Requests for legal advice from women who suffered sexual abuse in childhood have been on the increase since a 2014 court ruling that granted a woman’s request for compensation.
With the aid of lawyers, the woman is campaigning for a suspension of the statute of limitations, which often prevents victims from filing lawsuits or criminal complaints.
Since the Sapporo High Court ruling in September 2014, lawyer Toko Teramachi, who worked for the plaintiff, has received about 20 inquiries from women in their 30s and 40s who claim to have experienced similar sexual abuse.
“I was surprised to learn there were so many victims,” Teramachi said.
The high court ruling, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in July this year, ordered an uncle of the plaintiff, in her 40s, to pay her about ¥30 million ($246,000), including ¥20 million in damages and ¥9 million to cover medical costs for treating depression attributed to the abuse.
“Sexual abuse of children is committed mostly by relatives or other acquaintances, so the cases tend to be kept quiet,” said Toshiko Kamo, chief of the Institute of Women’s Health at Tokyo Women’s Medical University, who provides psychological treatment for plaintiffs involved in such lawsuits.
“The woman’s courageous act should be the start of a new movement and an attitude of never forgiving sexual abuse should be shared widely in society,” Kamo said.
Time limitations on such suits remain a major stumbling block to efforts to make perpetrators accountable.
The right to seek compensation in civil litigation expires 20 years after the illegal act has taken place, while there is a seven-year statute of limitations for the filing of criminal complaints.
“I sometimes have to tell a woman seeking advice that she is no longer eligible to file a damages suit as the 20-year limit has passed,” Teramachi said.
According to the high court ruling, the plaintiff, from Kushiro in Hokkaido, was sexually abused by the uncle between the ages of 3 and 8. She began to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder around 1983 and depression around 2006.
A district court ruling rejected the woman’s petition on the grounds that when she filed the suit in 2011, 20 years had already passed since the abuse ended in 1983.
But the high court made a different judgment on the starting point of the statute of limitations, ruling that the reckoning should have started when she developed her illnesses. The time limit for seeking compensation, therefore, had expired for PTSD but not for depression, it concluded.
The woman and Teramachi have met lawmakers to lobby for amendments to the laws so that the statute of limitations under the Civil Code and Penal Code is suspended until sexual abuse victims turn 20 years of age. They also requested better assistance from medical specialists.
According to lawyers for the woman and the Justice Ministry, such suspensions have been adopted in some U.S. states, Germany, France and South Korea.
The woman and her supporters plan to submit the same requests to the government, along with the signatures of people supporting their call for a suspension of the statute of limitations.
“I hope children who are living in despair will not come up against the same wall in 10 or 20 years as the one I faced,” the woman said in a message posted on the Internet by Teramachi after the Supreme Court ruling. “All we can do is to make efforts step by step.”
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-08-31 12:23:212015-08-31 12:23:21Campaign ramps up to lift statute of limitations on child abuse complaints, Japan Times
An Olympic gymnastics coach was arrested early Monday morning in Indianapolis on suspicion of child molestation, a spokeswoman for the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office told NBC News.
The spokeswoman, Peg McLeish, said that Marvin Sharp has not formally been charged, and that her office is sharing its investigation with federal authorities.
WTHR reported that the investigation began with a complaint from a female gymnast at Sharp’s Gymnastics Academy. On Sunday evening, detectives searching for child pornography removed computers and other electronic devices from Sharp’s home, the station reported.
In a statement, USA Gymnastics told WTHR that it “is cooperating with law enforcement’s active investigation” of Sharp.
According to the academy’s website, Sharp opened the facility 14 years ago and has sent over 100 athletes to national championships.
In 2008, Sharp’s gymnasts participated in the academy’s first Olympic games. According to WTHR, two of them, Samantha Peszek and Bridget Sloan, won silver medals in Beijing.
WOODBINE | A Camden County jury found karate instructor Thomas Franklin Ary guilty Thursday in his retrial on three charges of the child molestation of a young student.
The eight-woman, four-man jury began deliberating about 11 a.m. and returned about 4 p.m. with its verdict of guilty on all counts of molesting a young girl who was 8 and 9 during two summer camps at Pak’s Karate Institute in Kingsland where Ary was a long-time instructor.
District Attorney Jackie Johnson said Superior Court Judge Stephen G. Scarlett ordered to jail and set Ary’s sentencing for Sept. 17.
He faces five to 20 years in prison.
Assistant District Attorney Katie Gropper, who prosecuted the case, met with the victims family after the verdict.
“They’re very pleased. They’re very happy to be able to put this behind them and have some justice and closure,” Gropper said.
In a video with an investigator, the girl said Ary fondled her three times as she sat on his lap while watching movies. She testified Ary had also taken her into a bathroom and rubbed his genitals against hers. She said that he had once reached inside her pants, but that the contact was always through clothing.
A jury failed to reach a verdict on the charges in 2014 and acquitted Ary of two counts of the sexual molestation of a young female relative.
Defense lawyer Richard Allen described the 60-year-old Ary’s accuser as a “3-foot-tall Merle Streep,’’ and said she could turn the tears on and off.
Allen asserted that Ary has taught more than 1,000 young students over the years and was like a grandfather to them. Ary acknowledged in testifying in his defense Wednesday that he held children on his lap.
Allen asked the jury, “What’s he supposed to do? Push them on the floor?”
Allen stopped short of calling the young accuser a liar, but said that children often tell untruths because of their vivid imaginations.
“Kids lie. Kids fabricate. Kids fabricate. Kids will lie. It’s part of their job description,’’ he said.
When it came her time to respond, Gropper appeared angry as she challenged Allen’s characterizations of two young accusers, including another young Paks’ student who said Ary placed his hand between her legs and wiggled his fingers.
Allen wants the jury to believe the victim is conniving, vindictive and spiteful, Gropper said.
“Do you think this is fun for her? Dragging her through this process?” Gropper asked the jury.
The youngster is being punished for doing what all parents want their children to do, tell when they’ve been molested, Gropper said.
She said that Ary was someone the young student had trusted, and who gave her a special nickname, tied her karate belt for her, showed her a pistol he kept in his truck, gave her candy and said, “Come sit on my lap.”
She noted that the young girl and another, who testified to a fondling incident for which Ary has not yet been charged, both gave consistently detailed accounts. The did that even though they hadn’t seen each other in a year to keep their stories straight, Gropper said.
“If it’s a lie, they’re not going to be able to keep the details straight,’’ she said of witnesses so young.
She asserted that the children told the truth and that Ary did not.
“The only person with anything to gain by lying in this case is Thomas Ary,’’ Gropper said.
The closing arguments took about an hour, and, after a short recess, Scarlett charged the jury on the applicable law and sent them into deliberations about 11 a.m.
The jury was selected Monday and evidence took all day Tuesday and a couple of hours Wednesday.
In 1983, a young Boy Scout met with two of his scout leaders and some other scouts at TY Park in Hollywood. The boy, now a 40-year-old man, says the scoutmasters gave him and other scouts alcohol, showed them pornography, and had them run around naked. The scoutmasters eventually molested the boys, the victim says, during scouting events and even in the scoutmasters’ homes. The various incidents of sexual abuse alleged by the victim are all detailed in a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America and the South Florida Council of Boy Scouts of America. The lawsuit also goes on to say that the Boy Scouts of America knew about the scoutmasters’ abuse and covered it up to protect them and the organization.
But Miami-Dade Judge Jose M. Rodriguez of the 11th Judicial Circuit recently ruled that the Boy Scouts of America must turn over documents that detail incidents of sexual abuse.
Those internal files, which at one point were known as the “Perversion Files,” had records of adult scout leaders who had been accused of sexual abuse by scouts. Since the 1980s, the Boy Scouts of America have been fighting to keep these records from being obtained and made public.
The victim in the Florida lawsuit, identified as GE DOE, says that his encounter at TY Park happened when he was only 8 years old, sometime in either 1983 or 1984.
Campaign ramps up to lift statute of limitations on child abuse complaints, Japan Times
/in International /by SOL ReformRequests for legal advice from women who suffered sexual abuse in childhood have been on the increase since a 2014 court ruling that granted a woman’s request for compensation.
With the aid of lawyers, the woman is campaigning for a suspension of the statute of limitations, which often prevents victims from filing lawsuits or criminal complaints.
Since the Sapporo High Court ruling in September 2014, lawyer Toko Teramachi, who worked for the plaintiff, has received about 20 inquiries from women in their 30s and 40s who claim to have experienced similar sexual abuse.
“I was surprised to learn there were so many victims,” Teramachi said.
The high court ruling, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in July this year, ordered an uncle of the plaintiff, in her 40s, to pay her about ¥30 million ($246,000), including ¥20 million in damages and ¥9 million to cover medical costs for treating depression attributed to the abuse.
“Sexual abuse of children is committed mostly by relatives or other acquaintances, so the cases tend to be kept quiet,” said Toshiko Kamo, chief of the Institute of Women’s Health at Tokyo Women’s Medical University, who provides psychological treatment for plaintiffs involved in such lawsuits.
“The woman’s courageous act should be the start of a new movement and an attitude of never forgiving sexual abuse should be shared widely in society,” Kamo said.
Time limitations on such suits remain a major stumbling block to efforts to make perpetrators accountable.
The right to seek compensation in civil litigation expires 20 years after the illegal act has taken place, while there is a seven-year statute of limitations for the filing of criminal complaints.
“I sometimes have to tell a woman seeking advice that she is no longer eligible to file a damages suit as the 20-year limit has passed,” Teramachi said.
According to the high court ruling, the plaintiff, from Kushiro in Hokkaido, was sexually abused by the uncle between the ages of 3 and 8. She began to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder around 1983 and depression around 2006.
A district court ruling rejected the woman’s petition on the grounds that when she filed the suit in 2011, 20 years had already passed since the abuse ended in 1983.
But the high court made a different judgment on the starting point of the statute of limitations, ruling that the reckoning should have started when she developed her illnesses. The time limit for seeking compensation, therefore, had expired for PTSD but not for depression, it concluded.
The woman and Teramachi have met lawmakers to lobby for amendments to the laws so that the statute of limitations under the Civil Code and Penal Code is suspended until sexual abuse victims turn 20 years of age. They also requested better assistance from medical specialists.
According to lawyers for the woman and the Justice Ministry, such suspensions have been adopted in some U.S. states, Germany, France and South Korea.
The woman and her supporters plan to submit the same requests to the government, along with the signatures of people supporting their call for a suspension of the statute of limitations.
“I hope children who are living in despair will not come up against the same wall in 10 or 20 years as the one I faced,” the woman said in a message posted on the Internet by Teramachi after the Supreme Court ruling. “All we can do is to make efforts step by step.”
Campaign ramps up to lift statute of limitations on child abuse complaints _ The Japan Times
Tim Stelloh, Olympic Gymnastics Coach Marvin Sharp Arrested on Suspicion of Child Molestation, NBC News
/in Indiana /by SOL ReformAn Olympic gymnastics coach was arrested early Monday morning in Indianapolis on suspicion of child molestation, a spokeswoman for the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office told NBC News.
The spokeswoman, Peg McLeish, said that Marvin Sharp has not formally been charged, and that her office is sharing its investigation with federal authorities.
WTHR reported that the investigation began with a complaint from a female gymnast at Sharp’s Gymnastics Academy. On Sunday evening, detectives searching for child pornography removed computers and other electronic devices from Sharp’s home, the station reported.
In a statement, USA Gymnastics told WTHR that it “is cooperating with law enforcement’s active investigation” of Sharp.
According to the academy’s website, Sharp opened the facility 14 years ago and has sent over 100 athletes to national championships.
In 2008, Sharp’s gymnasts participated in the academy’s first Olympic games. According to WTHR, two of them, Samantha Peszek and Bridget Sloan, won silver medals in Beijing.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/olympic-gymnastics-coach-arrested-suspicion-child-molestation-n415146
View PDF: Olympic Gymnastics Coach Marvin Sharp Arrested on Suspicion of Child Molestation
Terry Dickson, Camden County jury finds karate instructor guilty on 3 child molestation charges in retrial, Jacksonville
/in Georgia /by SOL ReformWOODBINE | A Camden County jury found karate instructor Thomas Franklin Ary guilty Thursday in his retrial on three charges of the child molestation of a young student.
The eight-woman, four-man jury began deliberating about 11 a.m. and returned about 4 p.m. with its verdict of guilty on all counts of molesting a young girl who was 8 and 9 during two summer camps at Pak’s Karate Institute in Kingsland where Ary was a long-time instructor.
District Attorney Jackie Johnson said Superior Court Judge Stephen G. Scarlett ordered to jail and set Ary’s sentencing for Sept. 17.
He faces five to 20 years in prison.
Assistant District Attorney Katie Gropper, who prosecuted the case, met with the victims family after the verdict.
“They’re very pleased. They’re very happy to be able to put this behind them and have some justice and closure,” Gropper said.
In a video with an investigator, the girl said Ary fondled her three times as she sat on his lap while watching movies. She testified Ary had also taken her into a bathroom and rubbed his genitals against hers. She said that he had once reached inside her pants, but that the contact was always through clothing.
A jury failed to reach a verdict on the charges in 2014 and acquitted Ary of two counts of the sexual molestation of a young female relative.
Defense lawyer Richard Allen described the 60-year-old Ary’s accuser as a “3-foot-tall Merle Streep,’’ and said she could turn the tears on and off.
Allen asserted that Ary has taught more than 1,000 young students over the years and was like a grandfather to them. Ary acknowledged in testifying in his defense Wednesday that he held children on his lap.
Allen asked the jury, “What’s he supposed to do? Push them on the floor?”
Allen stopped short of calling the young accuser a liar, but said that children often tell untruths because of their vivid imaginations.
“Kids lie. Kids fabricate. Kids fabricate. Kids will lie. It’s part of their job description,’’ he said.
When it came her time to respond, Gropper appeared angry as she challenged Allen’s characterizations of two young accusers, including another young Paks’ student who said Ary placed his hand between her legs and wiggled his fingers.
Allen wants the jury to believe the victim is conniving, vindictive and spiteful, Gropper said.
“Do you think this is fun for her? Dragging her through this process?” Gropper asked the jury.
The youngster is being punished for doing what all parents want their children to do, tell when they’ve been molested, Gropper said.
She said that Ary was someone the young student had trusted, and who gave her a special nickname, tied her karate belt for her, showed her a pistol he kept in his truck, gave her candy and said, “Come sit on my lap.”
She noted that the young girl and another, who testified to a fondling incident for which Ary has not yet been charged, both gave consistently detailed accounts. The did that even though they hadn’t seen each other in a year to keep their stories straight, Gropper said.
“If it’s a lie, they’re not going to be able to keep the details straight,’’ she said of witnesses so young.
She asserted that the children told the truth and that Ary did not.
“The only person with anything to gain by lying in this case is Thomas Ary,’’ Gropper said.
The closing arguments took about an hour, and, after a short recess, Scarlett charged the jury on the applicable law and sent them into deliberations about 11 a.m.
The jury was selected Monday and evidence took all day Tuesday and a couple of hours Wednesday.
Terry Dickson: (912) 264-0405
View as PDF: View article as PDF
http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2015-08-27/story/camden-county-jury-finds-karate-instructor-guilty-3-child-molestation
Law and Religion
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformFlyer – Law and Religion
Chris Joseph, Boy Scouts’ Request to Keep Sexual Abuse Files Confidential Denied by Florida Judge, Broward Palm Beach
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformIn 1983, a young Boy Scout met with two of his scout leaders and some other scouts at TY Park in Hollywood. The boy, now a 40-year-old man, says the scoutmasters gave him and other scouts alcohol, showed them pornography, and had them run around naked. The scoutmasters eventually molested the boys, the victim says, during scouting events and even in the scoutmasters’ homes. The various incidents of sexual abuse alleged by the victim are all detailed in a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America and the South Florida Council of Boy Scouts of America. The lawsuit also goes on to say that the Boy Scouts of America knew about the scoutmasters’ abuse and covered it up to protect them and the organization.
But Miami-Dade Judge Jose M. Rodriguez of the 11th Judicial Circuit recently ruled that the Boy Scouts of America must turn over documents that detail incidents of sexual abuse.
Those internal files, which at one point were known as the “Perversion Files,” had records of adult scout leaders who had been accused of sexual abuse by scouts. Since the 1980s, the Boy Scouts of America have been fighting to keep these records from being obtained and made public.
The victim in the Florida lawsuit, identified as GE DOE, says that his encounter at TY Park happened when he was only 8 years old, sometime in either 1983 or 1984.
Boy Scouts’ Request to Keep Sexual Abuse Files Confidential Denied by Florida Judge _ New Times Broward-Palm Beach
Exactly!
/in Uncategorized /by SOL Reform