48 articles
Online predator
Online predator: an adult who uses chat, social media, and messaging to groom children for sexual exploitation, also called online grooming or cybergrooming; prevalence 8-19%, staged manipulative tactics, ML detection, and grooming-specific criminal laws.
Operation Yewtree
Operation Yewtree was a Metropolitan Police investigation into historical sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile and others, launched in October 2012 after an ITV documentary aired abuse allegations.
Pandora Gate
Pandora Gate is the 2023 Polish influencer scandal revealed by Sylwester Wardęga over alleged abuse of minors, leading to the 2026 UK extradition of YouTuber Stuu; also a fictional wormhole device in Eclipse Phase.
Penn State child sex abuse scandal
The Penn State child sex abuse scandal centers on Jerry Sandusky, convicted in 2012 of 45 counts of abusing boys via The Second Mile charity, triggering the Freeh Report, NCAA sanctions, $109M settlements, and ongoing appeals.
Peter Scully
Peter Gerard Scully is an Australian sex offender serving life imprisonment in the Philippines for trafficking and raping children, with a further 129 years added in 2022.
Photograph of Prince Andrew, Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell
Photograph of Prince Andrew, Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell, taken 10 March 2001 at Maxwell's London home by Jeffrey Epstein, published 2011; central evidence in Giuffre's allegations, disputed, later apparently confirmed by a Maxwell email.
Properties of Jeffrey Epstein
Properties of Jeffrey Epstein: his Manhattan townhouse, Palm Beach mansion, Zorro Ranch, Little St. James and Great St. James islands, and Paris apartment; all sold by his estate after 2019, funding victim compensation and the $105 million USVI settlement.
Richard Huckle
Richard William Huckle was a British child sex offender from Ashford, Kent, who abused children in Malaysia and Cambodia while posing as a volunteer teacher.
Ring boy scandal
Ring boy scandal: allegations that WWF/WWE ring announcer Mel Phillips sexually exploited teenage ring crew boys in the late 1980s and early 1990s, leading to 1992 departures of Phillips, Terry Garvin, and Pat Patterson, and an October 2024 negligence lawsuit against WWE, Vince and Linda McMahon, and TKO under Maryland's Child Victims Act.
Robert Hadden
Robert Hadden, former Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian OB-GYN, sexually abused patients from about 1993 to 2012; convicted federally in 2023, sentenced to 20 years, with over $1 billion in civil settlements.
Rochdale child sex abuse ring
Nine men were convicted in the Rochdale child sexual exploitation case in 2012. Later prosecutions and an independent review exposed wider abuse and repeated failures by police and public agencies.
Roman Polanski sexual abuse case
The Roman Polanski sexual abuse case is a 1977 California prosecution in which director Roman Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful intercourse with 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, then fled the United States in 1978.
Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal
Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal: abuse of at least 1,400 children in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, 1997–2013, exposed by the 2014 Jay report, followed by the Casey inspection, government intervention, and IOPC Operation Linden.
Sexual abuse scandal in New Orleans Boy Scout Troop 137
Troop 137 scandal: a 1974 New Orleans Boy Scout troop whose adult leaders ran a child sexual abuse and prostitution ring, exposed in 1976, prosecuted 1977-1978, and later featured in the Netflix film Scouts Honor.
Sexual grooming
Sexual grooming is the process of building trust with a child to prepare sexual abuse; also called online grooming or child grooming. Covers grooming strategies, online versus offline patterns, UNICEF prevalence data, and grooming laws in the UK, Australia, and Singapore.
Simulated child pornography
Virtual child sexual abuse material, also called simulated child pornography, is digital imagery created via morphing or animation that depicts children in sexual acts. Few countries criminalize it globally.
Skellefteå assault case
Skellefteå assault case: 7 July 2022 attack on a nine-year-old girl at Morö Backe, Skellefteå; a 15-year-old convicted of attempted murder and aggravated rape of a child (grov våldtäkt mot barn), case B 769-22, sentenced to forensic psychiatric care and SEK 730,000 damages.
Trial and sentencing of Robert H. Richards IV
Trial and sentencing of Robert H. Richards IV: 2008-2009 Delaware case in which the du Pont heir pleaded guilty to fourth-degree rape of his three-year-old daughter and received a suspended eight-year sentence served as probation, which became public controversy in 2014.