Counter Pedophilia Investigate Unit

The defendants reportedly took sexually explicit photos of a child under age 12.

Two Valrico residents are facing multiple counts of child abuse, possession of pornography, sexual battery and other charges for photographing a child in sexual poses.

Charged are Elizabeth Wirick, 46, of 3320 Stonebridge Trail, in River Hills, Valrico, and Richard James Piccoli, 58, of the same address. (more…)

SOME cartoons or even classical writings could be illegal under Northern Territory laws outlawing child abuse material, a magistrate says.

A 24-year-old man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, attended a bail hearing yesterday accused of possessing 466 images of child abuse, about 70 per cent of them Japanese animation.

Under the NT Criminal Code, any offensive material that “depicts, describes or represents” children engaged in sex, being subjected to torture or in a demeaning context is outlawed. (more…)

Russian authorities have arrested two men on suspicion of running an online community for pedophiles, the Russian League of Internet Security announced on Wednesday. The website had more than 100 members.

The League said the owner and administrator of the website have been arrested, although no details were given about the time and place of the arrests. The website had roughly 130 members, most of them from Russia, although some were from Germany, France, Israel and former Soviet nations. (more…)

Terrence Sundsmo sat noiselessly in a downtown Portland courtroom today, hands resting placidly on his pale blue jail scrubs, waiting for the chance to say his piece before a federal judge sentenced him to prison.

For about 45 minutes, the judge, lawyers and a neuropsychologist had talked about Sundsmo.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan W. Bounds made his pitch to the judge: Sundsmo, 41, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography after previously raping a child, so he deserved 15 more years behind bars. (more…)

A CONVICTED pedophile downloaded more than 325,000 images and videos of child pornography, remaining undetected for three years, a court has been told.

The Brisbane District Court was told computer expert Jason Chiaravalle came under investigation after the Australian Federal Police received a tip-off from German police on December 8, 2008.

The court was told Chiaravalle was working as an information technology systems engineer when police searched his home at Newmarket, on Brisbane’s northside, on April 29, 2009, and seized electrical equipment including 14-computer hard drives. (more…)

A PEDOPHILE who broke into a Brisbane family’s home, stripped naked and molested a three-year-old girl and took indecent photographs of the toddler as she slept has received a combined jail term of effectively eight years.

The Brisbane District Court was told Craig Anthony Ellis broke into the family’s Aspley home on Brisbane’s northside and sexually assaulted the toddler on January 21, 2009.

Ellis, then aged 29, tried to flee when the girl’s parents were awoken by their daughter’s muffled cries – resulting in the toddler’s father crash tackling the naked intruder while the mother struck the pedophile with an ornamental samurai sword. (more…)

A jury considering verdicts in the trial of a woman and four men, including one from London, accused of being members of an international paedophile ring, has been sent home to continue its deliberations on Tuesday.

The five defendants, who include a serving soldier, are facing a range of charges at Portsmouth Crown Court including the sexual assault of children and making and distributing indecent photos of children. (more…)

Child abusers and viewers of child sex images on the web will face tough penalties in the European Union, under new rules approved by the European Parliament on October 27 2011.

The legislative resolution was adopted by the European Parliament with 541 votes in favour, two against and 31 abstentions.

The directive will also require EU countries to remove child porn web sites, or, should this prove impossible, allow them to block access to those pages within their territory. (more…)

Beyond the web we use every day there is a lawless underworld of child abuse and black marketeering that is difficult for authorities to investigate, Christopher Williams reports.

A rare shaft of light has shone on one of the darkest corners of the internet in recent days. A latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah, it is a place where rape and murder are openly advertised, and earthly authorities appear almost powerless to intervene.

This is the lawless world of darknets and specifically the Hidden Wiki, a site that isn’t on the web, that nobody reaches directly from Google and that can only be accessed using special tools. (more…)

AN alleged pedophile charged with committing 99 sex offences against a young girl, including child prostitution and producing child pornography, has been granted bail.

Richard Paul Baxter, 63, is the third person in three weeks to face court over the eight years of alleged abuse endured by the girl at a property in Brisbane’s southern suburbs, which police say ended only last month.

Mr Baxter was arrested on Monday and charged with 94 counts of indecent treatment of a child, four counts of obtaining prostitution and one count of making child exploitation material since 2004. (more…)