Dozens of accused deny rape, despite video evidence showing unconscious Gisèle Pelicot snoring loudly
Taking the stand in France’s biggest ever rape trial, Patrice N, 55, an electrician from the southern town of Carpentras, said he was a “jovial” guy and a fun dad who once trained youth football teams and had a “great respect for women”.
He denied the charges of rape, claiming rape had never been his intention. “To my mind, it was a game,” he told the court.
Continue reading...Mohamed Iidow attacked Natalie Shotter after she apparently passed out in park in Southall after night out
A man has been convicted of the rape and manslaughter of a woman while she lay unconscious on a park bench in west London after a night out.
Natalie Shotter, 37, an NHS worker, was attacked after apparently passing out in Southall in July 2021. Mohamed Iidow orally raped her “until she died”, his trial heard.
Continue reading...Police forces in France, Italy and Spain join cold-case initiative after launch last year of Operation Identify Me
Police have expanded a cold-case campaign aimed at identifying dozens of women who were murdered or who died in suspicious circumstances across Europe, taking in three new countries and more than doubling the number of cases.
The international policing organisation Interpol said on Tuesday that forces from France, Italy and Spain had joined those in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, which last year launched Operation Identify Me to help name 22 female victims.
Continue reading...Man in Rotterdam faces €100 penalty after law introduced across Netherlands to tackle harassment in public spaces
A court in the Netherlands has fined a man for harassing and intimidating a woman on a street in Rotterdam, in the first conviction under a new law tackling sexual harassment in public spaces.
The 33-year-old man was fined €100 (£84) by a court in Rotterdam on Wednesday, months after he was accused of grabbing a woman on the street by the hips and holding her. The court set out an additional fine of €180 if he is caught reoffending.
Continue reading...Defence secretary to meet family of woman allegedly killed by soldier, as ITV airs documentary alleging fresh abuses
The army is to launch an inquiry into the behaviour of British troops posted to a military base in Kenya, after multiple allegations of serious abuses committed by soldiers, including rape and murder.
The inquiry is to examine the conduct of military personnel posted to the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK). It is where the soldier alleged to have murdered a Kenyan woman, Agnes Wanjiru, was posted at the time of her death in 2012.
Continue reading...Michael Ward says former Harrods owner ‘presided over a toxic culture’, describing it as ‘shameful period’
The managing director of Harrods has apologised and said the business “failed our colleagues” following sexual misconduct allegations against the department store’s former owner, Mohamed Al Fayed.
In a statement, Michael Ward said it is clear Fayed “presided over a toxic culture of secrecy, intimidation, fear of repercussion and sexual misconduct”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: store issues new statement as lawyers describe redress scheme it has set up as attempted ‘whitewash’
Harrods is investigating whether any of its current staff were “directly or indirectly involved” in the alleged sexual abuse of women by its former owner Mohamed Al Fayed.
With more than 100 women having come forward to allege being raped or assaulted by the Egyptian tycoon, the luxury store said it had launched a review and was in direct contact with Scotland Yard.
Continue reading...Australian Study of Health and Relationships finds 3.9% of women aged 16-69 had experienced contraceptive interference and 4.9% forced abortion
One in 20 Australian adults have experienced reproductive coercion and abuse.
That is among the findings of the Australian Study of Health and Relationships (ASHR), released this week, the first time researchers in Australia have estimated the national prevalence of behaviour used to control a person’s reproductive autonomy.
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Continue reading...The horrifying details of the case that shook the country, and the local mayor’s reaction, show a refusal to confront abuse
As the horror of how Dominique Pelicot drugged his wife, Gisèle, and allowed at least 83 men to rape her continued to unfold in a French courtroom last week, it was hard to see how the case “could have been worse” as one local official suggested.
Louis Bonnet, mayor of Mazan, the southern French town of 6,000 people where the Pelicots and a number of the alleged rapists lived, who added that “no one was killed”, later apologised and admitted his words were not “entirely appropriate”.
Continue reading...Pélicot’s testimony set to be decisive for 50 other men accused of raping his then wife Gisèle over nine-year period
A 71-year-old French man accused of drugging his wife so that he and dozens of strangers could sexually assault her at her home has told a court that he admitted the charges and was a rapist.
“I am a rapist, like the others in this room,” Dominique Pélicot said, quietly and calmly, as he looked across the courtroom at the 50 other men who are also on trial accused of raping his wife in her own bed while she was drugged and in a state akin to a “deep coma”.
Continue reading...Mother hopes case will ‘shine a light’ on family courts and Cafcass
A convicted rapist who was previously allowed to have unsupervised time with his child has been stripped of his parental responsibility.
Kristoffer White, who has been described as a “danger to women and children”, failed to turn up to court last week for a hearing, attended by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), to determine the involvement he could have in his daughter’s life.
Continue reading...Mourners in Uganda pay respects to Olympic athlete whose death prompted renewed calls for more protection for women in sport
Thousands of mourners in Uganda paid their respects on Saturday to Rebecca Cheptegei, the Olympic athlete who died last week in Kenya after her partner set her on fire. The military funeral took place in a remote town near the Kenyan border.
Military officers played a prominent role in the funeral because Cheptegei held the rank of sergeant in Uganda’s army, said military spokesperson Brig Felix Kulayigye, adding that she deserved a “gun salute that befits her rank”.
Continue reading...State government apologises for data system breach as victim says it left her ‘completely defeated, broken, scared and worried’
The addresses of domestic violence victims have been shared with offenders by Queensland police, including a “vulnerable woman” who was then allegedly told to relocate by officers.
The state government apologised on Thursday after it emerged a woman felt “completely defeated” when her personal information was exposed by the serious data breach.
Continue reading...Damning report shows victims can wait up to four years for trials, and half of investigators are not fully qualified
Specialist investigators who are supposed to hunt down rapists are being diverted to police football matches and festivals, with victims waiting up to four years for their alleged attackers to come to trial, a report from the official police inspectorate has found.
In some cases big delays mean victims are dropping out of supporting prosecutions, risking attackers getting away with it.
Continue reading...The rape-murder of a trainee doctor in a Kolkata hospital has caused outrage across India. Here, her father recalls her urge to help others and their struggle to support her studies
The father of the trainee doctor murdered during a rest break at a Kolkata hospital has spoken of his daughter’s love of medicine and the way her family had worked to support her vocation.
“We are a poor family and we raised her with a lot of hardship. She worked extremely hard to become a doctor. All she did was study, study, study,” he told the Guardian by telephone.
Continue reading...Non-essential medical services paralysed as more than a million doctors expected to join 24-hour protest amid rising anger at violence against women
Hospitals and clinics across India have begun turning away patients except for emergency cases as medical professionals started a 24-hour shutdown in protest against the rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.
More than 1 million doctors were expected to join Saturday’s strike, paralysing medical services across the world’s most populous nation. Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases.
Continue reading...All hospital services except for emergency care to be shut down on Saturday amid outrage over Kolkata attack
All hospital services in India except for emergency care will shut down on Saturday as doctors escalate their protest over the rape and murder of a colleague by calling for a nationwide strike.
A strike that doctors started on Monday was more limited, affecting only government hospitals and elective surgeries. The one on Saturday, called by the Indian Medical Association, will cause massive disruption for 24 hours. All outpatient services and treatment in government and private hospitals will be cancelled.
Continue reading...Palaszczuk, who retired from politics in December after almost nine years as QLD premier, will serve a three-year term as a non-executive director. Follow today’s news headlines live
‘We have to have a constant reminder’
The committee also called for a culturally appropriate and nationally significant recognition and remembrance of murdered and disappeared First Nations women and children. Dorinda Cox said this would be “significant” if the government accepted the recommendation:
It would … have some permanent features to remind us the role that history has played for missing and murdered or disappeared women and children and First Nations women and children in this country, because there’s a story there that needs to be told, and we have to have a constant reminder.
Like we do … with the Australian war memorial of the safety that we have as a country, but also that this part of our history – this is now ingrained in and sketched into. And if we want to continue to work on this and continue to maintain safety for women and children and the most vulnerable, which is First Nations – as we know, we’re in an emergency for all women, but First Nations women and children are at the front of that – we have to have some permanent features, otherwise we become invisible.
What we hear too often is that this is a state and territory problem. States are responsible for their police forces, in particular … We have to centre our approaches and our outcomes in [addressing these issues] and we have to look at the culture of the organisations, such as police.
There’s lots of reporting on the media in relation to the attitudes of police across Australia, and that has to get better, but we have to have a measure against that – we can’t just put in the attorney general [to] have a chat to the police ministers, and nothing changes … Because if we don’t look at this in a way of wanting change, nothing ever changes.
Continue reading...Armed gangs control much of Caribbean country’s capital with reports of 40 rape victims a day in areas, UN reports
The UN has called for the deployment of international security forces in Haiti to be accelerated after a report that at least 1,379 people were killed or wounded in gang warfare and 428 people kidnapped in the country between April and June this year.
“Service providers report receiving an average of 40 rape victims a day in some areas of the capital,” warns the new report from the UN’s office in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.
Continue reading...Sakina Muhammad Jan to serve at least 12 months in prison in Australia’s first forced marriage conviction
Ruqia Haidari wanted to marry for love.
Instead, she had an arranged marriage at the age of just 15, with the relationship ending in divorce when she was 20.
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