Sex act Pc jailed for six months

A police officer has been sentenced to six months in prison for committing a sex act in front of young girls.
Pc Lee Doggett, 24, who has since resigned from Northumbria Police, was convicted at Newcastle Crown Court last month.

He had denied five counts of outraging public decency and four of indecency with a child, during incidents in Cramlington, Northumberland, last July.

Doggett was also placed on the Sex Offenders' Register for seven years.


Continued to deny

Newcastle Crown Court heard how he had been forced to put the house he shared with his fiancée up for sale.

Paul Greaney, defending, said: "As a former police officer and a man convicted of sex offences involving children, prison will be a particularly unpleasant experience."

The court heard today how the ex-policeman continued to deny the charges.

Judge Tim Hewitt told him: "Your behaviour can only be described as obscene, indeed in many respects, pathetic."

If there had been evidence of Doggett touching his victims, the sentence would have been tougher, the judge said.

He was jailed for six months, with a further 18 months supervision by the Probation Service.

Hain almost faced sex libel case

Secret government documents released on Friday show the Commons leader, Peter Hain, was almost prosecuted for criminal libel 30 years ago.
Mr Hain was close to facing legal action over accusing a Conservative government minister of involvement in a sex scandal, government letters reveal.

But the Tories dropped the idea for fear a prosecution would be turned into a stage trial.

The threat is exposed in correspondence made public by the National Archives.

The letters, sent between the offices of the attorney general and the prime minister in 1973, came after Mr Hain named Tory MP Geoffrey Rippon in a magazine as the third minister involved in a prostitution scandal.


Anybody suing them would probably find himself having to pay his own costs, even if he won the case
Letter from Edward Heath's principal private secretary


The scandal forced the resignations of the Defence Minister Lord Lambton and the Lord Privy Seal, Lord Jellicoe.
The first letter, sent from Prime Minister Edward Heath's principal private secretary Sir Robert Armstrong to the attorney general's office, quoted a legal opinion that suing Mr Hain would have been pointless.

"No one in his senses would sue somebody like Peter Hain for libel, because people like that had no resources with which to pay costs, let alone damages; anybody suing them would probably find himself having to pay his own costs, even if he won the case," it said.

Rare trial

Sir Robert raises the possibility of starting criminal libel proceedings.

A member of the attorney general's staff replied that a prosecution under criminal libel laws should only be brought if the libel was likely to "disturb the peace of the community".

He added such a trial would be so rare it might bring unwanted attention upon the victim.

Sir Robert replied that prosecuting cases such as Mr Hain's "would be a recognition by the authorities that civil proceedings were likely to be ineffective ... and that the purpose of the libel was not just to defame an individual but to bring institutions into disrepute and thus, in the end, disturb the peace of the community".

But he concluded that a first prosecution would have to be "carefully chosen".

Mr Hain joined the Labour party in 1977 and entered the House of Commons in 1991.

Sentencing for sex act policeman

A policeman, who was found guilty of committing a sex act in front of children, is due to be sentenced.
Pc Lee Doggett, 24, of Northumbria Police, was convicted at Newcastle Crown Court last month.

He had denied five counts of outraging public decency and four of indecency with a child, during incidents in Cramlington, Northumberland, last July.

Doggett, who has since retired from the force, will appear at Newcastle Crown Court on Friday.

After the jury returned their verdicts, it was revealed he faced similar allegations dating back to April this year, but the Crown decided not to proceed with these charges.

Child sex charges for UN cop

A SENIOR Victorian police officer working for the United Nations in Africa has been charged with child sex offences after a fellow investigator allegedly discovered a 13-year-old girl in his bedroom.

Superintendent Peter "Prong" Halloran, who took leave from Victoria Police earlier this year to work as a war crimes investigator in Sierra Leone, has been charged with carnal knowledge involving the 13-year-old girl he employed as a housekeeper.

The Australian has confirmed that Mr Halloran was suspended from his position with the UN's Special Court in June after a female officer, believed to be Australian, discovered the girl drinking tea in his bedroom early one morning.

The female officer is believed to have encouraged the girl to give a statement to local police, and then complained to her superiors.

According to a report in Sierra Leone's Concord Times newspaper, Mr Halloran, 56, met the alleged victim earlier this year after approaching a gardener at the UN's Special Court in Freetown, telling him he needed a house girl.

The man offered his 13-year-old sister after Mr Halloran agreed to pay for her tuition fees until she graduated from university, as well as paying her family about $150 a month.

The paper claims police had difficulty pursuing the assault allegations because the girl's family refused to co-operate, and even wrote a letter of apology to Mr Halloran.

The paper also claims the alleged victim told police she was sexually assaulted by Mr Halloran. "He plays with my breasts and makes love to me at night," the girl is reported to have told police.

The allegations were initially investigated by Special Court officials but they could not substantiate the allegations.

Mr Halloran was only charged on Wednesday after the investigation was formally taken over by Sierra Leone police last month.

Mr Halloran, who is now in custody awaiting trial, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

The former head of Vicpol's homicide squad and protective services unit denies the allegations. Two of the alleged victim's brothers have also been charged with obstructing the course of justice and procurement-related offences.

Mr Halloran was able to travel to Africa even though Vicpol's Ethical Standards Department had received detailed allegations he had maintained relationships with Melbourne criminals beyond his police duties.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest nations in the world and has been decimated over the past decade by a brutal civil war.

There have been numerous cases in the country of families who have sold their daughters to foreigners.

THE OLYMPIC SEX GAMES

Organisers of the Athens Olympics are in a lather over the latest edition of Playboy which pokes sexy fun at the Games.

The Greek edition of the magazine features naked models throwing the discus, running and holding the Olympic rings and torch.


"Harder, deeper, longer," is how it paraphrases the Olympic motto "faster, higher, stronger."

"2004 seconds of pleasure," is the title of a 4-page "erotic tale of Olympic fantasy" featured in the special.

"Win gold in the sexathlon," the magazine urges readers.

Officials, who also took offence to a picture of five coloured condoms arranged like the Olympic rings, went to court to get the magazine removed from news stands, but the case was thrown out.

They argued that Playboy "humiliates and ridicules Olympic symbols... causing enormous economic damage to our sponsors, license holders and Olympic product manufacturers".

But Greek Playboy publisher Attikes Ekdoseis said: "The pictures have been already published in various Playboy editions abroad, some in Sydney and Barcelona.

"No other Olympic organising committee had ever been bothered by their publication."

RIO DENIES ANY GROUP SEX

Football star Rio Ferdinand has lost a legal bid to stop a TV sex video which featured the England defender.

The big Man United centre back went to the High Court to stop Sex, Footballers and Videotape from being broadcast but lost his bid.


Premiership stars Frank Lampard and Kieron Dyer and a third man were also in the programme.

The programme used one minute's footage of three men involved in a "roasting sex session".

But a lawyer for Ferdinand strongly denied the footballer had taken part in any group sex.

Explicit scenes showed England stars Dyer and Lampard and a third man giggling as they lived out sexual fantasies with female fans.

A female voice on the Channel 4 programme says, "No filming," but a male voice replies: "Suck my d*** and I won't film."

Men's voices were also heard making lewd suggestions to women apparently happy to take part.

A lawyer for Chelsea midfielder Lampard warned: "We'll sue, we'll sue."

German police probe sex play

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- German police are investigating a Spanish theatre troupe under obscenity laws after displays of graphic sex and bestiality in a controversial play called "XXX," authorities say.

An outraged woman in the audience alerted police after witnessing scenes of urination and simulated rape and oral sex, and a video showing scenes of bestiality at the play's opening night in the northern city of Hamburg.

"We respect the right to freedom of artistic expression. But where the law may have been broken we have to investigate," Hamburg police spokesman Ralf Kunz said on Friday. "We will decide whether the play should be banned."

The piece by Catalan group "La Fura dels Baus" is billed as a modern theatrical response to the porn industry, and based on a 1795 text by infamous French playwright the Marquis de Sade.

The show's producers have said the piece is designed to expose society's hypocritical attitudes to sex.

'Sex in the City' reveals London's dark secrets

More than 8,000 women, a vast majority of them from overseas, including South East Asia, are working as prostitutes in flats, saunas and massage parlours in London and many of them are operating through escort agencies, a study indicated on Friday.

The first comprehensive study of the "off-street" sex trade in the British capital pointed out that four-fifths of them are from overseas and many have been trafficked into the country from eastern Europe and South East Asia by criminal gangs who force them to work in brutal conditions.

Some have been kidnapped and beaten, while others are brought into the country under false pretences.

'Sex in the City', published by the Poppy Project, which supports women trying to leave the sex trade, maps prostitution across London.

There are 730 flats, parlours and saunas selling sex in London. Westminster, literally the heart of the city, has 138 premises, while other boroughs average 19 sites to buy sex, each with four to eight women on an average.

Only 19 per cent of these women are British. The rest are from eastern Europe (25 per cent), South East Asia (13 per
cent), West Europe (12 per cent) and Africa (2 per cent). Upto 2,200 women are selling sex via London's 164 escort agencies.

Research carried out in 2000 suggests up to 1,420 women are trafficked annually into the UK for sexual exploitation.

According to the Home Office, about 80,000 people are involved in prostitution throughout Britain. As many as 70 per cent of the women on the streets were coerced into prostitution as young people, and as many as 90 per cent of them have a class A drug habit.

"The issue is widespread within Britain and across western Europe," Superintendent Chris Bradford, head of operations for the metropolitan police's clubs and vice unit, cautioned.

"We have been telling people about this for an awfully long time," he said. "I would suggest every town in the UK has got a problem."

The six-month study found 730 brothels and 164 escort agencies operating in the capital, as well as 66 lap-dancing clubs, some of which appeared to be connected to prostitution.

Many had linked telephone numbers, suggesting that a network of criminals or criminal groups was cooperating, allowing perhaps 1,000 women to be moved around to avoid detection and keep them isolated.

"The number of women involved in this and the experiences they go through are shocking," Sandra Dickson, author of the report, said.

"The off-street sex industry is largely ignored in most discussions of prostitution, yet the women working in it are also vulnerable to being exploited by violent and abusive pimps and traffickers.

"Women trafficked into prostitution told us they worked alongside other trafficked women all over London. These places are on our local high streets, and they're not a 'bit of fun for the lads' - they are places women are being held in and hurt," she said.

The study says that more funding is needed to help the police tackle the problem. It calls for greater support for women trafficked to this country, ensuring that they have safe housing and are granted asylum if they cannot return home safely.

Sex doesn't necessarily sell in Hollywood

Gallo's explicit ‘Brown Bunny’ brings movie sex into focusANALYSIS

LOS ANGELES - Contrary to popular belief, sex doesn’t necessarily sell. While movie ads are usually rife with the promise of romance and sensuality, the rare film that frankly delves into explicit sexuality does so at its own risk.

Next Friday that truism will be tested once again when Wellspring Media dares to release Vincent Gallo’s “The Brown Bunny” in New York and Los Angeles.

“Bunny,” which premiered at Cannes last year, should get plenty of press — even if its box office potential is unproven. At Cannes, the art house exercise arrived on a wave of titillation because it features an explicit sex scene between Gallo and Chloe Sevigny. But what earned it some of the loudest critical razzberries the fest has ever seen was the protracted plot, or lack of same, that leads up to the movie’s climactic moment.

Playing a professional motorcycle racer, Gallo spends most of the film in a cross-country road trip that seemed to include every stop to gas up his truck in excruciating detail. (And, yes, the film also includes shots of a literal brown bunny, as Gallo has confessed he is partial to the furry creatures.) The film was subsequently trimmed by 25 minutes for the Toronto Film Festival last fall, and its critical reception improved.

Speaking with reporters in Cannes, Gallo defended the sex scene, insisting: “I didn’t include the sex scene to be controversial. I included it because I’m interested in the subject matter. It’s a very complex scene. You never see how people actually look when in deep intimacy in contrast to what’s happening emotionally or see how people act out dark pathologies.”

Now, arguably, if movies are meant to reflect the human condition, there’s no reason why forthright sexuality should be off-limits. But in reality, there’s something about sex on screen that throws filmmakers, critics and audiences for a loop.

It’s as if real sex — as opposed to the more common, simulated variety — violates the suspension of disbelief that surrounds most movies.

Even in the most convincing and suspenseful action scene, there’s a part of the viewer that knows the actors — with the possible exception of Jackie Chan — aren’t really at risk.

But let an actor drop his trousers, and there’s no faking it. And so the media turns downright silly, as happened earlier this summer when it couldn’t stop talking about the fact that a full frontal shot of Colin Farrell apparently proved so distracting it had to be trimmed from “A Home at the End of the World.”

But it’s not just the easily distracted media that can’t cope — even serious-minded directors seem to lose their compass when they dive into the realm of the senses.

French director Catherine Breillat recruited Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi to strut his stuff in her 1999 X-rated “Romance,” but the result proved so lugubrious it seemed to be warning folks off sex altogether. Michael Winterbottom documents a couple’s sexual liaison in clinical detail in “Nine Songs,” which is set to play the Toronto Film Festival, but advance word from Cannes, where it was peddled at the Marche, hasn’t been encouraging. John Cameron Mitchell, who directed “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” is currently workshopping a project titled “Shortbus,” designed to revolve around explicit sex scenes, but so far hasn’t found the financing.

As for the eccentric Gallo, he shouldn’t be faulted for challenging our limited cultural mores. And Sevigny herself could even be applauded for, effectively, doing her own stunts. The debate surrounding “Brown Bunny” shouldn’t be about the seriousness of its intent. The question is really about the quality of its execution.

'Dangerous' sex attacker jailed

A restaurant owner has been jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl - seven years after being convicted of molesting two other teenagers.
Mohammed Abu Rabie, 62, of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, pleaded not guilty to indecent assault on 19 October 2003.

The incident took place at Abu Rabie's Orange Tree Restaurant in the town.

Jailing him for two-and-a-half years at St Albans Crown Court, Judge Seddon Cripps said: "You present a real danger to teenage girls."

Restaurant closed down

The judge added that he appeared not to have learned his lesson from the previous occasion.

Abu Rabie, who was sentenced to eight weeks in prison in 1997 for assaulting two 15-year-old girls, told the court he was a tactile person.

He was also placed on the Sex Offenders' Register indefinitely and banned from working with children.

In addition he was given an extended licence period of five years - which means he could be sent back to prison if he commits any other crimes during that time - and ordered to pay £2,000 costs.

Defence barrister Richard Germaine said the restaurant was now closed.

Two arrested over park sex attack

Two teenagers have been arrested in connection with an alleged serious sexual assault in North Yorkshire
The 14-year-old girl was assaulted in the early hours of Sunday morning in the grounds of the Blue Dolphin Holiday Park, in Gristhorpe, near Scarborough.

North Yorkshire Police say the pair from Cleveland, in Teesside, walked into Scarborough police station on Friday.

The girl is said to be "still recovering" from the ordeal.

CCTV released in sex attack hunt

Detectives investigating a serious sex assault on a girl in Pontefract have released CCTV footage of the suspect.
The 17-year-old was attacked at 2035 BST on Saturday as she walked to work on a path near Bluebell Steps, between Valley Gardens and Pontefract hospital.

She was approached by a man who blocked her way before carrying out the attack.

He is described as white, aged between 16 and 19, 5ft 8ins, of average build, clean shaven with brown eyes. He was wearing blue trousers and a hooded top.

In footage, the youth is seen loitering close to the hospital just before the attack took place.

West Yorkshire Police also want to speak to a man who came to the girl's aid after the assault.