Head of LGBT Youth Group and 7 Others Guilty of Child Porn and Sex Charges

Eight members of a global pedophile ring were found guilty of a catalog of child pornography and abuse charges, including the sexual assault of a three-month-old baby.

From The Telegraph
By Auslan Cramb

Ringleaders Neil Strachan (bottom, far right) and James Rennie (top, second right) befriended the families of the children they abused.

The groundbreaking court case uncovered Scotland's biggest pedophile network and revealed the shocking crimes of a "spider's web of apparently respectable men".

A jury at the High Court in Edinburgh took ten hours to return verdicts on 54 separate charges.

It emerged during the case that the ringleaders Neil Strachan and James Rennie befriended the families of the children they abused.

Rennie, 38, was the chief executive of LGBT Youth Scotland, a group dedicated to helping young lesbian and homosexual deal with their sexuality.

Strachan, 41, a paint firm engineer who was previously jailed for molesting a young boy, was the former secretary of a Celtic boys club and a campaigner on homosexual issues.

The court was told that he was "polluted by deviant compulsion". Dorothy Bain QC, prosecuting, said: "In reality he is someone who allowed his profound interest in the sexual abuse of children to engulf his entire life."

Some of the evidence the jurors sat through was so disturbing that consideration was given to offering them counseling at the end of the case.

Rennie circulated photographs of his abuse of a small boy, allowed Strachan to join him in the assault, and offered the child to other pedophiles.

The family of his victim – described in court as Child F - said after the verdicts were announced that their life had been "turned upside down".

They added: "For over 15 years James Rennie seemed the closest of family friends and it is hard to put into words the extent of the betrayal he has exacted upon us, as many of the details may identify our family and son.

"To subsequently learn that he abused our son, and invited others to do the same, has been devastating. As a family we have had to learn to live, and cope with, the effect these horrific events have had."

The mother of an 18-month-old boy abused by Strachan said she would never be able to forgive him for the "sick" attacks on her son.

She added: "The anguish I feel towards Mr Strachan is indescribable. I feel that no matter what punishment given to Mr Strachan it will never be able to compensate for the hurt, devastation and great deal of stress brought to me and my family.

"Mr Strachan used and abused our trust in order to satisfy his and others' sick needs."

In a legal first in a Scottish court, five of the men were convicted of a charge of conspiring to commit sex offenses against children.

The group was caught after an international investigation called Operation Algebra was launched in response to the discovery of photographs on the computer of one of the men.

More than 125,000 images were seized in the inquiry and officers discovered links with pedophiles in the US and the Netherlands.

Strachan, Rennie, Ross Webber, 27, a bank worker from North Berwick, Craig Boath, 24, an insurance claims adjuster, and John Milligan, 40, a civil servant from Glasgow, were found guilty of plotting to turn their fantasies into reality by arranging access to children to carry out acts of sexual abuse.

The same five were also found guilty, along with Colin Slaven, 23, an IT worker from Edinburgh, John Murphy, 44, a receptionist in a sauna in Glasgow, and Neil Campbell, 46, a cake firm manager from Glasgow, of charges relating to child pornography.

The offenses were committed in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and East Lothian between February 2004 to May 2008.

They will be sentenced later.

Child Porn Pandemic as Police Estimate 600,000 Americans, 65,000 Canadians Trading Child Porn Online

From LifeSiteNews
By Kathleen Gilbert

Ontario police yesterday celebrated the results of a province-wide child pornography bust, the largest in Ontario's history - yet officers acknowledge they have only scratched the surface of the massive underworld of child sexual abuse in North America.

Police officers said at a press conference Thursday that the sweep led to the arrest of 31 child sex offenders between the age of 14 and 60, as well as the rescue of two young victims, a 4-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl. The maximum jail time for creating and distributing child pornography is ten years, with five years for possessing images.

But the "huge" bust has hardly put a dent in the actual child pornographer population - which officials estimate at a staggering 600,000 in the U.S., and 65,000 in Canada. The profits for creating and trading images of often-violent sexual abuse of children, toddlers, and infants amount to an estimated $2- to $3-billion each year.

The child pornography unit of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) believes the 65,000 figure is very low, as 40,000 computers in Ontario alone are known to be used to access child porn.

“The OPP is arresting about 75 of these offenders a year, when we know there are tens of thousands of them,” said Inspector Andy Stewart in a Canadian press report, also calling the 65,000 estimate "very conservative."

“We’re never going to be in a position to arrest our way out of this," he said.

“There’s just not enough manpower to go and identify and arrest these 65,000 individuals,” said Paul Gillespie, former head of Toronto police's child exploitation unit, now president and CEO of the Kids’ Internet Safety Alliance. “That’s where it gets scary and people sort of change the channel, because they don’t want to hear that the police know there’s 65,000 suspects they’re never going to get to.”

The number is even more alarming when considering how many children, toddlers and infants are put in danger by the spread of child pornography addiction. According to information released at the press conference, studies indicate that those who engage in actual child abuse - somewhere between 30-80% of those possessing abusive images - have anywhere from 13 to 30 child victims each.

Inspector Dave Ross, Deputy Director of the OPP Corporate Communications Bureau, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that, while the public is alerted when a child abuser has been arrested, there is no such alert after they are released from jail.

Thorough investigation of the sex offenders proves difficult, not only for lack of manpower, but due to the sheer perversion of the images officers must sift through to track down offenders and identify enslaved children. The evidence trail is so revolting that investigators go to yearly counseling, said Det. Staff-Sgt. Frank Goldschmidt of the OPP.

Dr. Judith Reisman, an internationally-recognized author, scientist, and educator specializing in sexual perversion, says the growing appetite for child pornography corresponds to the "pornographic, erototoxic epidemic.”

"It’s called in science 'social contagion' or 'emotional contagion,'" Reisman told LifeSiteNews.com. "Historically it is known as ‘monkey see monkey do.’ Pornography wires viewers brains to lust after rape of women and children, globally breeding nations of child rapists, serial rapist murderers and the like among men, women and even children.

Reisman said pornography "mutilates the human brain" and creates offenders, rather than simply pandering to an existing pathology. "Erototoxins turn what could have been normal, decent humans into vile and deformed molesters," she said. "Our brains and our behavior are shaped by our environment.

"Some people will withstand pornographic conditioning due to their genetic inheritance (perhaps) but more likely due to strong moral absolutes. However, even those moral absolutes can be exploited and violated by exposure to these erototoxins we call pornography."

Reisman said that someone who sees no connection between "legal" porn and the child porn pandemic is "in denial."

"Literature, music, art, cross cultural history and current brain science all coalesce to confirm the addictive, destructive process of all 'sexually provocative' visual stimuli," said Reisman. "All porn are Erototoxic because the brain converts sexual images into an endogenous drug ‘high’ via the reward system, pouring a supranormal drug cocktail similar to cocaine throughout the brain/body.

"The withdrawal state following use will be the same as withdrawal from a street drug, calling the user back to the source of image-arousal. Like alcoholics, any cue that is associated with their lust (here booze) will drive the addict, the user, back to his or her source."

See related LifeSiteNews.com articles:

Road to Perversion Is Paved With Porn
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/060412a.html

Child Porn Among Fastest Growing Internet Businesses
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/nov/05110905.html