Anonymous protesters with covered faces march from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square and then around the streets of London to protest austerity, mass surveillance and attacks on human rights on November 5, 2014.
In the wake of the Westminster child abuse scandal and allegations of establishment cover-ups, hackers Anonymous have decided to expose international pedophile networks.
The hacking group says it is is planning on collecting evidence against international pedophile rings and their abuse of children to find the links between different operations and ultimately bring the perpetrators to justice.
Named ‘Operation Death Eaters’ after Voldemort’s band of evil followers in the Harry Potter series, the group is calling for a global effort in exposing the pedophile rings through the power of social media.
A still from the Operation Death Eaters video by Anonymous – the hacking group says it is is planning on collecting evidence against international pedophile rings to ultimately bring the perpetrators to justice
This newest Anonymous campaign comes just weeks after the group declared war on jihadists in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.
Now, they are building a grassroots database of pedophile cases from across the world in order to ultimately expose an ‘international cult’ of child sex abuse.
A Tumblr set up to promote the campaign states: ‘The objective of opdeatheaters is an independent, international, victim-led tribunal/ inquiry into trafficking and paedosadist industry.
‘What is our first step? We need meticulously researched and clearly documented examples of high level complicity in the industry, obstruction of justice and cover ups to show the need for independent inquiries.’
The UK version of the site states: ‘The CSA inquiry in the UK is an attempt to depict a powerful cult as a string of isolated incidents of “sex abuse”.
‘The complicit UK media is running a huge propaganda campaign to conflate torture and murder with “pedophilia” and call for understanding of “pedophilia”.
‘This is not a group of sad pedophiles who need help and understanding. This is a torture and death cult with a powerful global human trafficking network.
‘We demand that torture and murder be called torture and murder, not sex. This is an international cult and needs to be investigated as one, not simply as an endless series of isolated incidents confined to the UK.
‘We call upon our comrades globally to help us investigate and demand an end to to the trafficking networks with arrests at the top not just the bottom.
‘We demand an end to human trafficking and abuse complicity worldwide.’
The Independent refers to an Anonymous statement which claims: ‘The Westminster pedophile ring is one of many cases where Operation DeathEaters has actively pursued and sought truth, in order to end the hideous crimes concealed behind the British elite.
‘In fear of these investigations being bungled over time, the operation’s objectives are clear and simple: source public information before it disappears, push for independent inquiry, and offer support to witnesses and the victims where needed.’
Anonymous also cites a number of high profile cases and investigations in the UK including Jimmy Savile, MP Cyril Smith,the claims regarding Elm Guest House and the now-defunct Paedophile International Exchange
Tens of millions of images of child abuse are believed to be circulating online on the ‘dark web’, many showing such graphic abuse that the media is turning a blind eye to the problem, experts warned this week.
Figures from the European Commission’s Global Alliance against Child Sexual Abuse Online suggest 50,000 new child abuse images are uploaded each year – of which more than 70 per cent are images of children under the age of 10.
On January 10 Anonymous activists released a video condemning the gun attack at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo which left 12 people dead.
The hacking group says it wants to collect evidence against international paedophile rings and look into their abuse of children to find the links between different operations and bring the perpetrators to justice
In the clip, which was uploaded to the group’s Belgian YouTube account, a figure wearing the group’s Guy Fawkes mask and a hood says in French in an electronically-distorted voice: ‘We are declaring war against you, the terrorists.’
Sitting at a desk and reading from a piece of paper, the figure says the group will track down and close all accounts on social networks related to terrorists to avenge those killed.
Anonymous has previously carried out cyber attacks on websites belonging to the Government, as well as those of corporate and religious organisations.
In 2012 Anonymous crippled the Home Office’s website by flooding it with huge amounts of internet traffic.
ANONYMOUS – THE DIGITAL ROBIN HOOD OR JUST CYBER TERRORISTS?
Hacker group Anonymous has been linked to online attacks around the world aimed at punishing governments for policies of which the hackers disapprove.
Members are known as ‘Anons’ and are distinguished by their Guy Fawkes masks.
The group are seen as anything from digital Robin Hoods to cyber terrorists for their hacking campaigns against government agencies, child pornography sites and the Klu Klux Klan.
In 2008 the online community staged a series of protests, pranks, and hacks Church of Scientology as part if its ‘Project Chanology.’
Later targets of Anonymous ‘hacktivism’ included government agencies of the US, Israel, Tunisia, Uganda, and others, copyright protection agencies; the Westboro Baptist Church; and corporations such as PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Sony.
In 2013 they declared war on secretive ‘chat sites’ used by pedophiles to trade images.
Last November they hacked into the Twitter account of the Ku Klux Klan after the white supremacist group distributed flyers threatening ‘lethal force’ protesters in Ferguson.
Dozens of people have been arrested for involvement in Anonymous cyberattacks, in countries including the US, UK, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, and Turkey.
‘I went through hell because police couldn’t be a***d to do their jobs’: Ex-girlfriend of Ian Watkins hits out as she is cleared of child porn offences after court hears she was trying to ENTRAP singer but detectives ignored her warnings
Joanne Mjadzelics, 39, was accused of possessing child porn images
A jury found her not guilty of the charges at Cardiff Crown Court
She claims her repeat warnings about Ian Watkins were ignored by police
‘How many kids could have been saved if the police had done their job,’ she said outside court
Claimed that officer ‘couldn’t be a***d’ to investigate Watkins’ vile crimes
Mjadzelics says she was trying to entrap Watkins, who has since been jailed for abusing children
She wept after the verdict and hit out at the police for pursuing her
Cleared: Joanne Mjadzelics, the ex-girlfriend of Ian Watkins was found not guilty of child porn charges
The ex-girlfriend of paedophile rock star Ian Watkins blasted police for ignoring her repeat warnings about the star, as she was cleared of a string of child pornography charges.
Joanna Mjadzelics said she ‘went through hell’ after she was forced to take action herself because officers ‘couldn’t be a***d’ to investigate Watkins.
She had been accused of possessing indecent images of a child, sending vile pictures to the singer and demanding that he send her illegal pornography.
But following a trial at Cardiff Crown Court, a jury found the 39-year-old not guilty on all charges after she claimed she was trying to entrap her former lover and trick him into revealing his crimes.
‘It’s been me against the world, really,’ she said as she walked free from court.
‘Me protecting the kids when everyone else called me liar, psycho – everything else – lie after lie.
‘Let’s just see how many kids could have been saved if the police had done their job. I’ve nothing to say to the police. This was a vicious prosecution.’
Watkins, 37, is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence for sex offences including the attempted rape of a fan’s baby. Two women were jailed alongside him for assisting his crimes.
Ms Mjadzelics, from Doncaster, told the jury during her trial that she reported Watkins to the police, but they ignored her because she was a prostitute who was regarded as a ‘nut job’.
She insisted that she only engaged in lurid sexual conversations with the shamed star in a bid to collect evidence which would bring Watkins to justice.
The prosecution had claimed that she was obsessed with the singer, and would do anything to fuel his desires.
The court heard police seized the rock star’s computers and video tapes when he was arrested and discovered one titled ‘Jo Paedo Talk Cardiff’.
When they played the video they saw Watkins and Mjadzelics having sex and talking about having a baby together so they could abuse it, the court heard.
‘He had told me what to say,’ she told Channel 4 News after she was cleared.
‘He said talk about this, talk about that, tell me you’re going to kidnap children and I would just agree. At that point I was so totally in love with this guy but at the same time so confused.
‘I realised afterwards when I stopped taking cocaine and I sobered up, I realised afterwards everything that had been talked about and I thought no that’s wrong, that’s wrong.
‘I thought it was just coke talk. I thought that’s all it was. I thought that was just coke talking and I was just saying that to get him off.
‘Sounds really pathetic when I say it now but it was at the time to keep him interested. It sounds really ridiculous.’
The jury took 14 hours of deliberations to reach their not guilty verdict.
Ms Mjadzelics wept when judge Eleri Rees told her she was free to go, and said afterwards: ‘I shouldn’t have even been here – just for doing the the police’s job that they couldn’t be a***d to do.’
Her solicitor Dale Harris said: ‘This was a spiteful prosecution of a woman who, over a four-year period, single-handedly and doggedly pursued a campaign to force the sleeping authorities to wake up to the reality of the appalling crimes against children she feared Ian Watkins was committing.
‘In December 2008, Ms Mjadzelics first reported Watkins to both South Wales Police and to social services.
‘But instead of taking her claims seriously, the police rejected them and dismissed her allegations as those of a disguntled ex-partner with mental health issues.
‘The initial flawed inquiry infected every subsequent report she made to the police.’
Vindicated: Ms Mjadzelics said after her acquittal that the police had been ‘vicious’ in their treatment of her
He drew attention to the ‘actions and inactions’ of the police and other authorities, saying: ‘As the court heard, in private, the police thanked her for bringing Watkins and his accomplices to justice.
‘In public, however, they shunned her and, instead, they prosecuted for the efforts she made to ensnare him.
‘It will be for others to judge whether children could have been spared the horrific abuse to which they were undoubtedly subjected had the police taken seriously the concerns of Miss Mjadzelics some six years ago.’
The defendant said during her trial that she had risked jail to expose Watkins, and continued to sleep with him in order to gather more evidence for the police.
The court heard that she reported Watkins to the authorities in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012 to raise the alarm over his child sex crimes.
She told police he had sent her images of a ‘very young girl being raped’, but they refused to examine her phone or computer.
Michael Wolkind QC, defending, told jurors that police chose not to investigate the allegations against Watkins because he was a famous musician.
‘Babies could have been saved if Joanne had been taken seriously but Watkins was a famous rock star so it was different,’ he said.
‘She wasn’t believed and it wasn’t properly investigated. What was she supposed to do?
‘If she had not kept on seeing Watkins would he and the two mothers be locked up now? No. She desperately played along with Watkins to track him.’
She said: ‘He said talk about this, talk about that, tell me you’re going to kidnap children and I would just agree. At that point I was so totally in love with this guy but at the same time so confused.’
Ms Mjadzelics even wrote to Watkins’ mother warning her that her son was a paedophile, but ended up being accused of harassing his family and questioned by police in 2009.
When the pair next met in 2010, at a hotel in Leeds, Watkins opened his laptop and showed her a video of a ‘child crying and being raped’ while he had an ‘evil smirk’ on his face, the court was told.
She then decided she would have to trap the singer on her own and gather evidence against him.
She said: ‘We contacted each other again in May 2011 and by that time I had decided it was no good crying and sending him away anymore.
‘I had to basically change the game and change my reaction and play him. I went into escort mode, like with my clients, and I switched off.’
Jailed: Watkins, the former lead singer of Lostprophets, is serving a 35-year prison sentence for child abuse
The court was read a series of graphic and disturbing messages exchanged by the pair that month, in which they fantasised about kidnapping and raping infants, while Watkins sent Ms Mjadzelics four pornographic images of children.
Despite having apparently been praised by the police for her actions, Ms Mjadzelics was arrested two years ago, and charged shortly after Watkins and his two accomplices pleaded guilty and were jailed in December 2013.
The Crown Prosecution Service defended the decision to pursue the case against Mjadzelics, while South Wales Police described the investigation as ‘extremely challenging and complex’.
Catrin Attwell of the CPS said: ‘The full circumstances surrounding this case have been aired in court.
‘The jury considered the matter for a considerable period of time and found Joanne Mjadzelics not guilty of the possession and distribution of indecent images of children. We of course respect that decision.
‘Our role is to consider the evidence gathered by police investigations and decide whether there is a realistic prospect of a conviction in court.’
Deputy Chief Constable Matt Jukes added: ‘Operation Globe is still continuing and we will work tirelessly to identify victims and help them seek the justice they deserve.
‘During the trial, police actions prior to the most recent investigation were discussed. In 2012 South Wales Police initiated its own review into the sequence of events prior to the arrest of Ian Watkins.
‘We identified that there were issues of concern and voluntarily referred the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission who is currently carrying out an investigation into these issues.’
The IPCC is investigating claims that officers from three different police forces failed to act on information about Watkins’ crimes.
Ms Mjadzelics told Channel 4 News of the disgraced Lost Prophets singer, ‘He had told me what to say.’
HOW PAEDOPHILE STAR’S GIRLFRIEND DISCOVERED HIS VILE DOUBLE LIFE
Late 2006: Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins meets Joanne Mjadzelics online. After weeks of online sex chats, Watkins and Mjadzelics meet in person for the first time in December. They meet up for sex at a hotel in Leeds where they make a sex tape together.
July 2007: Mjadzelics says she starts ‘getting into’ cocaine, with her and Watkins having drug-fuelled sex sessions together. She later has the rock singer’s initials – IDKW – tattooed on her back.
August 2007: Mjadzelics says Watkins tells her about a sex session he had with a 14-year-old girl. Asked why she did not go to the police there and then about his confession, she said: ‘I thought it was the cocaine talking.’
September 2007: Watkins tells Mjadzelics he raped a 12-year-old girl after taking cocaine in the toilet with her. He later tells her he was only ‘joking’.
February 2008: Tape of Watkins and Mjadzelics depicts the pair having sex and talking about having a child together so they could rape and kill it. When questioned about the video, Mjadzelics says: ‘It’s fantasy talk.’
Early 2008: Mjadzelics says she and Watkins split. She blames an indecent photograph of a child which he had sent her on Christmas Day.
June 2008: Watkins takes Mjadzelics to meet his mother in Pontypridd. The pair stay at the St David’s Hotel in Cardiff.
October 2008: Mjadzelics agrees to sign a ‘gagging order’ drawn up by Watkins after she threatened to go to the police.
December 2008: Mjadzelics phones social services in south Wales regarding a photograph he sent the previous Christmas.
January 2009: Mjadzelics contacts social services again, as well as police about Watkins.
March 2009: Police in Yorkshire interview Mjadzelics at the request of South Wales Police.
May 2009: The police investigation into Mjadzelics’s initial claims about Watkins ends. She claimed she was turned away because officers regarded her as a ‘nut job’ fan who was harassing a famous rock star.
August 2010: After around a year without speaking to one another, Mjadzelics and Watkins meet up for sex. Mjadzelics apologises to Watkins, claiming that she ‘must have got things so wrong’. Two weeks later, Mjadzelics says Watkins shows her a video of a child being sexually abused. She says she goes to police again, and claims nothing was done.
May 2011: After becoming estranged from one another again, Mjadzelics resumes contact with Watkins. She says she did so to try to catch Watkins out – and aimed to get evidence on him. The pair resume their sexual relationship. Watkins sends four indecent images to Mjadzelics.
May 2011: Mjadzelics sends an email to the Association of Chief Police Officers saying Watkins is raping a child on a ‘regular basis’. In her correspondence, she says: ‘I’ve gained his trust again by agreeing to a lot of disgusting things to get whatever is needed to bring him to justice.’
February 2012: Mjadzelics says she contacts the father of a child she fears Watkins was abusing.
March 2012: Mjadzelics says she contacts South Wales Police regarding a chat she had with Watkins on Skype. Mjadzelics attends Doncaster police station with her laptop.
April 2012: Watkins and a female fan, who cannot be named for legal reasons, sexually abuse her son at a London hotel.
May 2012: Over three months, South Yorkshire Police is contacted three times over allegations that Watkins is abusing a child.
August 2012: Watkins’s home is raided by police. One of the singer’s laptops is seized by detectives.
October 2012: Bedfordshire Police is contacted about allegations, supposedly made by Mjadzelics, that Watkins is planning to abuse another fan’s baby. Watkins is later interviewed and bailed by police.
November 2012: Mjadzelics is interviewed as a witness by officers from Operation Globe.
December 2012: Watkins is again arrested and charged by police. He appears before Cardiff Magistrates’ Court along with two female accomplices.
January 2013: Mjadzelics arrested and questioned.
November/December 2013: Watkins pleads guilty to a string of sex offences – including engaging in sexual activity with a child, the attempted rape of a fan’s baby and possessing, making and distributing indecent images. He is given a 29-year jail term, with a further six years on licence. His two female accomplices also plead guilty and receive prison terms.
May 2014: The Independent Police Complaints Commission confirms it is investigating claims of gross misconduct regarding three South Yorkshire Police officers, two detectives from the Bedfordshire force and one from South Wales into their handling of reports made to them about Watkins.
January 2015: Mjadzelics goes on trial at Cardiff Crown Court, but is cleared.
Global operation sees 29 arrested across 14 countries
Police in the UK, US, and Australia have dismantled an international ring of pedophiles accused of streaming live video of child abuse from the Philippines.
LONDON – Child abuse investigators in the United States, Britain and Australia have dismantled an organized crime group that live-streamed child sexual abuse to order from the Philippines.
Britain’s National Crime Agency said an international investigation broke up the ring, resulting in 29 arrests people in 12 countries who had paid to watch the abuse.
Police describe the use of webcams to stream live child abuse — especially from developing countries — as a “significant and emerging threat.”
“This investigation has identified some extremely dangerous child sexual offenders who believed paying for children to be abused to order was something they could get away with,” said Andy Baker, the deputy director of the agency’s command for child protection. “Being thousands of miles away makes no difference to their guilt. In my mind they are just as responsible for the abuse of these children as the contact abusers overseas.”
The investigation began after a routine visit to Timothy Ford, a registered sex offender in Britain. Police found a number of indecent videos on his computer and contacted child abuse investigators, touching off a global investigation beginning in 2012.
UK authorities worked with the Australian Federal Police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as well as the International Justice Mission, a non-governmental group. Together the agencies presented their data to authorities in the Philippines to identify offenders and victims.
The investigation — codenamed Operation Endeavour — identified 733 suspects and has resulted in some convictions, including Ford, who was sentenced in March to 8 ½ years in prison. The agency said Ford paid to watch the live abuse and had planned to move to the Philippines to set up an internet cafe.
Ford and another man, Thomas Owen, had discussed traveling to the Philippines together. Ford, who uses a wheelchair, “suggested that Owen could act as his carer so they could travel to the Philippines together in an attempt to avoid detection,” police said.
Owen, who was found with nearly 4 million indecent images of children, was sentenced in July to seven years in prison.
Authorities in the Philippines issued three search warrants in 2012, and 15 children aged between 6 and 15 were rescued and placed in the custody of social welfare services.
Stephanie McCourt, of the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, which is now part of the NCA, told the BBC that pedophiles should know that the Internet is not a “safe place for them.”
“They must also not be under the mistaken impression that this is a crime which carries no guilt because it happens on the other side of the world,” she said. “It is just as bad, just as harmful as though it was happening to the children right here in the U.K.”
The arrests underscored the well-established problem of cybercrime rings victimizing children in impoverished communities.
Community support to eradicate the problem is crucial because the crime often is concealed in the privacy of homes away from the attention of authorities, said Mayor Michael Rama of Cebu city in the central Philippines, a region where some of the abuses have been reported.
“When you have some poverty, the availability of information and technology and the attraction for easy money, these abuses happen,” Rama told The Associated Press by telephone. “City hall can fight this but if the villages don’t get involved, what’s going to happen?”
Philippine police Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa, who heads an anti-cybercrime unit, said incidents of abuse have been monitored in Cebu, Manila and Angeles city north of the capital.
Impoverished parents allow their children to be sexually abused and watched by paying foreigners via the internet in exchange for $100 to $200, Sosa said.
“We’re continuing with our operations,” Sosa said. “We’ve not eradicated this.”
The law is named after Sarah Payne who was murdered by a convicted pedophile
More than 700 pedophiles have been identified since the introduction of “Sarah’s Law” in 2011, Freedom of Information requests have revealed.
Nearly 5,000 requests for information were made in England, Scotland and Wales; one in seven resulted in a pedophile being revealed.
The disclosure scheme was named after eight-year-old victim Sarah Payne.
It means a parent or guardian can ask police if a person who has contact with children is a child sex offender.
“There must be sufficient access to or connection with the child by the subject to pose a real risk of harm and therefore justify disclosure,” say the rules governing the scheme.
Some 4,754 applications have been made since the system was introduced two-and-a-half years ago but the number is falling. There were 1,944 in 2011-12 and 1,106 so far in 2013-14, while disclosures were 281 in the first year and 122 in current year to April.
‘Checking someone’
Child safety campaigners said they were concerned that the disclosure rate was too low, suggesting that many offenders were not on police records.
In England and Wales, Avon and Somerset Police revealed the highest number of pedophiles at 42. This was followed by followed by 39 in Devon and Cornwall, 36 in Thames Valley and 33 in Norfolk. The identities of 49 child sex offenders were released by police forces in Scotland.
Donald Findlater, director of research and development at child protection charity the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, said: “Given the apparent drop in applications since the start of the scheme, albeit small, we have some concern that people may not know the scheme is available to them.
“We would like to see continued public awareness and publicity, whether by local forces or nationally by the Home Office, so that people know that this means of checking someone out exists.”
The scheme was introduced following the campaigning of Sara Payne, the mother of Sarah. Her daughter was was found in a field near Pulborough, West Sussex, after she was killed by Roy Whiting in July 2000.
Under Sarah’s Law, police will reveal details confidentially if they think it is in the child’s interests.
‘Safeguarding concern’
Christopher Stacey, director of services at offender reform charity Unlock, said: “It is important to strike the right balance between the need to protect the public and enabling people who have served their sentence and rehabilitated themselves to move on positively with their lives.
“There already exists a detailed framework in place which is designed to enable the police, probation services and other agencies to share information with members of the public where there is a safeguarding concern.
“As a result, it is unclear what value this scheme is adding, with serious questions about the statistics being used to defend the effectiveness of the scheme.”
Jon Brown, NSPCC lead for tackling sexual abuse, said there was a delicate balancing act.
“Sarah’s Law is not a silver bullet to end child abuse, and giving the public information about where sex offenders live is just one part of the jigsaw,” he said.
“Informing the public of their whereabouts has to be done properly, professionally and judged on a case-by-case basis.
“Forcing a child abuser underground because of a fear of vigilante attacks won’t make children safer as the authorities will lose track of them.”
The figures were up to November this year. The disclosure scheme does not apply in Northern Ireland.
A pedophile who directed filmed rapes of young children live on the internet has been jailed for 14 years.
Michael Eller, 67, set up a Skype link from his Hertfordshire home to instruct adults in the Philippines to rape and abuse young girls.
Others paid to watch the broadcasts, St Albans Crown Court heard.
Judge John Plumstead said victims “will spend their whole lives knowing that, for the pleasure of grubby pedophiles, they have undergone abuse”.
He added: “The cold-hearted cruelty of it is beyond comprehension.”
Eller, of the Hilltop Estate, in Berkhamsted, pleaded guilty to five charges of arranging sex offences involving children from three years old to their early teens.
The grandfather also admitted possessing indecent photographs of a child and breaching a sexual offences prevention order.
‘Overcome with disgust’
Judge Plumstead said Eller, a married man, had shown no sign of remorse and had failed to understand the gravity of his crimes.
“How any sane human being can direct the rape of children without being overcome with disgust is beyond me,” said the judge.
The court heard how the retired financial director paid the adults about $30 (£18) to rape and abuse the children.
He would type out instructions on what he wanted them to do while his unsuspecting wife was elsewhere in the house.
Eller was already the subject of a sex offender prevention order following an August 2012 case where he pleaded guilty to five counts involving indecent images of children.
He had to register as a sex offender for five years.
In February, police installed software on his computer to monitor his use.
‘Unspeakably vile’
Prosecutor Michael Speak said that in September, officers from the Hertfordshire Police found him using Skype to talk to a naked woman in the Philippines who was with a naked girl aged about 10 to 12 years old.
“The typed conversation indicated that the defendant was instructing the female to commit sexual offences against this young girl,” he said.
Officers discovered him using the system for a similar purpose in October and he was arrested.
The prosecutor said the defendant wrongly assumed the software only monitored images saved on the hard drive and not live streaming.
Eller admitted to police he had given instructions for the abuse.
Judge Plumstead said Eller was a “serious risk to children” and said arranging the abuse for his own gratification was “unspeakably vile”.
He was made the subject of a 20-year sexual offences prevention order and will be on the sex offenders’ register for life.
Speaking after the case, Det Sgt Sarah Corr said the case proved monitoring of offenders worked.
Jailed pedophile, 60, has conviction overturned after 11-year-old victim says she loves him and Italian judge rules it ‘a romantic relationship’
Supreme court in the town of Catanzaro made the ruling
Ruled: The 60-year-old was in a a ‘real relationship’, with the girl
Man worked for the local social services department
Pair were found naked in his home during a police raid
Ruling: The supreme court in the southern Italian town of Catanzaro ruled the 60-year-old was in a real relationship, with the girl according to local media reports
A pedophile has had his conviction for having sex with an 11-year-old overturned after an Italian judge ruled it was ‘a romantic relationship.’
The supreme court in the southern Italian town of Catanzaro ruled the 60-year-old was in a ‘real relationship’, with the girl according to local media reports.
The girl is understood to be from a disadvantaged background and had been placed into the care of the man – who worked for the local social services department, according to the Italian news website TGCom24.
The pair were found naked in bed together when police raided the man’s seaside villa.
Care: The girl is understood to be from a disadvantaged background and had been placed into the care of the man
The man was given a five-year sentence for sexual violence against a minor, reports the BBC.
The age of consent is 14 and rises to 16 when one of the partners is in position of authority or care over the younger participant.
But the child sex victim reportedly claimed to be in love with her carer.
The case is being sent back to the Catanzaro court for a retrial and there are expected to be several levels of appeal before a sentence is confirmed.
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