman said he took a description of the suspect and went to the Salvation Army Hostel in Park Avenue, where Goldstone was identified by a receptionist as a resident.

The court heard Goldstone was found hiding under a bed in another man's room.

The trial continues. Reported by This is 1 week ago.
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Oxford abuse trial: woman tells of rape at 15 and treatment as a 'piece of meat'

January 25, 2013, 7:36 am
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Woman, now 21, says she was abused, threatened and coerced into sexual activities by several older men

A young woman cried in the witness stand on Friday as she watched a video of her 15-year-old self describing to police how she was raped repeatedly by a 25-year-old man who made her feel like a "piece of meat".

In a police interview carried out in 2006, the girl told police she had been forced and coerced into sexual acts by several men. The jury heard that Ahktar Dogar, now 32, bent her fingers back to the point of breaking when she refused to have sex with her. She told the officer: "He said you don't like it when I'm angry, so make sure you make me happy."

She said Dogar only stopped when she said she would have sex with him. Asked by a policewoman how she felt about it, the girl replied: "I hated myself, I felt proper dirty and disgusted with myself. I thought, 'Why am I doing this? Why is he doing this? He knows how old I am.'"

The girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, is a key witness in the trial of nine men accused of a range of sexual abuse, including rape, trafficking and child prostitution. It is alleged the men targeted young girls as young as 11 from vulnerable and chaotic backgrounds, and over a period of eight years subjected them to extreme physical and sexual violence, sold some victims for prostitution in Oxford and trafficked others around the country.

Watching herself on the screen the young woman, now 21, brushed away tears and could be seen to wince as her police interview was played to the court. She chose not to have a screen put up between herself and the men she accuses of sexually and psychologically abusing her from the age of 12 until she was 15.

During the interview played to the court, she told a police officer she had come forward after three days of being forced to perform sex acts on two men and have sex with Dogar. A police officer had encouraged her to come forward after seeing her with Dogar in a park in Oxford, saying they "knew what he was up to".

She described meeting with Dogar and a group of Asian men several days before the interview. She and another girl who has given evidence at the trial, Girl B, had tried to go back to their children's home in Henley. The manager of the home refused to pay the fare when asked by Girl B; and Girl A had been taken back to Oxford because she could not pay.

That evening she was forced to perform a sex act on two men, she told police. She met with a group of six or seven men who had started speaking "in their own language" before starting to leave, the court heard. Dogar and another man remained and started demanding she perform sexual acts, she said. "They wanted me to give them a blow job and have sex with them and that," she said. "When I said no, they would become more relentless about it and say more and more nasty stuff."

They grabbed her head and she thought they would not let her go. "I thought I'm not going to get anywhere until I do it," she told police. "It wouldn't be the first time I've done it, so I thought stop being a baby and just do it, but I was getting up because I thought I don't want to do this, they are making me do it."

The next night she had seen Dogar again, and he forced her to perform a sex act and raped her. She told police: "I'm just sick of him and his mates. They treat me like a piece of meat they can tread all over." She told police she wanted it to stop because she knew the men were abusing other girls. "And I know they are doing it to other girls, little girls in their school uniforms, and I thought why should it happen to anyone else if I can stop it? They don't care how old you are, they know how old you are." She added: "They can't treat people like that. They can't force people to do these things they don't want to do all the time."

Asked about her treatment at the hands of the gang, the girl said: "I'm used to it happening to me, it's happened for so long but I'm sick of it now, I'm sick of being treated like a piece of shit. I don't want them to have hold of me. I want them to know they can't control my life any more, they don't control my life any more."

After the video interview, Girl A told the court she had been a good student in her first year at school, but after the birth of her brother her mother had become depressed and started drinking. At the age of 12, she started playing truant with another girl from school and met a group of slightly older white boys who had recently left school. She started drinking and smoking cannabis.

She then met several Asian men, including Akhtar Dogar and his younger brother Anjum "Jammy" Dogar.

"They would be very nice, showing me attention and making me feel nice about myself," she told the court. "They made me feel important and I wasn't happy at home." The men gave her "trinkets", she said: "It was like a boyfriend, it made you feel special … Not big or expensive things, but things that make you feel nice as a young girl."

Kamar Jamil, 27; Akhtar Dogar, 32; Anjum Dogar, 30; Assad Hussain, 32; Mohammed Karrar, 38; Bassam Karrar, 33; Mohammed Hussain, 24; Zeeshan Ahmed, 27; and Bilal Ahmed, 26, face 51 counts, including rape, forcing a child into prostitution and trafficking. The men deny all the charges.

The trial continues. Reported by guardian.co.uk 16 hours ago.
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Girl With The Pearl Earring: what's the story behind the famous painting?

January 25, 2013, 10:32 am
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One of the most famous paintings in the world is also one of the most mysterious. Tell us what you think really happened

Johannes Vermeer's The Girl with The Pearl Earring, otherwise known as The "Mona Lisa of the North"– one of the most famous and mysterious marvels of the art world – is back in the US for the first time since 1995, when it caused a sensation in Washington DC.

Gallery owners say they're expecting a stampede of visitors, when the painting begins its US tour tomorrow, Saturday, at the de Young/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Exactly why the painting is the source of such fascination is difficult to explain, since very little is known about the painter and even less about his subject. Experts say the mystery is part of its allure. "Sometimes the questions are more intriguing because they can't be answered," Melissa Buron, assistant curator of the exhibition at the de Young museum told The Wall Street Journal. "Who was she? What was she thinking? What was her relationship with Vermeer? The mystery is part of its popularity."

Imagining the story behind the "The Girl" with her dangling earring and blue headscarf, is what lead Tracy Chevalier to write the novel, Girl With a Pearl Earring, which subsequently became a Hollywood film starring Colin Firth and Scarlett Johanson. In Chevalier's version of the story behind the painting, the girl is a servant named Griet who has an aesthetic meeting of the minds with her master and sits for the painting wearing his wealthy wife's jewels in her ear.

*As The Girl frenzy begins again in the US, we're inviting Guardian readers to re-invent the story behind the painting. *

Tap into your inner novelist or screenplay writer and in 200 words or less, give us your best, most creative plot line. Who is the girl? What was her relationship to the painter? What would the story be if it was set in 2013? We'll publish the best responses on The Guardian. Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.
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'Sadistic' paedophile who rushed into hospital carrying dying 15-month-old girl he fatally abused is jailed for 25 years

January 25, 2013, 7:30 pm
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Barry McCarney will serve at least 25 years behind bars for killing Millie Martin. But Rachael Martin, the girl's mother, criticised the sentence at Belfast Crown Court, saying: '25 years isn't long enough.' Reported by MailOnline 4 hours ago.
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Sex gang threatened to burn teenage girl's brother alive if she didn't have sex with them, court hears

January 25, 2013, 11:31 am
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Sex gang threatened to burn teenage girl's brother alive if she didn't have sex with them, court hears The girl was blackmailed into having sex with a predatory gang of nine Oxford men, from the age of 12-15, who also sold her to other men for sex. Reported by MailOnline 12 hours ago.
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Joanna Lumley meant well – despite her words on rape | Barbara Ellen

January 26, 2013, 4:21 pm
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Only rapists are responsible for rape. But there is definitely safety in numbers when girls go out

Joanna Lumley should be ashamed of the toxic vocabulary she used in her "safety advice" to women on a night out. "Don't look like trash, don't be sick down your front" and the rest. Slap a wig on her head and we could be back in the 1970s, hearing some judge blaming a mini-skirted victim-slut for her own rape.

However, while Lumley's vocabulary was one thing, her intentions were quite another. She warned: "Somebody will take advantage of you, either they'll rape you, or they'll knock you on the head or they'll rob you." Does this sound, as many claim, as if Lumley was victim-blaming? Or just that she wanted women to take precautions? Because frankly so do I.

Indeed, as someone with past drunken, staggering, heel-breaking form, I have my own advice for young women. Which is to be as wild as you like, but please stay with your girlfriends, in your girl packs. I am convinced that, even at your drunkest and most vomit-prone, you are safer, less vulnerable, than you would be stone-cold sober, walking alone. In my view, the girl pack has deterred more attacks than any amount of rape alarms or sprays. As far as I'm concerned, young women can vomit down their fronts for all eternity just so long as they do it from within the safety of the pack.

So there, I've "done a Lumley"; I've stated my opinion that there's safety in numbers. Which is not suggesting that victims are ever to blame for their rapes. Only rapists are responsible for rape, however much the victim might have drunk, flirted or spewed into her handbag. The right to say "No" does not expire, melting away like a snowflake on a hotplate, in the face of male desire or, more likely, the rapist's cold calculating sense of entitlement and opportunism.

However, this does not mean that Lumley should be gunned down with what amounts to ideological hysteria, sometimes verging on the salacious. Am I alone in noticing that Lumley also mentioned battery and robbery, but all anyone fixated upon was rape? Moreover, while only 8% of sexual assaults are "stranger-rape", it's worth noting that Lumley was addressing that 8%, just as I was with my girl pack rant. Is this permitted or are we only allowed to talk about the sober, conservatively dressed "blameless" victims, attacked by people they know? To my mind, this seems to stray dangerously into the territory of some rape being more equal than others.

Furthermore, since when was suggesting basic safety strategies tantamount to insisting that women don burqas and hire armed guards for all excursions? That's the same quasi-utopian view that dictates that, as it's (mostly) males who rape (mostly) women, it's males who should be lectured, punished and forced to change. I agree, let's make rape men's problem! But hang on, we already did. Sadly, in the real world, away from women's studies modules, rapists don't seem to care that we are "on to them". They just carry on raping.

It seems to me that those who would never victim-blame still have to concede that the world is a dangerous place – that there is a big difference between meekly accepting rape as a female burden and being practical and proactive about the fact it exists.

More than anything, it grieves me that women are fighting with each other about this. That someone such as Lumley has been torn apart for expressing concern about young women, albeit with dodgy, outdated vocab. If not advice from our own real-life experiences, what are older women supposed to say to young females who might make up the 8%: "Rape is a male problem, so don't alter your behaviour to protect yourself"?

Is this enough for the real world? Some of us would rather be less ideological (but more useful), trotting out advice about girl packs.

*Hols with Richard Branson? What a pain in the Necker*

Sweet Jesus, never let me end up on Necker island, Richard Branson's private Caribbean island aka hell in flipflops. A photo tweeted by Branson showed the "fascinating, eclectic group who've dropped by". In reality, David Hasselhoff, Rachel Hunter, Ronnie Wood, Natalie Imbruglia, Kate Winslet, her new husband and Branson's nephew, Ned Rocknroll. And some others.

The photo, a portrait of Out Of Control Smugness of Our Times, is all sun-kissed, faux bonhomie, but reveals a Necker pecking order. The Hoff's pretty girlfriend, Hayley, is crouched uncomfortably, end of line, looking as though she's flung down her waitress tray and "photo-bombed" at the last moment.

This image is haunting, though not for the reasons Branson intended. However luxurious, could you imagine going to Necker as the nobody plus one of a somebody? Endless days being mistaken for the "help", being patronised by mega-famous buffoons, the rest of the time sobbing in your cabin with panic attacks, with doctors opining: "Sorry, she's 'non A-list' and there's no known cure." No thanks!

Sorry, Dickie, I know you're desperate for my company, but I'm turning you down. Anyone for Skeggy?

*Let's hear it for househusbands*

Could the househusband upgrade the concept of the housewife? Due to the recession, men now represent 10% of those staying home and caring for children, an unprecedented rise of 19,000 to 227,000 in a year. As more women become the main breadwinners, it makes sound economic sense for men to stay at home, but there could be more to it than that.

This is not about housework – study after study shows that men still regard this as "woman's work". Boo! Bad men! However, could this entrenched attitude, centuries in the making, inadvertently be a positive thing?

Traditionally, staying at home, caring for children, has always been irredeemably low status. The 2.3 million who undertake the all-important task of raising future generations are currently being described as "economically inactive". Charming. Women have always had to put up with such unfair jibes, but are men prepared to?

As a rule, men don't take kindly to being perceived as low status. That's why male-dominated professions generally carry more kudos (salaries, recognition) than female-dominated ones. Moreover, when men want to do something, they are quick to restyle it as high status. Just look at cooking. One minute, women were doing it all, with precious little fanfare or acknowledgement; the next, men got involved and suddenly it's all high end, scientific, serious and, above all, manly.

Could men do the same for stay-at-home parenting – turn it into a desirable, high-status activity? As they grow in numbers, they could demand respect, recognition, perhaps even payment. So, stay-at-home mums – look kindly upon the sudden influx of men clogging up the Starbucks aisles with their Bugaboos. If they do for childcare what they did for cooking, things could get pretty interesting.

• This article will be opened for comments on Sunday morning. Reported by guardian.co.uk 10 hours ago.
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Seventh person in court over incident at Moghul Durbar restaurant in Leicester

January 19, 2013, 6:56 am
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This is Leicestershire -- Police have charged a seventh person in connection with the disorder at the Moghul Durbar restaurant in Leicester.
The 26-year-old man has been charged with conspiracy to commit violent disorder.

He is due to appear at Leicester Magistrates' Court this morning.
He was arrested on Wednesday following an incident which happened at about 9pm on Monday, January 14.
A large group of people smashed the windows of the Moghul Durbar in East Park Road, Spinney Hills.

Once members of the group were inside the restaurant, a number of people were assaulted and others were injured.
A total of six people attended the Leicester Royal Infirmary for treatment to both minor and serious injuries.
The latest charge comes after six men were charged yesterday in connection with the incident.

Surjit Pandher (date of birth, November 18, 1984), Gurmukh Singh Cheema (June 13, 1987), Ranjit Singh (April 13, 1991), Sundeep Singh Sangha (April 16, 1987), Rajveer Sangha (May 1, 1988), and Ranvir Singh (April 13, 1991), appeared at Leicester Magistrates' Court, and afterwards were remanded into custody.

They all face a charge of conspiracy to commit violent disorder.

Police said local officers were continuing to work with community leaders and people living and working in the East Park Road to offer reassurance.

They are urging people not to listen to rumours or get involved in speculation, but to report any concerns to the police.
Police added that officers investigating a separate incident, in which concerns for the welfare of a young girl were raised, are continuing to speak with the girl and her family.
Additional resources have been added to the investigation, said police, and officers are "actively carrying out thorough and detailed inquiries, along with in depth intelligence gathering, which will all form part of the lengthy investigation". Reported by This is 1 week ago.
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Paignton teenager rescued from Dartmoor

January 24, 2013, 1:51 am
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Paignton teenager rescued from Dartmoor This is South Devon -- A PAIGNTON teenager was rescued from Dartmoor last night after injuring herself in a sledging accident. The 18-year-old girl was trapped in snow for three hours after injuring herself while sledging with friends at Yartor Down near Dartmeet. She hurt her ankle and is recovering in hospital. Dartmoor Rescue Group volunteers who rescued her said she was "OK, very cold and a little hypothermic". Spokesman Dave Tutty said: "The situation was getting worse, the snow was getting bad but eventually we found the girl on a steep slope. "We were able to get her on a stretcher back up to the control vehicle." Members of the Ashburton group of the Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team took part in the operation, which began at around 6.30pm. A spokesman said: "The team arrived through some very snowy country to assist with a young female sledger with a suspected fractured leg. "It had been snowing on and off during the day and when our volunteers arrived the moor was covered in a thick carpet of snow with more falling and a dense hill fog. "Once the casualty's location was ascertained she was attended to by team doctor and nurse as well as the paramedic. Her injury was stabilised and then she was transferred on to our stretcher and transported back to the waiting ambulance. "A successful result and we wish the young lady a speedy recovery." Reported by This is 4 days ago.
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Teenager arrested after allegation of sexual assualt against young girl in Bath park

January 28, 2013, 5:12 am
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This is Bath -- A 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault after a report of an incident involving a young girl in Sandpits Park, in Bath. Police have been investigating after being informed of an alleged assault at around 1.55pm yesterday in the Monksdale Road park. The age of the girl has not been released. The teenager has been bailed pending further inquiries. There had been a rumour circulating on Facebook that three girls had been abducted over the weekend, but police have said they have received no such reports. Reported by This is 22 hours ago.
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Norfolk Broads deaths: man drowned partner then himself, inquest concludes

January 29, 2013, 6:24 am
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John Didier drowned his partner Annette Creegan and then spent a week boating with her daughter before drowning himself

An NHS worker killed his partner in a planned attack and then spent a week on board a river cruiser with her daughter before drowning himself, an inquest has heard.

The body of hospice nurse Annette Creegan, 49, was found naked, strangled and weighted down in the River Bure on the Norfolk Broads last September following an extensive police search.

The body of her partner, John Didier, 41, was found nearby and evidence suggests he drowned himself by tying dumbbells to his limbs and jumping overboard, the inquest at Norwich coroner's court heard.

A search was launched after a river worker alerted police on 1 September to the discovery of Creegan's 13-year-old daughter alone on a boat moored near the isolated Salhouse Broad.

When she was interviewed, the girl said they had arrived for a holiday on on 25 August and the following day she woke to find her mother was not there.

Detective Constable Christina Stone told the inquest: "They had moored the boat at about 5.30pm on the Friday.

"The following day she woke up and Mr Didier told her that Annette had left.

"She had no access to a mobile telephone and no means of getting off the boat so stayed there over the following days.

"Six days later she woke up and there was no sign of Mr Didier and she was rescued by a passing Broads ranger."

Creegan's mother and two brothers attended the inquest along with Didier's brother and sister-in-law, who travelled from his homeland in the US.

The inquest heard Didier's body was found later on 1 September.

He had drowned, weighted down with two 17.5kg dumbbells tied to his feet and two 15kg weights tied to his wrists, pathologist Ben Swift said.

Creegan's body was found in the water nearby the following afternoon.

Swift said she was naked and her hands had been tied behind her knees with cable ties. She was weighted down with a 30kg dumbbell and had been strangled.

The decomposed state of the body suggested she had been in the water for about a week.

Bruises to her fists suggested she had tried to fight Didier off, but there was no evidence of sexual abuse.

Reliving the moment he found the girl alone, Broads Authority ranger Andrew Ellson said he had noticed the boat moored in the secluded spot several days earlier. He was returning from a routine patrol when he decided to approach it.

He said: "The curtains were closed and the motor was running. I knocked on the side of the boat and the window opened. I saw a young girl who told me she was by herself."

Detective Inspector Gary Bloomfield said a thorough investigation was carried out.

He added: "I'm confident in saying John Didier had killed Annette and then taken his own life a number of days later.

"It seems he had in some way planned the events of that week.

"There was no evidence he was mentally impaired and it was a deliberate decision to kill Annette then drown himself."

Outside the inquest, he added that officers had found no evidence of any tension in the relationship and Didier's motive remained unclear.

On the night of her mother's death, the girl slept undisturbed and did not hear any argument.

The boat was not locked, but was surrounded by marsh and woodland with no footpaths so she felt unable to leave.

There was no evidence she or Didier left the boat following Creegan's death and no one else had been on board.

The family hired the Le Boat cruiser from nearby Horning and were familiar with the area from previous holidays. They had stocked up on food and the girl was fed throughout the week.

It is thought Didier bought the weights and cable ties with the intention of murdering Creegan before leaving Surrey, Bloomfield said.

Norfolk coroner William Armstrong recorded a verdict that Creegan died as a result of unlawful killing, probably on 25 August.

He recorded a verdict that Didier killed himself on either 31 August or 1 September.

He said: "What a grotesque irony that this happened in the idyllic setting of the Norfolk Broads. What a contrast between the calm serenity of the waters and this dreadful tragedy."

Creegan, born in Balham, worked as a community nurse for the Trinity Hospice charity in Clapham Common, south-west London, while Didier, originally from Kettering, Ohio, had worked in IT for the NHS but was unemployed at the time.

Afterwards, Bloomfield said: "I hope that today's inquest has answered some of the questions about what happened on Salhouse Broad and we continue to offer the family support at this difficult time.

"I would also like to offer my condolences to the family of John Didier."

Both families declined to comment as they left the inquest. Reported by guardian.co.uk 23 hours ago.
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Gallery: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

January 29, 2013, 7:37 am
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Gallery: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo David Fincher follows up his hugely successful, Oscar-nominated The Social Network with the US adaptation of Stieg Larsson's page-turner The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Daniel Craig is Blomquist, the fearless journalist trying to solve a 40-year-old mystery with the help of the world's most unusual heroine... Reported by Sky Movies 22 hours ago.
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