'Shameful' failure to tackle slavery and human trafficking in the UK

Inquiry outlines 80 recommendations, including appointing an independent commissioner and new legislation to protect victims

By Toby Helm and Mark Townsend
The Guardian/The Observer
Originally published on March 9, 2013

Ministers, the police and social workers have been accused of a "shocking" failure to prevent the spread of modern slavery in the UK, leading to sexual exploitation, forced labour and the domestic servitude of adults and children from across the world.

Describing government ministers as "clueless" in their response to tackling human trafficking, both into and within the UK, the most exhaustive inquiry yet conducted into the phenomenon concludes that the approach to eradicating modern slavery is fundamentally wrong-headed. Instead of helping vulnerable victims who are trapped into forms of slavery after being trafficked from overseas, the legal system prosecutes many for immigration offences.

The major study by the Centre for Social Justice, which will be published on Monday, says that political indifference and ignorance alongside a leadership vacuum in Whitehall has meant that the country that led the way in abolishing slavery in the 19th century is now a "shameful shadow" of its former self as the practice makes a comeback in a contemporary guise.

The entire story is here.

Former Bangor Psychologist Sentenced for Sexual Assault and MaineCare Fraud

Maine Attorney General Press Release
Originally published August 31, 2012

Attorney General William J. Schneider announced today that former psychologist John A. Keefe, 60, of Veazie, pled guilty to one count of Class B theft by deception and one count of Class C gross sexual assault for engaging in sexual acts with a client and billing MaineCare for mental health therapy services for that client.

Penobscot County Superior Court Justice William R. Anderson sentenced Keefe on each count to three years imprisonment with all but 120 days suspended and two years of probation, to be served concurrently. He also required Keefe to pay $14,806.52 restitution to MaineCare.

From 2007 to 2010, Keefe engaged in sexual acts with a female client while claiming to provide mental health therapy to that client. Some of the sexual acts occurred in Keefe’s office at Columbia Psychology Associates in Bangor during mental health therapy sessions that he billed to MaineCare. On June 22, 2010, Keefe surrendered his license to practice psychology during the pendency of the criminal action through entry of a consent agreement with the Maine Board of Examiners of Psychologists.

The entire story is here.

When I Kissed the Teacher

Student-Doctor Relationships Can Be Problematic When It Comes to a Teaching Environment

By Guy Rughani
From Student BMJ
Medscape Today News
Originally posted on July 17, 2012

Here is one excerpt:

From the beginning of medical school we are told that doctors should never date their patients. Accusations of preying on the vulnerable, abusing a position of trust, and eroding professional integrity are all persuasive reasons against such relationships. Indeed, in the United Kingdom, the General Medical Council has extensive guidance on the topic, requiring doctors to “maintain a professional boundary between themselves and their patients.” Although some guidance exists for staff about relationships in the workplace (see box), why do we never hear warnings against student-doctor/teacher relationships?

Jonathan Coe is the director of the Clinic for Boundaries Studies, an organisation which supports the victims of professional boundary violations and educates professionals in improving their approaches to prevention. “When we [patients] go to a doctor, we bring with us a level of vulnerability to the relationship,” says Mr Coe. “Implicitly, we are seeking assistance with issues whose solution is outside our knowledge and ability to respond effectively. There is a clear power differential and it is this that means that senior practitioners need to be careful before entering into any kind of personal involvement.”

Mr Coe argues that the guiding ethical principles that underpin the doctor-patient relationship are also relevant in the context of doctor-student matches. “There is a general ethical responsibility to avoid harm [non-maleficence/beneficence] and to respect autonomy,” he says, “both of which are at risk if an intimate relationship [among doctors and students] is started.”

The entire story is here.

Patrick Lott, Middle School Principal, Arrested For Allegedly Recording Boys Showering

By Laura Hibbard

The Huffington Post

Patrick Lott, 54

Patrick Lott, Bernardsville Middle School assistant principal, has been arrested for allegedly recording boys showering at Immaculata High School in Somerset County, N.J., where he was a volunteer, the NewJersey Journal reports.

Lott was arrested last week after authorities used a Superior Court search warrant to find videos of the nude teenagers in his home.

The whole story can be found here.

Sandusky arrested, AG charges against 2 top Penn St. officials

By Myles Snyder and Megan Healey

WHTM News

Jerry Sandusky

Penn State's legendary assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, was arrested Saturday on child sex abuse charges, as state prosecutors announced charges against two top university officials who apparently knew of at least one incident on the campus and did nothing about it.

Attorney General Linda Kelly said Timothy Curley, Penn State's director of athletics, and Gary Schultz, the university's senior vice president for finance and business, are charged with perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse. Schultz's position includes oversight of the university's police department.

"This is a case about a sexual predator who used his position within the university and community to repeatedly prey on young boys," Kelly said in a news release Saturday. "It is also a case about high-ranking university officials who allegedly failed to report the sexual assault of a young boy after the information was brought to their attention, and later made false statements to a grand jury that was investigating a series of assaults on young boys."

Kelly said the attorney general's office and state police began the investigation when a young boy reported that Sandusky had sexually abused him while the boy was a house guest at Sandusky's home near State College.

According to evidence presented to an investigating grand jury, the boy was 11 or 12 years old when he first met Sandusky at a camp for The Second Mile program, a charity for at-risk children founded by Sandusky.

Sandusky used expensive gifts to keep in touch with the boy - including trips to professional and college sporting events, golf clubs, a computer, clothing and money - and used the overnight visits at his home to perform sex acts on the boy, according to the grand jury.

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"The failure of top university officials to act on reports of Sandusky's alleged sexual misconduct, even after it was reported to them in graphic detail by an eyewitness, allowed a predator to walk free for years - continuing to target new victims," Kelly said.

"Equally disturbing is the lack of action and apparent lack of concern among those same officials, and others who received information about this case, who either avoided asking difficult questions or chose to look the other way."

Kelly said that despite the false testimony and "uncooperative atmosphere" by some Penn State University and Second Mile officials, the grand jury eventually identified a total of eight young men who were targets of sexual advances or assaults by Sandusky, starting in 1994 and continuing through 2009, after meeting him through Second Mile activities.

The grand jury findings can be found here.

The entire story can be read here.

The two Penn State Administrators are now stepping down, after an emergency meeting by Penn State's Board of Trustees.  The story can be found here.

Psychologist gets jail time for sex with patient

By Bruce Vielmetti
The Journal Sentinel

An Oak Creek psychologist convicted of starting a sexual relationship with a longtime patient in 2005 was sentenced Thursday to a year in jail.

Dr. Adamczak

Jeffrey Adamczak, 48, faced up to 7 1/2 years for sexual exploitation by a therapist.

But Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Jacob Manian said the state wasn't seeking prison, just accountability.

"This case has always been about protecting patients," Manian told Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet.

Adamczak made a public apology to his wife for the affair and the public spectacle. He said it never should have happened and he'd never forgive himself.

"I'm truly paying the price for infidelity," he said.

Dallet corrected Adamczak, saying she wasn't sentencing him for having an affair, but for abusing the trust patients put in their psychotherapists.

"You took advantage of that relationship, used it and turned it around into a sexual relationship," she said. "That's the serious part."

The whole story can be found here.

Stories related to Dr. Adamczak can be found here.

Psychologist found guilty of sexual relationship with patient

By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel

Published September 2, 2011

An Oak Creek psychologist was found guilty Friday of starting a sexual relationship with a longtime patient in 2005.

Jeffrey Adamczak, 48, faces up to 71/2 years in prison for sexual exploitation by a therapist at his sentencing Oct. 13. Jurors deliberated about two hours before reaching the verdict after a weeklong trial.

Adamczak was charged in August 2010. The victim, with whom he carried on a yearlong affair before she broke it off in 2006, reported Adamczak to authorities in March 2010 after she became convinced that he was again having sexual contact with patients.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet directed that the woman not be named in news reports.

A second former patient also testified that Adamczak had sexual contact with her in 2004, and two other former patients described what they considered inappropriate sexual comments from him during therapy. Adamczak flatly denied those allegations.

His attorney, Gerald Boyle, told jurors in closing arguments that jealousy drove the woman to destroy Adamczak, and said his client's testimony and office records showed the affair didn't start until after he had closed the woman's file, ending the therapist relationship.

The woman, a 40-year-old physical therapist, had been in near weekly counseling with Adamczak for about three years when he initiated sexual contact with her at a session in February 2005, after she told him she had filed for divorce from her husband.

Timing questioned

At trial, both parties testified about a memorable tryst at a Milwaukee hotel suite, replete with candles, special music and rose petals scattered near the whirlpool tub.

But when she was interviewed earlier by police, the woman said she couldn't recall the exact date, or the hotel where she and Adamczak had the experience they referred to as "Paris."

And that, his attorney argued to jurors Friday, was a big red flag on her credibility.

"If she can't remember "Paris,' " Boyle said, jurors shouldn't believe her testimony about exactly when she first had sex with Adamczak.

The timing of the first encounters was a key question for jurors. The woman testified it was in February 2005, just after she had filed for divorce, and that her therapist initiated three sexual episodes before finally telling her she could no longer be his patient "on paper."

Adamczak testified she came on to him, in late March 2005, several weeks after he had determined she no longer needed counseling and closed her file.

The entire story can be found here.