ALBION, New York –  10-year-old girl who was beaten repeatedly, forced to run with heavy packs and dragged behind a car escaped her tormentors as they slept to ask a neighbor for help, police in central New York said Friday. Four adults were charged after the bruised and malnourished girl escaped on Wednesday from her home in rural Oswego County, north of Syracuse. Her treatment, which included beatings with a tightly rolled newspaper wrapped with electrical tape, had apparently been getting worse since April, Oswego County Undersheriff Gene Sullivan said. READ MORE HERE

A man has been charged with producing child pornography and sexually assaulting a three-year-old girl while babysitting her. New South Wales police said the 64-year-old man had allegedly assaulted the toddler in Parramatta at Sydney’s west. It is unknown when the alleged assault took place. READ MORE HERE

CALIFORNIA – A 57-year-old man who worked as an airline pilot has been convicted of traveling to the Philippines to have sex with minors. Michael Carey Clemans was found guilty on Tuesday by a federal jury in Sacramento of attempted travel and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and buying of children. He pleaded guilty to three additional counts on his first day of the trial including conspiracy to produce child pornography, attempted production and production of child pornography, and receipt of child pornography. READ MORE HERE

Police allege the man believed he was speaking to a 14-year-old girl

A 31-year-old man who engaged in sexually-explicit conversations online with who he thought was a 14-year-old girl, was arrested in Parramatta on Thursday. He was charged with online child exploitation offences as part of an ongoing investigation by detectives from the State Crime Command’s Sex Crimes Squad. He was expected to appear before a magistrate in court on Friday. Strike Force Trawler officers initially made contact with the man, from the Hunter Region, in July. READ MORE HERE

UPDATE: The U.S. Marshals say one of the four suspects, Vergis Land, has been taken into custody. He was arrested at a home in the 500 block of Aragona Boulevard in Virginia Beach on Wednesday afternoon.

HAMPTON ROADS, VIRGINIA — The U.S. Marshals are searching for four convicted sex offenders who are all longtime Hampton Roads residents. All four fugitive sex offenders are wanted on outstanding warrants for failure to register as a sex offender with the Virginia State Police. Three out of the four are also wanted by the Virginia Beach Police Department on probation violation charges. READ MORE HERE

AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Department of Public Safety has added Demus Lee Westmoreland, 52, to the Texas 10 Most Wanted Sex Offenders list, and a cash reward of up to $3,000 is now being offered for information leading to his capture. Westmoreland is wanted for failure to register as a sex offender and probation violation. All tips are guaranteed to be anonymous. Westmoreland has been wanted since February 2017. He has ties to Galveston (Galveston County), his last known address; Sugar Land (Fort Bend County); and Lexington, Kentucky. In 2008, Westmoreland was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child by exposure after an incident in Fort Bend County involving a 6-year-old girl. READ MORE HERE

ALBION, New York – Police say a 10-year-old New York girl was beaten repeatedly, served food doused in hot sauce and dragged behind a vehicle. Four adults have been arrested after the girl escaped from a home in the Oswego County town of Albion on Wednesday and asked a neighbor for help. The sheriff’s office said the abuse began in April; the girl was beaten with fists, feet and an “implement” and spent days working outside without water or bathroom access. Authorities say that once she was forced to run with a heavy backpack, then tied to a car and dragged. READ MORE HERE

Australia’s worst pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale will likely die in prison with another three years added to his sentence. The 83-year-old will spend a total of almost 33 years in jail in total for his unprecedented child sex crimes over three decades. The former Catholic priest was on Thursday sentenced to 11 years jail for abusing another dozen children during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. READ MORE HERE

A Logan County superintendent accused of not reporting child sexual abuse was placed on unpaid leave last week. Heather O’Donnell, the superintendent at Midwest Regional Educational Service Center, has been charged with two counts of child endangering in connection with child rape charges lodged against her husband, Indian Lake Superintendent Patrick O’Donnell. READ MORE HERE

Oklahoma – A convicted sex offender who molested his niece when she was 7 years old moved in next door to his victim nearly a dozen years after he was sent to prison for the crime. Outraged, the Oklahoma woman, now 21, called lawmakers, the police and advocacy groups to plead with them to take action. Danyelle Dyer soon discovered that what Harold Dwayne English did in June is perfectly legal in the state – as well as in 44 others that don’t specifically bar sex offenders from living near their victims, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. READ MORE HERE

KENTUCKY – Logan County Sheriff Wallace Whittaker reported as of Thursday morning, Cody M. Gormley, 23, of 3272 Buena Vista Road in Russellville is still at large and is being sought for an active arrest warrant. Gormley was indicated Aug. 4, 2017, by a Logan County Grand Jury on one count of first degree rape (victim under 12-years old age), one count of first degree sexual abuse, and one count of first degree persistent felony offender. READ MORE HERE

NEW RIVER, Arizona – A mother in New River is accused of molesting two young children, filming the incidents, and selling them over the internet. According to court documents, Keri Harwood, 28, is accused of molesting two children multiple times in the bathroom of her New River home. Harwood is also accused of videotaping the incidents and selling them over the internet. READ MORE HERE

US Navy father and girlfriend arrested; boy in ‘dire condition’

A father serving in the Navy was arrested along with his girlfriend on suspicion that the couple tortured the man’s five-year-old son. Murrieta County police said they have arrested Benjamin Whitten and Jeryn Johnson on multiple counts of child abuse after being receiving a distress call on Tuesday. Police and fire personnel were dispatched to an emergency call at 24001 Verdun Lane shortly after 10:00am and discovered a child with ‘severe injuries.’ READ MORE HERE

Helping Children Recover Physically and Psychologically After Burn Injuries

No child should ever be abused, and yet, that is the reality for many children in America and around the world every day. It may seem inconceivable to be able to hurt your own children, but it happens, and when it does happen, the lasting effects can impact that child for the rest of his or her life. When a child is abused, there are physical, and emotional scars. They need to be helped, and supported.

There are millions of abused children in America, and as awareness increases on the epidemic of child abuse in the United States, so too does the number of referrals to relevant helping services. This means that more children can be helped because they have been reported, because someone knows about what it is happening to them.

An average of five children will die in the United States every day. More children will die in the United States from neglect and abuse than any other industrialized country. Neglect amounts to 75.3% of victimized children, 17.2% are physically assaulted, and 8.4% are sexually abused. 7.2 million children have been reported as abused, however only half of that have been helped.

Burn injuries amount to some of the worst physical abuse injuries a child can receive. Burns can leave physical scars that will stay with the child for the rest of his or her life. Burn injuries also amount to 10% of all child abuse cases. To put it into perspective, when a child enters the burn unit at a hospital, there is a 1 in 10 chance that the burn was intentionally caused by a family member.

Abused children who suffer from burns are typically far younger than other types of abuse. Most cases can be found in toddlers who are two years old or younger, however victims are typically always under the age of 10.

Here are some of the common, and horrific ways, an abused child will receive his or her burn:

1. Put in an Oven

One would hope that there is not anyone who could be monstrous enough to put their baby in an oven and turn it on, but it has happened. Children have been put in heated ovens. In 2002, there was a horrific case where one woman attempted to broil her toddler at 600 °F. Thankfully, she failed, but the child had to undergo dozens of reconstructive surgeries.

2. Immersed in Scalding Water

These burns are usually found when a parent or other guardian are “punishing” a child by immersing them into scalding hot water. The excuse by parents is that a child climbed into the tub with the scalding hot water. Studies show, however, that the pattern of the burn is all you need to determine whether an immersion burn was accidental or deliberate.

In the case of abuse, immersion burns are typically uniform in appearance and are also accompanied by bruising that arises when someone forces a child to stay still.

3. Contact Burns

These burns occur when a hot object is placed on a child. The most common type of contact burns seen in abused children are hot irons and cigarettes. It is easy to tell contact burns apart from accidents because of the location and severity of burns. If a burn was an accident it would be shallow, irregular, and not very defined. When a burn is deliberate, you can tell.
Examples of contact burns in abused children include branding, which means that the hot object was placed on the child for enough time that the object has been seared onto the skin. Abusers can also use mundane objects as their weapon, like the hood of a car that has been in the sun. Prolonged contact with the hot metal can easily cause 2^nd or 3^rd degree burns.

Burns cause deep, terrible scars both physical and emotional. Being burned at the hand of a caregiver who is supposed to care for you is a horrific reality that far too many children suffer from. Medical personnel are, thankfully, trained to recognize the difference between an accidental burn and deliberate ones.

Be Aware of the Signs

To help these abused children, you must first get them away from their abusers. That is why bringing awareness of child abuse and its signs is an essential way to get communities to look after their children. If a teacher sees signs of neglect or abuse, it should be reported immediately. Teach your children that, if your friend tells you about the bad things his or her parents do to them, you tell an adult immediately.

Shame can keep a child silent from reporting their own abuse, but so many are just too young to know any better. They don’t know it’s wrong, just that it hurts and they want it to stop. Teach children from a young age what abuse looks like and that it is wrong. Grow a society that knows and understands and will report abuse as soon as they see evidence of it. The worst-case scenario is that it was an accident.

What Happens After You Report

In extreme cases, abused children are removed from their parents’ custody and placed into the foster system. This typically occurs during extreme neglect. With abuse, however, the caregivers (or guardians) face criminal charges. Foster homes carry their own set of problems and traumas. Being in a foster home does not mean a child is safe, or happy. In many cases being alienated and alone in the foster system can wreck a child’s psyche.

PTSD

PTSD arises in adults who were abused as children. The severity depends on the many things, like the danger, the developmental state when the abuse occurred, the relationship they had with the perpetrator, the post-response, and many others. They can experience panic attacks, nightmares, depression, and anxiety. If they are triggered by something in the present that sends them back into the time when they were abused they can even “feel” the pain.

PTSD takes you back to the time when you were most scared and when you were hurt. It takes you back to that terrible point in your life and it makes you relive it. You can experience physical or emotional symptoms. Therapy and support are needed for every child who has suffered from abuse. Children who suffer from burn injuries are no different.

Getting Financial Compensation

While it may make you feel uncomfortable to press for financial compensation from the perpetrator on the behalf of an abused child, it shouldn’t do. Children age out of foster care all the time without support. This means that they are less likely to graduate high school or attend college. For instance, only 4% of children who had aged out of a foster home will have a college degree.

Further, not all abuse cases are at the hands of the parents.

To give these abused children a chance at life outside of a foster system, or to simply allow them more opportunities to help them later in life, they need financial support. In every case of criminal child abuse, a legal representative should be consulted. Attorneys at StephenBabcock.com take on burn injury cases, and they can for an abused child. They get compensation for the pain and press for punitive damages. Do beware that claims have to be made within certain time limits from the time of the incident, and this varies between states.

Getting compensation and punitive damages from the abuser is easier when the abuser is part of an institution, or one who is not a family member. It is, however, still possible for a legal guardian to sue the biological parents of an abused child for damages. Most parent abusers won’t have the finances to pay for compensation or punitive damages. Instead, these abusers will typically be incarcerated.

Parenting a child who has experienced abuse of this magnitude will need a lot of patience. Guardians should help build a child’s resilience by encouraging and nurturing the child’s relationships with others around them. Closing off is a huge risk that can complicate a child’s mental health and ability to function later. Encourage them to express themselves fully, that they don’t need to suffer in silence. Be patient, be consistent, be kind.

Being abused does not mean that a child will develop poorly. Assure the child that his or her safety will always be a priority. No one will lash out. No one will hurt them. It will take time and patience to grow that trust, but once it is earned, healing can begin.

There are many strategies, tips, and guides to help guardians parent abuse survivors. The key aspect is to be there. Bouncing from one foster family to the next is possibly the worst post-abuse lifestyle a child could experience. They need stability, love, and understanding to move on from the trauma of their past.

Saving a child starts with recognizing the signs of abuse. Abusers come in all sizes, and shapes, and abuse can come in a wide variety of forms. Knowing the signs of each type of abuse is the only way to save a child from their abuser. Healing can only begin once the trauma has stopped.