Cardinal freed from jail

"Cardinal George Pell has been freed from jail after Australia's highest court overturned his conviction for child sexual abuse."

"The former Vatican treasurer, 78, was the most senior Catholic figure ever jailed for such crimes."

"In 2018, a jury found he abused two boys in Melbourne in the 1990s."

"But the High Court of Australia quashed that verdict on Tuesday, bringing an immediate end to Cardinal Pell's six-year jail sentence."

"The Australian cleric had maintained his innocence since he was charged by police in June 2017..."

"In December 2018, a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choir boys in private rooms of St Patrick's Cathedral in the mid-90s - when the cleric was Archbishop of Melbourne..."

"Covid-19 restrictions meant just three people were allowed into the public gallery of the courtroom in Brisbane, the home town of the chief justice where the High Court sat."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-52183157?at_custom2=twitter&at_custom4=53E3FB9A-7864-11EA-9A07-F19EFCA12A29&at_custom3=%40BBCBreaking&at_medium=custom7&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_campaign=64

School closures: weighing up the consequences

"School closures are likely to have a relatively small impact on the spread of Covid-19 and should be weighed against their profound economic and social consequences, particularly for the most vulnerable children, according to a UK study."

"The research, led by University College London (UCL), is the first to look at evidence behind many governments’ decision to shut schools and keep pupils at home."

"According to the UN’s education body, Unesco, more than 90% of the world’s pupils have been affected by closures."

"The UCL-led study concludes that the evidence to support the closure of schools to combat Covid-19 is “very weak”, and statistics from influenza outbreaks suggest school closures “could have relatively small effects on a virus with Covid-19’s high transmissibility and apparent low clinical effect on schoolchildren”."

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/06/school-closures-have-little-impact-on-spread-of-coronavirus-study?fbclid=IwAR0vXD3evoa2DsD2g6kNIgqItaRbNr3yPCPctacsd0pRbT2VKcQ5eMwTNDQ

On Fox News, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO)  said that due to lockdowns the home was now the place of infection and authorities might have to enter people`s homes to remove infected adults and children.

Yet children must stay home

With the lack of fresh air and sunshine, cramped conditions for many, increased risk of mental health issues, domestic violence and child abuse, any benefits there might have been for a few, surely, cannot justify harming a whole population of vulnerable children. 

`No child abuse ring in Westminster`, says Jay

[UK Column News 26 February 2020]

"Well, non-news," begins Brian Gerrish. "Let`s start with some critical non-news at least as far as the BBC is concerned. And if you take a look at their website the one thing you can`t see anything about is, of course, the IICSA child abuse report. So in the last couple of days we`ve had information coming out from IICSA. It drifted across the BBC very, very briefly. It didn`t get any prominence and now as we can see from the BBC`s website this is a non-subject. It doesn`t really exist and it`s pointless looking to the BBC to protect children from abuse in UK."

Mike Robinson: "Just to echo that, the Today programme this morning, it got the last ten minutes of the programme. So this is a flaglship news programme ... on British media that begins at 6.00 a.m. in the morning - 3 hours of news in the morning - and the last ten minutes was that."

Brian Gerrish: "Yeah, Radio 4 at 10 o`clock last night was talking about coronavirus; it was talking about Egypt; it was talking about a variety of other topics without a mention. So the BBC, true to form, not interested in getting to the bottom of the abuse of children in UK. Of course, itself culpable, guilty of covering up the Jimmy Savile episode, BBC is not going to talk about institutional child abuse and child abuse in Westminster."

"So how`s the story progressed? Well some of the media have talked about it but what we`ve seen very, very clearly is that the whole emphasis has now moved across onto the Lib Dem peer Lord Steel. He`s implicated in as much as the evidence tends to indicate that he knew but he didn`t take the right action. He`s now stepped down because he said: `If I don`t step down then I`ve got both support and criticism within the party and I don`t want to cause internal problems, so I`m going to step down from the Lords and quietly retire.` But what can we see? Well the whole focus has now drifted across onto Lord Steel. We`re not talking about the perpetrators of the child abuse; we`re not talking about how that child abuse was covered up. But at least Sky News, in contrast to the BBC, did have something to say:"

"The IICSA said MPs including Smith and Sir Peter Morrison were `protected from prosecution.` The report said there was a culture of `failing to recognise abuse, turning a blind eye to it, covering up allegations and actively protecting high-profile offenders including politicians` within Westminster."

"It concluded that politicians valued reputation `far higher than the fact of the children involved`."

Brian Gerrish: "Now that last sentence there, Mike, says a lot about the quality of Britain`s politicians. People could say: `Well that was the situation as was`. What we say at the UK Column is that that is the situation today. It continues."

"But let`s see how the IICSA Inquiry has actually reported on this. And, of course, we need to bring in Baroness Jay and let`s have a look at some of the things that she said in her report."

"So this [is a] key one. `MPs including Smith and Peter Morrison were protected from prosecution` - Remember all the other political names that have been mentioned over recent years in relation to child abuse, well they`re not mentioned at all because this inquiry has been able to focus down on just one or two individuals as part of its downplaying of the whole process. But more on that in a minute."

"`There was a culture of failing to recognise abuse, turning a blind eye to it, covering up allegations and actively protecting high-profile offenders including politicians within Westminster.` That`s a pretty interesting statement. Think about what she`s saying there; not only was the abuse going on,  but people turned a blind eye to it; they covered up allegations and they actively protected high-profile offenders. ... And in my mind that means that ... we had an orchestrated system for protecting people abusing children. We had the abusers and we had the protective system. That to me sounds very much like a child abuse ring."

"But let`s see what else she had to say: `IICSA heard evidence that senior police officers thwarted the investigation into Smith because the case was too political`. That sounds to me like serious criminal activity by the police in order to protect the abusers of children but it`s just one line in the report."

"`The evidence shows that.... his party made efforts to suppress these rumours rather than conduct a formal investigation.... The focus of attention remained `unswervingly on political consequences rather than the welfare of the child`."

"So this is being forced home that the political parties ...are more concerned about protecting their reputation than the children and of course this is the law on its head because the duty of those political parties, probably more than the average individual, is to protect the children."

"She goes on: `Peter Morrison was protected as a member of the establishment`. Well that`s pretty clear cut... and that is repeated several times in the report. So I`ve put that up just to emphasise the constant focus on these two. They`re the only thing that ...they talk about. And this statement is reported several times and the reputation one is reported several times."

"So here we are. `A consistent pattern emerged of failure to put the welfare of children above political status although we found no evidence of an organised network of paedophiles within government`. Well this is all good. But the report itself describes the actions of that very government paedophile network. There were active child abusers in Westminster protected by powerful political and establishment figures, plus it`s admitted that the CPS also protected them and the police helped to protect them. So, Mike, this is just a brilliant piece of whitewash; that you describe a paedophile ring operating in Westminster, and then you say `It wasn`t actually a paedophile ring`."

Mike Robinson: "Yes, but as well as that, if you look at the language `we find no evidence`, well , of course, if you don`t speak to some of the key witnesses then you`re not going to find any evidence."

Brian Gerrish: "We`re going to address that, and you`re absolutely right. But they`re also describing the evidence for the paedophile ring and then saying: `But it`s not a paedophile ring.` It is a deliberate act on common sense and people`s cognitive ability to deal with what`s going on. It`s very very clever."

"So let`s have a look. How did this whitewash get played out? Well, of course, the inquiry has been dragged on over time and as the delay has increased ... that has allowed key witnesses, such as Nick, to be taken off the scene. Many police officers who were involved ... said they believed the evidence. There were some inconsistencies, but we`re not going to hear from Nick again because he`s got 18 years in prison and of course IICSA`s not going to present any of his evidence. Key witnesses - this is your point - including abuse survivors and police whistleblowers themselves [were] denied the opportunity to give evidence. Melanie Shaw, one of the key ones here, she has not been in front of this inquiry, although this inquiry says it has produced the Nottingham Child Abuse report. That report is out but of course Melanie`s testimony is not part of it.  John Wedger, another policeman - there are now a group of police who have come forward and talked about the cover-up of child abuse, including activity by senior politicians and the Home Office, and senior police officers; but those police have not been brought in front of the inquiry."

"John Wedger, as a significant witness,  - I believe there`s about 60 pages of his evidence - he is not included in this part of Jay`s report on Westminster, even though his evidence specifically says that senior politicians in his day had been covering up the abuse of children."

Mike Robinson: "And, of course, there are other survivor groups out there that have refused to take part. It wasn`t that they weren`t invited, but they actually refused, because they understood exactly what type of inquiry this was. They were looking for a proper ... judge led, investigative inquiry rather than a cover-up. So they refused to take part."

Brian Gerrish: "Indeed. Well let`s carry on. Of course what was done, and is continuing to be done, is the division of the inquiry sessions into secret chambers where we have the ... live cameras turned off.  We`ve... got the public excluded.  Baroness Jay said herself that she was going to have special rules for dealing with the investigation into Westminster but the reasons for those rules never fully explained to the public. So on it goes."

"Well of course ... a complete ignoring... of all of the police investigations around Prime Minister Edward Heath. So we know that very brave senior police officer Mike Veal did that investigation into Edward Heath and said that he believed that, had he still been alive, he would have had to ... answer questions about the abuse of children. This doesn`t figure in any of Jay`s investigation into Westminster and she`s declared evidence for a protected Westminster political and establishment paedophile ring but then describes it as` not a ring`. This is just incredible. And then, of course, they then choose an easy scapegoat which is Lord Steel to take the blame and distract the media."

"So the abuse of the children, the suffering of those survivors, just completely dropped from public view whilst everybody starts to feel a little bit sorry for Steel. So we`ll just put her face back on the picture here." 

"`There was and is no child abuse ring`. We disagree. We say that ring is still in post. It`s still exerting power over people trying to come forward and warn about the abuse of children.  But we`ve got to give Baroness Jay credit because this is a masterpiece of a whitewash..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v7T815BDeY

Climate science: child`s play?

Like the story of the Pied Piper, another group of children are being lulled into a state of passivity and led away

 

======================

If true, this is a shocking statistic, and some adults have much to answer for.

"One in five children are having nightmares about climate change, according to a new survey. Some 19% said fears over the environment were giving them bad dreams, while 17% said the issue was affecting their sleeping and eating habits. And 73% were worried about the state of the planet right now, with 58% concerned about the impact climate change would have on their futures. Four out of five youngsters said the environment was important to them. The poll by Savanta-ComRes for BBC Newsround of 2,000 children aged eight to 16 also found that two in five do not trust adults to tackle the problem."

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/04/children-say-nightmares-climate-change-12345613/?ito=cbshare
 
As it is, although the simple story being presented to children is one that is settled and alarming, the science suggests climate is a complex phenomenon and there is no such certainty.

No justice for abuse victims

 "As police admitted for the first time last week that there was an `epidemic` of institutional child sexual abuse in church institutions, children’s homes, borstals, schools and foster families in the 1970s and 80s, chief constable Simon Bailey, the national lead for child protection and abuse investigations, said: `We do not understand the true scale of it … untold damage has been done to victims and survivors.` On 11 February a damning report by the all-party parliamentary group on Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse will be highly critical of the support and resources available to these children, now in their 50s, 60s and older, many of whom have spent a lifetime with their experiences not believed and redress unobtainable."

"The report is titled Can Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Access Justice and Support? and the conclusion is an emphatic `no`. Based on two years’ work, it finds all the major services, including police, health, crown prosecution and courts, are failing to address a potential national crisis, with support services struggling to meet demand."

"The Office for National Statistics estimates that 3.1 million people aged 18-74 were sexually abused in childhood. However, one in seven callers to the helpline of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood hadn’t told anyone before."

 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/08/care-home-victims-wait-for-justice-decades-on-institutional-child-abuse