A mother punched her nine-year-old daughter so hard that the woman broke bones in her hand. The punch was one of many incidents heard in the Auckland District Court today as Judge Brooke Gibson sentenced the 31-year-old mother to seven and-a-half years in prison with a minimum non-parole period of five years.

Two men were charged Friday with rape of girls they met at Governor’s Square Mall, according to Montgomery County Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Ted Denny.Timothy Crawford Jr., 23, who gave a 1235 Parkway Place Apt. G address, was charged with child rape. Dominique Elder, 20, who gave the same address, was charged with rape, Denny said. Both men are Fort Campbell soldiers, he said.

Police in Arizona say they now believe the body of missing 5-year-old Jhessye Shockley was discarded in a Tempe dumpster and may be in a local landfill. “We believe Jhessye Shockley’s body was placed in a trash receptacle located in the city of Tempe prior to the report of Jhessye’s disappearance,” said Glendale Police Officer Tracey Breeden.

Abingdon, MD – Steven Kenneth Helgason, a 44-year-old Whiteford man was jailed after he allegedly used a lighter and aerosol can to torch his childrens’ hair.According to police, officers were called after a boy arrived at a Sports Clips hair salon in Abingdon with hair that was noticeably burned. The victims told police that their father torched them up to a hundred times using the same method.

DOVER— The former Provider bus driver already indicted on federal charges involving the sexual exploitation of children was indicted this month by the state on 15 new charges, alleging he sexually abused a local child between February 2009 and February 2011. If convicted, the charges could send him to prison for more than 200 years.

BETHANY, Oklahoma – Bethany Police made two major announcements Tuesday afternoon in the investigation into Carina Saunders’ murder: they’ve made an arrest and they’re looking for a person of interest who may have vital information in the case. Police arrested 33-year-old Jimmy Lee Massey Tuesday morning on a complaint of first-degree murder in the 19-year-old woman’s death.

A South Side father who allegedly posted a Facebook photo of his 22-month-old daughter bound and gagged was just joking around and the whole case has been “blown out of proportion” by the Internet, his attorney and family said today. Andre Curry, 21 — who has no criminal background — was charged with aggravated domestic battery, a felony, after turning himself in to police on Tuesday.

BELLFLOWER, CA– Sheriff’s investigators arrested the coach of the Bellflower High School girls basketball and track teams Tuesday, saying he sexually assaulted a former student over a period of four years. Bryan Shepherd, 47, of Long Beach, was a coach at the school for the past five years, according to a news release issued by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

LONDON — Researchers in the UK say they found traces of cocaine on 92 percent — roughly 9 out of 10 — public baby changing tables. The study was conducted by journalists from Real Radio, a station in North West England, the Huffington Post reports. They used specialized wipes to test changing tables in shopping centers, hospitals, churches, supermarkets and department stores, among other places.

SANTA CLARITA, CA– A 19-year-old Santa Clarita man is facing 29 felony counts of sex with minors after he was arrested last week by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s investigators. Michael Downs allegedly had sex with at least 14 girls under the age of 18 in 2011 after meeting the girls on Facebook. Deputies arrested him last week.

Shouting “no” and putting her hands at arms’ length away from her face, Monique Heilemeier demonstrated how children should react when they feel threatened or scared. The action, taught to area children during child safety presentations, shows strong body language so potential abusers “know that you’re poised to get away,” said Heilemeier, director of the Children’s Advocacy Center, which is operated by the Family Service Agency.

Thousands of photos and videos were taken by an international paedophile ring and distributed over the internet of the “horrific” child abuse of two young children in the UK and one in Australia, a British court has heard. A sentencing hearing at Portsmouth Crown Court was told that Melissa Noon and her partner Robert Hathaway met the three other defendants, Lee Parson, Stephen Fraser and Simon Hilton, over the internet to carry out the abuse. A six-week trial heard that two young children were abused by the group in the UK, which used a nudist website as a guise for their perversions.

FRANKFORT, KY. — At a packed committee hearing, Kentucky legislators berated the state’s top child-welfare officials Monday for failing to accurately report child-abuse fatalities. And one lawmaker called for the resignation of the cabinet secretary who oversees Kentucky’s child-welfare programs, saying the state was withholding information.

MADISON— Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Monday signed an executive order requiring any state university employee to report any possible child abuse or neglect to an outside agency, or the police, who will be required to investigate, which virtually eliminates any opportunity to sweep the abuse under the rug.