Category Archives: Rape and sexual assault

Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis sorry for ‘pain’ caused by letters on behalf of Danny Masterson

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Actors say letters were not meant to undermine victims of Masterson, who was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for rape

Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis apologized on Saturday for character letters the celebrity couple wrote on behalf of fellow That ’70s Show actor Danny Masterson before he was sentenced for rape this week.

A judge in Los Angeles on Thursday sentenced Masterson to 30 years to life in prison for raping two women in 2003.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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Head of Johnny Kitagawa’s J-pop agency resigns over sexual abuse scandal

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Julie Fujishima, niece of late pop mogul, apologises and acknowledges agency founder’s abuse for first time

The president of Japan’s biggest boyband talent agency has resigned after acknowledging for the first time that its late founder sexually abused aspiring young stars.

The country’s most powerful pop mogul, Johnny Kitagawa, who died in 2019 aged 87, was accused of sexually assaulting multiple teenagers over decades, but evaded justice because his victims feared he would destroy their careers if they spoke out.

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‘Avoid getting drunk’: row erupts over rape comments by Italy PM’s partner

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Giorgia Meloni called on to condemn partner who appeared to suggest women could avoid rape by not getting too drunk

A row has erupted in Italy after a journalist and the partner of Giorgia Meloni appeared to suggest that women could avoid rape by not getting too drunk, with opposition parties calling on the prime minister to distance herself from his comments.

“If you go dancing you are fully entitled to get drunk ... but if you avoid getting drunk and losing consciousness, perhaps you’d also avoid getting into trouble, because then you’ll find the wolf,” Andrea Giambruno said on his show on the right-leaning channel Rete 4 after recent high-profile gang rape cases near Naples and in Palermo.

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Sexual harassment allegations cost local authorities at least £2.5m

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Exclusive: Data from past five years in England and Wales includes wage costs and victim payments for claims such as upskirting, indecent exposure and inappropriate videos

Local authorities in England and Wales have spent at least £2.5m in the past five years on costs relating to allegations of sexual harassment, an investigation by the Observer can reveal today.

Data obtained through freedom of information (FoI) laws shows that since 2018, 62 councils spent more than £1,728,900 to cover wage costs of staff who were suspended after allegations of sexual harassment, with accusations ranging from indecent exposure, upskirting, inappropriate comments and sexual assault to stalking and abuse of power.

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Ex-Alabama deputy sheriff sentenced to prison for sexual assault on woman in his custody

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Joshua Davidson given sentence of 12 and a half years for attack while on duty as a Dallas county deputy sheriff

A former Alabama deputy sheriff has been sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman in his custody.

On 30 January 2020, while on duty as a Dallas county deputy sheriff, 33-year-old Joshua Davidson placed a woman in custody following a traffic stop. He drove her down a dark road to a desolate location where he forced her to perform oral sex on him against her will, the justice department said in a statement.

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Rape still a weapon of war in Tigray months after peace deal

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Medical records from across the region show sexual violence continues to be used ‘to intimidate and terrorise communities’

Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers continue a widespread and systematic campaign of rape in Tigray despite the peace agreement signed in November last year, a new report reveals.

In the first report to document sexual violence – using hundreds of medical records from the start of the conflict in November 2020 through to June 2023 – healthcare professionals recount cases of gang-rape, sexual slavery and murder, including the killing of children.

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Former Met police officer jailed for rape of female colleague and 16-year-old girl

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Judge says force protected Adam Provan by ignoring officer’s complaints, allowing him to attack teenager

The Metropolitan police protected a predatory rapist within their ranks, dismissing the complaints of one of his victims and leaving him free to attack a teenager, a judge has said.

Adam Provan, 44, was on Tuesday jailed for 16 years, followed by eight years on licence, for eight counts of raping two victims between 2003 and 2010.

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Miscarriages of justice body has ‘attitude problem’, says Andrew Malkinson

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Exclusive: Man imprisoned for rape he did not commit says Criminal Cases Review Commission has yet to contact him

Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, has accused the body that investigates miscarriages of justice of having an “attitude problem” and said it had still not contacted him since he was cleared by the court of appeal last month.

Malkinson and his legal team first heard that the Criminal Cases Review Commission was launching a review into its handling of his case after the Guardian contacted them about it on Thursday.

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Catholic church uses death of paedophile priest in bid to stop survivor suing NSW diocese, court hears

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Church claims it cannot get fair trial over alleged abuse by the notorious David Joseph Perrett in legal tactic that has drawn widespread criticism

The Catholic church is seeking to use using the death of a “prolific paedophile” priest to permanently prevent a dying Indigenous man from seeking justice for alleged abuse suffered on camping trips in rural New South Wales.

Two survivors are suing the church’s Armidale diocese for the alleged abuse by notorious priest David Joseph Perrett during camping trips from an Aboriginal mission in the mid-1970s.

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Rape, DNA and injustice: a timeline of the Andrew Malkinson case

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After spending 17 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, the 57-year-old’s conviction was finally overturned last month

A 33-year-old woman is raped and left for dead on a motorway embankment in Salford as she walks home. She recalls causing a “deep scratch” to her attacker’s face. Andrew Malkinson is visited by police officers the next day who see he has no scratch. He is arrested two weeks later and then picked out of a video lineup.

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Judge says E Jean Carroll allegation Trump raped her is ‘substantially true’ in court dismissal

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Ex-president claimed that writer defamed him when saying he raped her, but judge said term is commonly ‘used and understood’ in context

Donald Trump suffered another legal reversal on Monday, losing his counterclaim for defamation against E Jean Carroll, the writer against whom he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and fined $5m, and who continues to pursue a separate defamation case against him.

Dismissing the counterclaim, a judge in New York, Lewis A Kaplan, said that when Carroll repeated her allegation that Trump raped her, her words were “substantially true”. Kaplan also set out in detail why it may be said that Trump raped Carroll.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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Two-thirds of sexual assault support centres in England branded inadequate

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Inspectors find failures to protect victims and risks of contaminating forensic evidence

More than two-thirds of England’s specialist support centres for victims of sexual assault or abuse have been found to have flaws in the care they offer in their most recent full inspections, the Observer can reveal.

Almost half were found to be breaching their minimum legal obligations to victims in their last full inspection, with problems ranging from a failure to deal with suicide and self-harm risks, cleaning so bad it risked contaminating forensic evidence collected for criminal cases, and failures to do adequate background checks on the staff working with victims.

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Video of women attacked in Manipur breaks silence on systematic gang rapes in India

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Indians were shocked when social media exposed a mob abusing minority Kuki women. But similar incidents have been happening with impunity for months

As footage emerged last week of two women in the state of Manipur being forcibly stripped, paraded naked, publicly molested and allegedly gang raped, everyone from prime minister Narendra Modi to the chief justice of India publicly expressed their shock and disgust.

Breaking his long silence on the conflict that has been raging in Manipur for months, Modi declared that “what happened to the daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven” and that “the entire country has been shamed” by the attack.

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Key judge orders leak inquiry over New Orleans archdiocese cover-up report

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Inquiry ordered following Guardian investigation into retired priest who confessed decades ago to child molestation

A high-ranking federal official has ordered an investigation after the Guardian exposed how New Orleans’s Roman Catholic archdiocese went to extreme lengths to conceal a retired priest who confessed decades ago to child molestation, is still living and has never been prosecuted.

Yet the investigation recently ordered by federal judge Jane Triche Milazzo is not designed to aid efforts to criminally charge the cleric or hold the church administrators who hid his past accountable. Instead, the inquiry is aimed at determining whether anyone violated broad confidentiality rules governing the New Orleans archdiocese’s pending bankruptcy protection filing and related litigation before the Guardian’s report on 91-year-old Lawrence Hecker was published on 20 June.

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Catholic chaplain who sexually abused Louisiana students jailed for five years

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Patrick Wattigny, former high school chaplain who resigned in 2020, pleads guilty to molesting two minors at school

The former chaplain of a Roman Catholic high school in Louisiana has pleaded guilty to molesting two minors whom he met through his work and was ordered to spend five years in prison.

Patrick Wattigny’s plea and sentence on Wednesday came after both of his victims strongly advocated for a harsher punishment. One victim, who was present, described how Wattigny spent time grooming him in the mid-1990s. The victim said Wattigny told him he could help him gain entry to heaven, then took him to a rectory to fondle his genitals. Wattigny also used his fingers to rape the victim while masturbating.

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US urges appeals court to uphold Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking conviction

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Maxwell was given 20-year prison sentence for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls

The US government has urged an appeals court to uphold Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction and 20-year prison sentence for helping the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.

In a Thursday night filing with the second US circuit court of appeals in Manhattan, federal prosecutors said none of Maxwell’s legal arguments about the fairness of her trial held merit.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html.

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Anguish as rape survivors in Sudan unable to access vital medication

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Emergency contraception, HIV-prevention and abortion drugs are locked in a warehouse in Khartoum – leaving women to turn to desperate measures

Rape survivors in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, are struggling to get hold of emergency contraception and abortion medication.

Access to a warehouse where 47,000 medical post-rape kits are stored has been cut off since the conflict began in April. Women are using social media to share information about where to find drugs to prevent pregnancies and infections – or are using herbal remedies.

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Alleged sexual assault victim unable to be examined at local hospital due to staff shortages, Queensland MP says

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Labor MP Tom Smith raises concerns after speaking to alleged victim who was taken in the back of a police car to a hospital 90 minutes away

An alleged victim of a sexual assault was transported by Queensland police to a hospital 90 minutes away as staff shortages meant she was unable to be examined at her local hospital, a state Labor MP has claimed.

Tom Smith, the MP for Bundaberg, said he was concerned about the pressures on the state’s health system after speaking to the alleged victim.

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NSW lawyers call for reform of ‘disgraceful’ tactic churches use to block abuse claims

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Critics say the seeking of permanent stays in cases where perpetrators have died amount to ‘another layer of abuse’ for survivors and a failure of moral leadership

The Australian Lawyers Alliance is preparing to meet with the New South Wales attorney general to lobby for reform against the “disgraceful” tactics employed by churches and other institutions to prevent abuse survivors from pursuing justice.

A Guardian investigation – based on interviews with 13 lawyers, analysis of court records, and discussions with survivors and their advocates – found earlier this year that churches and other institutions are now routinely seeking permanent stays in cases where perpetrators have died, arguing they cannot possibly receive a fair trial.

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Plan to scrap specialist sex offender teams ‘a danger to public safety’, says probation union

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Highly skilled officers in England and Wales to be replaced by less qualified staff under MoJ proposals

Plans to disband specialist teams that deliver treatment courses for sex offenders have prompted fears public safety will be jeopardised.

Under the Ministry of Justice proposals, which are being fiercely resisted internally, behaviour programmes for a wide variety of offenders would be delivered by staff who are not fully qualified probation officers.

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