ONE of Australia’s worst paedophiles kept his head down, as three of his victims told a Sydney court how the man not only robbed them of their youth but set them on a path of self-destruction.

Andrew Dean McIntosh, 53, was convicted in May over 18 offences related to the sexual and indecent assault of three boys at Inverell, in the state’s northwest in the 1980s. The 53-year-old today faced a sentencing hearing over those convictions as well as 24 offences related to the sexual abuse and indecent assault of another teenager, Sascha Chandler, in the early 1990s.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/victims-tell-of-stolen-childhoods/story-e6frg6nf-1226096831927

SALT LAKE CITY — Coming forward with her amazing story of survival, Jaycee Dugard — along with others like Elizabeth Smart — give other children who have suffered abuse the courage to talk about what happened to them. The story of Dugard’s kidnapping and 18 years of captivity has come to light in her new book “A Stolen Life.” Dugard was kidnapped near her California home in 1991 when she was just 11 years old. Convicted pedophile Phillip Garrido took her to his house and locked her in backyard sheds, where he subjected her to sexual assaults.

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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705376091/Jaycee-Dugards-story-of-survival-giving-victims-courage-to-speak-about-abuse.html

Students Sue ‘Troubled Teen’ School for Systematic Sexual, Emotional Abuse

Nine former students of Mount Bachelor Academy, a now-defunct school in Oregon for “troubled teens,” have filed a $14.25-million lawsuit against the school for emotional, sexual and physical abuse. The suit was filed on behalf of the plaintiffs on July 6 in Multnomah County Circuit Court by attorney Kelly Clark, who specializes in child sex abuse cases and who has successfully represented survivors of abuse by Catholic priests and other clergy. Clark recently won a $20 million judgment in a case of sexual abuse involving the Boy Scouts.

As 14-year-old Jaycee Dugard struggled in a crude backyard shed to deliver her baby daughter, the serial predator who had abducted and raped her stepped in to unwrap the umbilical cord that trapped the infant. “She was beautiful,” Dugard said of the child she birthed three years into her captivity in Northern California. “I felt like I wasn’t alone anymore. I knew I could never let anything happen to her.”

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http://www.ktla.com/news/nationworld/la-me-jaycee-dugard-20110711,0,4888848.story

Dugard was kidnapped at age 11 and was held captive for 18 years by a convicted sex offender.

NEW YORK — Kidnap victim Jaycee Lee Dugard, held captive for 18 years, is sharing her story for the first time, saying giving birth at age 14 was “very painful” and frightening. “I didn’t know I was in labor,” Dugard, now 31, tells ABC News’ Diane Sawyer in an exclusive, two-hour interview set to air on Sunday’s Primetime.

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http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-jaycee-lee-dugard-first-interview,0,1755053.story

Over 3 million reports of child abuse are made every year in the United States. This statistic, dispatched by Childhelp®, a leading national nonprofit dedicated to helping victims of child abuse and neglect, indicates the alarming prevalence of this disturbing form of violence. Author C.L. Thompson details her own story of abuse in the emotive memoir If Only Regrets Were a Good Thing (published by AuthorHouse). Detailing a childhood of molestation, brutality and grief, Thompson writes with candor and introspective acumen.

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http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/7/prweb8613095.htm

GARY, Indiana — By the time 13-year-old Christian Choate was allegedly beaten to death and buried in a shallow grave in a Gary, Ind., trailer park in 2009, his family had been getting semiregular visits from child welfare authorities for more than 10 years. The Indiana Department of Child Services’ inch-thick case file on the Choate family details more than a dozen investigations of allegations of abuse or neglect dating to 1999. In 2009, Indiana prosecutors say, Christian died after years of abuse, finally succumbing to head injuries caused by blows from his father and older sister.

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http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-christian-choate-boy-in-cage,0,3895741.story

CHANDLER — Chuck and Annette Deal say child welfare workers practically cut them out of their granddaughter’s life before she was sent to live with her father and died. Chuck Deal said he was in the delivery room when Serenity Anne Deal was born May 12, 2006. His daughter, Samantha Deal, was a young, single mother, so he and his wife stepped in to help financially, with midnight feedings and everything in between that it takes to raise a child. Serenity died June 4, less than a month after workers with the state Department of Human Services recommended she live full time with her father, Sean Devon Brooks, 31, of Oklahoma City.

Protests in Syria were reinvigorated this week, after a wrenching video documenting the alleged torture and killing of a 13-year-old boy went viral online. The boy was separated from his parents at a protest against the Assad government, which allegedly mutilated, castrated and killed him, then returned the corpse to his family, who risked their lives to produce the video. The boy’s father is now reportedly missing as well. By Tuesday, however, the video that shot from the web to Al Jazeera to the streets of Syria—where people marched carrying signs emblazoned with the deceased child’s portrait—had been blocked on YouTube, the very site where it first launched.

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http://www.thenation.com/blog/161050/youtube-reinstates-blocked-video-child-allegedly-tortured-syria

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http://www.experienceproject.com/groups/Am-A-Child-Abuse-Survivor/40701

10-year-old boy: My adoptive parents spanked me until I bled, kept me away from food

SANFORD – A 10-year-old boy today told jurors that the Altamonte Springs couple that adopted him spanked him bare bottomed until he bled then would spank him again before those wounds healed, leaving scars. Dwayne and Pamela Hardy also punished the boy time and again by not giving him meals, the child said. By the time child welfare investigators got involved, the boy and his younger sister, also adopted, were gaunt, had permanent scars on their bottoms and had hands that were swollen and marked from blows from a wooden spoon, according to testimony.

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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/crime/os-adoptive-parents-torture-trial-20110614,0,5099220.story

Small, naïve, and trusting they’re vulnerable to the very worst of predators. Bears and wolves, sharks and gators prey on children with far less frequency than human beings themselves. It’s a pathology that’s as pervasive as it is puzzling. Regardless of race, region, or economic strata, pedophilia thrives in our society. It’s as present today as it has been at any time. Though horribly socially self-destructive, it continues on and on, as if it were a normal and acceptable function of culture–or, at least, an unavoidable evil, the dark side of our sunny selves.

Let right people know we’re sick of nightmare; time to provide better protection I am 64 and a survivor of severe child abuse. I pay close attention to all articles on child abuse. An article May 12 took my breath away and touched my heart. It was written very well by Tyler Treadway.

Back in my day there were no outlets for us who suffered from abuse. My abuse went as far back as when I was 5 years old and continued until I left the nest at age 18. Serving my country in Vietnam and later raising my own family, I raised my children from learning experiences as a child. To this day I continue to express verbally to my children three important words: “I love you.”

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http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/jun/02/stephen-e-stouffer-agencies-excuses-bogus-when/

BARABOO, Wis. — The Baraboo mother whose husband was convicted of killing their infant twins three years ago is breaking her silence.At just 5 weeks old, twins Tyler and Savannah were victims of a savage beating that ended their lives, tore a family apart and subsequently landed their father in prison.

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http://www.channel3000.com/news/28068226/detail.html