The Forensic Nurse

A 21 year old man in austrailia is claiming that he is innocent of commiting unlawful sexual acts with a 10 year old minor female because the acts were consentual on both of their parts.

The Man, Brodie James Watson  is charged with four counts of sexual penetration of a child under 13, six counts of indecent dealing , and one count of possessing an article with intent to injure.

The defense attorney for mr. Watson, Andrew Parker has asked the local magistrate if Watson could live with a relative if he stipulated not to go near the girl or her mother.

The magistrate has denied the request, stating that the acts commited were serious enough that mr. Watson should remain in custody.

Mr Watson stated during the proceeding: “Can we just sort it out right here and right now … because … I am innocent … it was consensual” The magistrate informed him that  “It can’t be consensual if she’s a 10 year-old girl.”

Its quite disturbing that someone is incapable of being able to see that it would ever be acceptable to engage in such acts with an elementry school aged child. Most children of this age can barely decide what to have for breakfast, let alone be able to give an informed consent to engage in sexual acts. We have an age of consent for a reason.

Child Sex offenders can be exceptionally resourceful at finding ways to place themselves around children in settings that may allow them to abuse their position and sexually assault children. 

While most agencies, and places of employment targeted toward children (like day care centers, foster child homes, etc) are mandated to conduct a background screening for past child sexual assault (or any sexual assaults for that that matter), this type of arrest history check is ineffective at stopping child predators.

A simple arrest record check in most cases will come back clean. Study statistics vary from study to study, but in general they indicate that less than 1-5% of child sex abusers have a prior criminal record. Unfortunately, most child sexual abusers have dozens of victims before they are ever arrested for their crimes.

But what if there was a way to help detect these people before allowing them to commit their crimes.  While this may sound like a far fetched hollywood movie idea like “the Minority Report“, a company called Abel Screening claims to be able to do just that for detecting child sexual predators.

They call it The Diana Screen. This two part computerized test is used to determine the risk of the test-taker having sexually abused a child in the past. According to their website:

The Diana is a pass / fail test, it goes beyond a simple questionnaire to include objectively measured sexual interest in children. The technology that identifies sexual interest, which is a major part of The Diana Screen^® formula, is empirically validated and has been used by therapists and criminal justice professionals more than 100,000 times.

The website further claims The Diana Screen^®identifies over 50% of actual child sexual abusers.

Safe Girls - Strong girls, an Atlanta based organization dedicated to helping children of sexual abuse break their silence and get help, is sponsoring their 3rd Annual Gala.

Thurs, September 18
7-10:00 pm
Villa Christina
Tickets: $75.00

For directions or more information about villa christina, visit their website at http://www.villachristina.com/

Suspected pedophile and international fugitive Wayne Nelson Corliss was arrested last night in an apartment in Union City, New Jersey last night.

Corliss, age 57 was arrested by US immigration and customs agents stemming from a request from Interpol. Interpol announced that they were looking for the man on tuesday in relation to child pornography charges. Corliss was featured in over 100 photographs depicting him sexually abusing at least three boys between the ages of 6 and 10 years of age.

Norwegian officials originally discovered the photographs in 2006, but were unable to ascertain the identity of the man at the time. The photos were believed to have been taken somewhere in southeast asia.

Interpol released 6 photographs on its website on tuesday in an attempt to get a positive id on the man. Within 24 hours they received hundreds of tips and more than a 10 fold increase in internet traffic to its website.

This was not the first time that such tactics have been used by Interpol. Last october, they posted photos of an unknown individual wanted for child sexual abuse in veitnam and cambodia.

Event Date: Thursday, May 15, 2008 - Friday, May 16, 2008 

Event Web Address: pesihealthcare.com
Event Sponsor: PESI Healthcare

Contact Phone Number: 1-800-843-7763
Contact Email: info@pesihealthcare.com

Event CEUs: 6 nursing contact hrs.
Event Fee: $179

Description: Seminar on childhood sexual abuse. Outline of topics: incl. anatomy, injury ID, evidentiary exam and evidence collection, follow-up, documentation, courtroom issues. Speaker: Diane Faugno, RN, MSN, CPN, FAAFS, SANE-A, SANE-P.