> 14yo teen killed 4yo toddler + sodomy, kidnapping and murder of a witness

Nov 4, 2009 MENDOTA – PROSECUTORS have filed murder and other charges against a 14-year-old central California boy accused in the death of a 4-year-old neighbour boy, whose body was found in a clothes dryer at the teen’s home.

Fresno County District Attorney Elizabeth Egan says the 14-year-old was charged as an adult on Tuesday. Egan says the teen also is facing charges of sodomy, kidnapping and murder of a witness to prevent testimony.

He is due to be arraigned on Wednesday morning. Prosecutors say if eventually convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims says the body of 4-year-old Alex Christopher Mercado was found on Saturday in the 14-year-old’s family home in Mendota. Earlier on Tuesday, Fresno County authorities said Alex was drowned before being stuffed in the dryer. — AP

> 22 yo Saudi murderer to be beheaded and crucified for raping five children.

03 Nov 2009 A Saudi court has ratified the beheading and crucifixion of a young man who raped five children, among them a three-year-old boy left to die in the desert, it has been reported.

An appeal court in Riyadh approved the death sentence handed down in June by a lower court in Hail, where the convicted 22-year-old man carried out his crimes, Okaz newspaper said.

The man was arrested several weeks ago, the paper said, as he tried to seize another youth after offering him a ride home from school.

Saudi Arabia has executed 56 people this year under laws that allow the death penalty for rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking.

In extreme cases, the convict is executed and his body crucified in public.

> Science teacher jailed for sex with 15 yo and 16 yo students

Brett Meeds, 28, groomed one pupil aged 15 and two aged 16, chatting to them at school, texting them and sending them messages via the internet.

He took the girls to his home and engaged in sexual activity with one of the girls at the school in Dereham, Norfolk.

Meeds, who was in his first job as a teacher after receiving glowing reports during his training placements, worked at Northgate High School and Dereham Sixth Form College between 2005 and 2009.

An investigation was launched after pupils expressed concerns about Meeds’s behaviour with one of the girls.

Norwich Crown Court heard that the teenage girls, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were the subject of sexual abuse on several occasions from late 2008 to early 2009.

Meeds, from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, pleaded guilty to two offences of sexual assault, five offences of sexual activity with girls which breached his position of trust, and two charges of possessing indecent photographs of two girls under 18.

Meeds, who had been told a custodial sentence was inevitable, was sentenced to five years in jail and was disqualified from working with children indefinitely.

He denied two offences of sexual activity with two of the girls which were ordered to lie on file.

Lorraine Irwin, prosecuting, said after the case: “Meeds was in a position of trust as a teacher and abused this trust and preyed on these innocent girls for his own sexual gratification.

“The victims in this case have been have been through a terrible ordeal and in these very difficult circumstances have been very brave in coming forward.

“We hope they can now begin to move on positively with their lives and we are glad that this case has reached a successful conclusion.”

Det Insp Matt Sharman, of Norfolk Police’s vulnerable people directorate, said: “Having started the inquiry into the original complaint, it became clear that there were other girls who may have been involved with Meeds.

“You could say he was chatting them up or trying to start a relationship with them and I would call it grooming.

“His role as a teacher gave him the opportunity of meeting girls during the day and then there were conversations and texting and internet messaging

“These young lives are put in the trust of teachers and the school and it was a severe breach of that trust.”

He added: “The girls have been extremely strong. The full realisation of the implications of what happened came slowly. They have coped admirably.”

Sue Wheeler, acting head of Northgate High School, a specialist arts and humanities school with over 1,000 pupils, said: “I cannot voice strongly enough just how disgusted we are by what Brett Meeds did.

“We employed him in good faith and he thoroughly exploited the position of trust he was placed in.

“The school has worked closely to assist [Norfolk County Council’s] children’s services and the police during their extensive investigation, and I would like to thank them for the support structure they helped to put in place for our pupils and parents.

“I also want to pay tribute to the young people who have helped bring Meeds to justice. He has quietly rightly been sent to jail and will not go on to be a teacher anywhere else.”

> Trainer fined for molest @ SIM

Nov 3, 2009 A CORPORATE trainer was fined $4,000 on Tuesday after he was found guilty of molesting a woman.

Wee Chor Kian, 55, was convicted by District Judge Lee Poh Choo of caressing the buttocks of a 37-year-old business development manager at the auditorium of the Singapore Institute of Management on June 25 last year.

The incident took place during a photo-taking session at the Clementi campus before a talk was to be given. The woman was shocked and disturbed by what happened and told an SIM staff.

Another witness called by the prosecution not only saw Wee using his hand to touch the victim’s buttocks but also saw how she had reacted angrily after the act.

Wee claimed in his defence that it was a frame-up or the brush was accidental.

He could have been jailed for up to two years and/or fined for outraging the woman’s modesty.

> 41yo man charged for posing as a police officer to invite a woman to have sex

Nov 3, 2009 A MAN was charged in court on Tuesday with posing as a police officer to invite a woman to have sex with him.

Ricky Lau Eng Hung, 41, is alleged to have committed the offence in September 2007.

He allegedly informed another woman that there were impending raids on prostitutes in the Geylang area.

He was represented by Mr Ronald Ng.

If convicted, he faces a jail term of up to two years or a fine or both on each charge.

A pre-trial conference is scheduled for Dec 10.

> 38yo Teacher jailed for molesting 9yo students

PEKAN – A TEACHER who taught religion, amongst other subjects, was sentenced to three months’ jail and a RM13,000 (S$5,300) fine by the Magistrates Court here for molesting two nine-year-old female pupils four years ago.

Magistrate Emma Shahriana Ali meted out the punishment on Shaharudin Mat Hasan, 38, from SK Belimbing here, after finding him guilty of having molested the nine-year-olds at the computer laboratory of SK Sri Makmur, Pekan in August 2005. He had kissed the girls besides fondling their breasts and private parts.

He was charged under Section 354 of the Penal Code for the offences and was liable to be jailed a maximum of 10 years or fined or whipped or any two of the above.

The accused was arrested on Oct 17, 2005, charged on Oct 25, 2005 and was relased on RM6,000 bail before being transferred to SK Belimbing.

Shaharudin, who was represented by counsel Muhd Hisham Abdul Rahim, appeared nonchalant when the sentence was read out to him.

Earlier, Deputy Public Prosecutor ASP Zawawee Ibrahim urged the court to impose a stiff punishment as Shaharudin, who taught religion and English at the school, had betrayed the people’s trust in him. Magistrate Emma Shahriana then set bail at RM10,000 in one surety pending the appeal process. — BERNAMA/ THE STAR

> 75% of men regularly include a kiss on texts/SMS to their male mates

Nov 4, 2009 LONDON – MEN have become so openly affectionate with each other using mobile technology they’ve taken to signing off text messages to male friends with a kiss (x), giving rise to a new generation dubbed ‘Metrotextuals’.

New research from mobile phone firm T-Mobile reveals nearly a quarter of men (22 per cent) regularly include a kiss on texts to their male mates, T-Mobile said in an emailed statement.

‘Metrotextuality’ is most widespread among 18-24 year old males with three quarters (75 per cent) regularly sealing texts with a kiss and 48 per cent admitting that the practice has become commonplace amongst their group of friends.

Nearly a quarter of this age group (23 per cent) even appreciate an ‘x’ in a text exchange from people that aren’t close friends.

But it’s not just younger men that have become Metrotextuals – one in 10 men over 55 often completes a text to another male with a kiss, according to the poll.

The research also revealed there’s a certain etiquette within metrotextuality. A lower case ‘x’ is the preferred sign-off for most (52 per cent) compared to 17 per cent for a bolder upper case (X), with one in three sharing the love in a big way with multiple lower case kisses (xxx). — REUTERS

> Google Dashboard lifts curtain on stored data

November 05, 2009 Google is proving to be well aware of the uneasiness among the public over the increasing amount of data it stores from users of its services.

Google is launching Google Dashboard, a service that lets you log into a console and see all the personal data that the company maintains on a Google Account user across all its products, from Gmail and YouTube to Blogger and Picasa. It allows users to log into the settings page of their Google account and review links to the personal data stored by Google across many of its products from a single Web page.

Users can delete data, change privacy settings, and read the privacy policies from various accounts on that page, which is scheduled to go live Thursday. Google had been prebriefing news outlets on the announcement, but a YouTube video outlining the service was somehow published on Google’s Privacy Channel on YouTube and spotted by the Google Operating System blog.

One of the overarching themes with regards to Google this year has been the increasing discomfort among both the public and the government with the degree to which Google has grown to dominate the Internet. With nearly two-thirds of all Internet searches passing through its servers and growing numbers of people using its Google Docs, Gmail, and YouTube services, Google is a vital gateway to information for Internet users.

Google has tried to placate critics, recently emphasizing that it tries very hard to let users export any data they enter into one of Google’s products through the work of the Data Liberation Front. Dashboard is another step in that direction as Google tries to emphasize that users have control over the data it stores on them.

> Magician, 68, jailed six years for sex with boy

November 4, 2009 A WOMAN’S call to the police, to report a man walking around naked in the flat opposite hers, led to the exposure of a string of sexual assaults on a 12-year-old boy.

The man, a 68-year-old freelance magician, who was teaching the boy magic, had talked the secondary school student, now 13, into engaging in sex acts with him.

Yesterday, the man, who cannot be named to protect the boy’s identity, was jailed six years for the offences in July and August last year.

He had pleaded guilty in May to four counts of sexual assault. Another 11 charges were taken into consideration.

In sentencing, Justice Choo Han Teck took into account the ages of the boy and the man, the man’s personal circumstances and his lack of criminal history.

He said: ‘The accused did not commit any such offences before, and I am of the view that he would not likely repeat these offences which he had committed in a relatively late stage of his life.’

The penalty for sexual assault is up to 20 years’ jail and a fine or caning but men above the age of 50 are spared the cane.

The man, who is divorced, smiled on hearing his sentence. His son and daughter were in court.

The court heard that the magician met the boy, then 12, in August 2007 after performing at a carnival and asked if he was interested in learning magic tricks from him. The boy was keen and his father agreed to the request.

The boy began going to the man’s flat on weekends to learn the tricks and at times stayed the night. He also tagged along to help the magician.

The two became close and the boy called him ‘godfather’. The man bought him gifts, gave him pocket money and took him out for meals.

In mid-July last year, at his flat, the man asked the boy if he knew how babies were made and if he was a ‘girlie’.

He told the boy to show him his penis to prove he was not a ‘girlie’. The boy did so.

The man then performed oral sex on the boy. He asked the boy to do the same to him, but the boy refused. The man drove the boy home and told him not to tell his parents.

But later that month, the two began performing oral sex on each other. It was on one such occasion – Aug 16 – that the woman in the opposite block saw the man naked and called the police.

When they knocked on his door, he had on a pair of shorts and claimed that he was alone. But the boy was found in one of the rooms.

The man had also taken nude pictures of the boy but the photos were deleted, the court heard.

A psychiatric report on the boy said he was confused about whether he had done anything wrong with the man.

The man’s lawyer, Mr Simon Tan, said his client was feeling empty until he met the victim.

The former school bus driver was despondent after his retirement and was dealt another blow when his wife of 40 years filed for divorce. He was also depressed over the prospect of moving into an old folks’ home because his son was emigrating.

> Caught on camera: naked love rival flees furious husband

31 Oct 2009 A naked man who climbed out of a window and hid on the ledge to escape his lover’s furious husband has been caught on camera.

Sun Meng has been given the cold shoulder by his community after the extraordinary picture of him cowering naked outside the flat were posted on the internet.

The terrified 25-year-old fled from the balcony window when he was caught in bed with the man’s wife at the married couple’s flat in Chengdu, central China.

Photographs of the angry showdown, taken by a startled neighbour, were uploaded to a local community website.

They show Sun perched on the first floor ledge while his lover is confronted by her unnamed husband inside.

“My family is ashamed and none of my own neighbours will talk to me any more,” said Sun.

“I know what I did was wrong but I was afraid he would kill me.

“People are even laughing at how I look naked – but I have to point out it was a very cold day,” he added.