Testimony that Bill Clinton raped boy on yacht

In these times this becomes important

GRAPHIC WARNING: FBI 

Interviews Alleged Boy Rape 

Victim of Bill Clinton; 

Chilling Details of Sex 

Assaults & Satanic Rituals on 

Yacht (Video)

True Pundit,
20 November, 2019


Child sex trafficking investigators from the FBI’s New York field office have conducted an interview with a victim who provided chilling details about allegedly being raped by Bill Clinton on a yacht in New England when the victim was a young boy.

“We are treating him as a victim,” an FBI official told True Pundit in New York City prior the interview with FBI.

Top FBI officials arranged the interview with the victim, who said he was raped by Bill Clinton when he was just eight years old. The interview was conducted by the FBI’s task force that was established to investigate sexual assault and sex trafficking claims linked to Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. That task force, also attached to the NYPD, remains active even though Epstein reportedly committed suicide in federal custody just weeks ago.

“We still have a job to do here and that’s what we’re doing,” one FBI official told this reporter.

The interview and the allegations against Clinton are both detailed and disturbing. We have decided to publish the video of the victim’s account in his own words which contain explosive details of the alleged assault and much more. Again, his account is graphic. Nonetheless, both I and the federal agents with knowledge of the case believe the victim is credible.

To the FBI’s credit, the Bureau handled the victim with respect and dignity during the interview. I personally escorted the victim to FBI Headquarters in Manhattan. Even though I have been a massive critic of the FBI, I was impressed with the way they treated the victim who is now in his mid-twenties. Credit the FBI here for listening and investigating.

But the road to this point was not without intrigue and tragedy.

I originally interviewed the victim with journalist Jen Moore who provided the details against Bill Clinton and other elite politicians to child trafficking specialists in DHS Department of Homeland Security and the FBI in July 2018. Moore, an advocate who investigated abused and trafficked children, had been in the process of investigating allegations by the 26-year-old man that — as a young boy — he was sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton and pimped out at private sex parties attended by other D.C. elites.

But Moore and the traumatized victim wanted to contact Homeland Security and the FBI first to see if they would open a criminal case against Clinton prior to publicizing the claims.

Four weeks after contacting the Feds, Jen Moore was found dead in a D.C. hotel room. Moore died of an apparent seizure, though her death remains suspicious and the timing — beyond disturbing. After Moore’s death, the victim, fearful for his own life, decided to not go public with that interview.

Now he is telling his story. And that is what he did for the FBI.

While in New York City, the victim supplied intelligence to federal agents including confirmation that he witnessed other children and people being sexually and physically abused and worse on numerous “boat parties.” These parties were attended by elite members of D.C. political class, according to the victim.

Prior to Jen Moore’s death I had a discussion with her in July that we should simply publish the allegations against Clinton without tipping off the Feds. The victim at that time agreed to use his full name and identity and he said he believed he was prepared to handle any blow back. But Jen Moore said she wanted to work back channels and entice the Feds to voluntarily interview the victim. She set out to do just that. See her video below where she hauntingly describes her frustration with the Feds just days before her death.

The ultimate plan was if federal agents did not pursue or investigate the victim’s allegations, we would publish the details. But we would wait to see what happened.

Now, this has come full circle. We return to my original strategy today and we are doing just that. And instead of waiting for the FBI to take notice of the allegations, we marched right into the FBI.

I hope Jen would be proud. The victim here deserves credit for allowing us to publish these details. Some details the victim provided have been withheld because they could impact any active investigations but they could be published as the matters develop. Regardless, the victim’s account remains beyond disturbing and provides a first-hand account into chilling details of Satanic-like rituals surrounding the exploitation and sexual assaults of children.

Once again, this is a warning of graphic content. The victim fears for his safety but believes working with the FBI has offered him protection. I hope he is right. Again, he does deserve credit for green-lighting the publication of this interview and I personally hope it helps him accelerate his healing process.

As journalists, we need to shine the light on such atrocities and stick our necks out when required. And that is what we are doing here today … as well as settling an old score for the late Jen Moore. — Thomas Paine

Here is the video of the interview:

Tania Billingsley speaks out about rape culture

Normally I would not pay this much attention were it not for the fact that this brave young woman, Tania Billingsley, has asked for name suppression to be lifted so that she could speak out and and address the wider issues of sexual violence.

There is also a wider issue - which is of oppression and violence in general and the rape of Mother Earth.

NZ PM John Key , FM Murray McCully (a known misogynist), and all those like him, show utter disdain for all this - and disdain for everything that has beauty in this world.

Woman at centre of Malaysian diplomat case speaks out

The woman at the centre of the Malaysian diplomat case has spoken out about what she feels is a mishandling of the case and a symptomatic breakdown in how New Zealand treats victims of sexual violence

3News,

9 July, 2014

Tania Billingsley, 22, has voluntarily had her name suppression lifted so she could share her thoughts on the case with media.

Sexual assault-accused Muhammad Rizalman bin Ismail was a staff assistant for defence at the Malaysia High Commission in Brooklyn, Wellington, and is understood to hold a military rank of second warrant office.

He was arrested on May 9 and charged with burglary and assault with intent to rape after allegedly following Ms Billingsley home.

READ MORE: Ms Billingsley on how her case was handled and the wider issues it raises

"I guess that I'm someone who has something to say about this assault," says Ms Billingsley. "It happened to me and throughout this whole process, especially once it's become so public, my voice hasn't been heard. And I do, obviously, have a lot to say about this. I'm not just a bystander."

There can be no more important voice, but it's been one lost amongst the noise. So much has been written, aired, discussed, surmised about this case, but it's all at such an impersonal level. Nowhere have you heard the woman at the centre of it all.

She has made a considered decision. She wants you to know who she is and she wants you to know her story.

"Because I'm hoping that in revealing who I am and having a face to put to this alleged victim that I'll be able to help address some of the issues around sexual violence in this country."

But speaking out is not as straightforward as you might think. Complainants in sex attacks, for good reason, are granted automatic name suppression. Ms Billingsley – with her lawyer – had to apply to the courts to have that protection lifted so she could talk.

"In making myself too public I am making myself quite vulnerable to people who see this differently than me and also just being so visible is quite a scary thing."

Beginning with the May 9 attack, Rizalman was arrested and appeared in court the next day, charged with burglary and attempted rape.

Ms Billingsley says she first became aware of Rizalman's diplomatic status on May 11, which is also her birthday.

"So I spent the morning of it in the police station being told that he was a diplomat," she says.

Official meetings followed and just two weeks later a diplomatic escape route was taken – Rizalman left New Zealand.

"I found out that he was going to leave the day that he left. Up until then the police had been really great at keeping me informed, but even they didn't know what to tell me.

"I got this call and it was like, 'Yeah, you know we just found out that he's leaving today.'

"Obviously I was frustrated and I was angry because I had from the very beginning said that I wanted him to stay in New Zealand and be held accountable here."

Her wishes, though, counted for nothing, and Rizalman's controversial departure was kept quiet.

"[It was] as though what happened to me is just backdrop to the political drama instead of a really real and traumatic experience. Of course it's that thing of it's only become a real issue when it started to inconvenience them."

What transpired is Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully was briefed when the charges were laid and did nothing.

"It's just not appropriate for ministers to get involved too closely in this process," says Mr McCully.

But Ms Billingsley is upset the minister, in his weekly meetings with officials in those seven weeks before this became public, didn't ask them about the case.

"Clearly he doesn't know how to do his job properly," says Ms Billingsley. "He obviously doesn't take sexual assault as a serious thing to consider.

"I've heard that I have a formal apology on the way, but really the only apologies that I've heard have been them saying in the media that we have apologised."

She says she wants more than just an apology.

"I would take them actually committing to address rape culture and to being just more engaged in this stuff as an apology instead; if they want to swap an apology for them starting to deal with this stuff then I'm okay with that."

But if an apology is to come, whom does she want it from?

"McCully, I would like an apology from him, not just for what I feel is a really incompetent handling of the situation, but in his reaction, like the fact that even when asked directly about me and things like that, that he just brushed it off. He was so intent on trying to put responsibility and blame on everybody else that I just feel like he wasn't actually addressing and putting energy towards fixing what had happened. Obviously it was painful for me to watch that, seeing someone be so dismissive of something that's been so traumatic to me, but it is also embarrassing watching a grown man trying to put blame and talk his way out of what effectively is failure at his own job."

She says Mr McCully should resign.

Addressing a culture of violence

Ms Billingsley's quest for accountability doesn't stop with the Foreign Minister. She's outraged too at what she feels is dismissiveness of her case, from the very top.

"I just remember the first, the very first, thing I watched on it, and just seeing him looking bored and annoyed at having to be talking about it and just saying there's nothing that we can do pretty much. 'Oh it sucks but it is what it is.' And that's what I was getting. I don't feel from him any sincerity in his concern for me."

Her friends get it, both in terms of what happened and what the fallout represents. It's something that has been driving her activism since long before all this. Spend time with Ms Billingsley and her friends and you'll see they're part of a growing global conversation about rape culture.

"[Rape culture] is a society and culture within it that normalises and trivialises and, even in subtle and obvious ways, condones rape and sexual violence.

"I think quite clearly from the beginning the fact that as the person who has had to deal with this and who has from the beginning, I've had very definite views about what I've wanted and how I felt about this and it hasn't been listened to.

"The police have been good and they've definitely acknowledged in respect of where I'm coming from, but at a higher level there's been no attempt to really honour what I want.

"I just really think that we as a country, and especially the Government, needs to start not just reacting to sexual assault but working to prevent it."

No longer does she feel comfortable walking the streets of Wellington at night. Ms Billingsley can't talk about the man accused of her attack; the legal process has still to play out.

But already she has a capacity for thinking beyond herself, about victims of sexual violence. But her compassion extends also to the family of Rizalman.

"They're also victims in what has happened and I can't even imagine how hard the last couple of months have been for them. They're probably not watching this but I hope the message gets back to them that I'm thinking about them as well and hope they're being supported where they are because I think that people aren't really acknowledging that this has probably been horrible and life-changing for them as well as me."

3rd Degree approached Foreign Minister Murray McCully for an interview, but he declined, saying:  "I have publicly apologised to the young woman whose distress has been aggravated by the poor management of this case. The terms for a full inquiry into the matter are being finalised. I do not wish to compromise either the inquiry or any criminal proceedings by commenting further."

We also asked Prime Minister John Key and he also declined, with his office saying: "We will decline your request for the Prime Minister to appear on the programme. The legal implications of any pending court case precludes an appearance."

The following letter, from Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade chief executive John Allen, was handed to Ms Billingsley a few hours before 3rd Degree went to air tonight: "I deeply regret the distress caused to the woman at the centre of this incident. I have apologised to her publicly and by letter. In dealing with this issue the Ministry fell short of the standards expected of us. Our focus now is on performing the rest of our role in this matter to a high standard and on learning from the lessons that come out of the independent inquiry."

From Malaysian media - 

Tania Billingsley to family of 

alleged Malaysian attacker: I 

know you are victims too

KUALA LUMPUR, July 9 — Even as she vented her anger and frustration at the way the authorities were dealing with her sexual assault, New Zealander Tania Billingsley voiced sympathy with the Malaysian family of her alleged attacker.

Muhammad Rizalman Ismail

Malay Mail online

9 July, 2014

In an interview on New Zealand television today, the 21-year-old highlighted that she was not the only person to have suffered in the international storm following her alleged assault, pointing out that the family of junior envoy Muhammad Rizalman Ismail likely felt entrapped by the situation.

“They’re also victims in what has happened and I can’t even imagine how hard the last couple of months have been for them,” Billingsley said on the Kiwi TV3’s 3rd Degree programme today.

The military assistant, formerly attached to the Malaysian High Commission in Wellington, has a wife and three children.

“They’re probably not watching this but I hope the message gets back to them that I’m thinking about them as well and hope they’re being supported where they are because I think that people aren’t really acknowledging that this has probably been horrible and life-changing for them as well as me,” she was quoted saying on the New Zealand news agency’s website.

Billingsley made her first public appearance today, revealing herself as the woman at the centre of the sex case that had nearly unravelled New Zealand-Malaysia ties.

She said she chose to forego court protection of her identity because she was “frustrated” and “angry” with her country’s leaders for their lackadaisical response to her alleged assault.

She had accused Muhammad Rizalman of breaking into her home last May with the intent to rape her.

He was arrested by Kiwi police on May 9 on allegations of burglary and attempted sexual assault on Billingsley.

He was charged in a New Zealand court the next day for burglary and assault with intent to commit rape, with both charges carrying the maximum penalty of a 10-year jail term.

The junior envoy has since returned to Malaysia, taking advantage of the diplomatic immunity.

The Malaysian government however announced last week that he will be returning to New Zealand to be tried there.

There have been no further confirmation on the exact date of his return as he is currently undergoing mental and emotional evaluation tests, the New Zealand Herald reported last week, citing an unnamed doctor at the Tuanku Mizan Military Hospital in Malaysia.

The envoy would not be discharged until the medical examinations were complete, the doctor said.

His request for his return to be delayed until after Hari Raya was also denied by New Zealand authorities, according to media reports.

Focus on violence against women

This week's mass murder in California has shone the light on misogyny and violence against women. 

The following interview is with Pollyanne Pena, the Centre Coordinator for Shakti Ethnic Women's Refuge, and runs the Wellington Young Feminists who starts off by discussing the Twitter hashtag on misogyny, #YesAllWomen, which trended worldwide after the killing spree by Elliot Rodger in California this week.

The worst cases of violence against women have occured in the Indian subcontinent, but are not the only cases.

The western media calls Vladimir Putin "Hitler" it is largely silent about Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah keeping his daughters under lock and key and denying them food and water. Couldn't be about oil could it? - or the fact that the west loves to do business with the medieval kingdom?

Perhaps we had better not let the media frenzy about Putin denying gay rights that we saw before Sochi (conveniently forgotten by the way, after events in Ukraine) - while Qatar (about to host the football World Cup) punishes gays and ten countries punish gays with death.

Just in case we decide to judge other countries, let us not forget our own "Roastbusters" case in New Zealand where teenagers boasted of their sexual exploits online. The police were "unable" to take action and the whole case has been forgotten.

#YesAllWomen

Pregnant Pakistani woman stoned to death by family

Yahoo,

27 May, 2014

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A pregnant woman was stoned to death Tuesday by her own family outside a courthouse in the Pakistani city of Lahore for marrying the man she loved.

The woman was killed while on her way to court to contest an abduction case her family had filed against her husband. Her father was promptly arrested on murder charges, police investigator Rana Mujahid said, adding that police were working to apprehend all those who participated in this "heinous crime."

Arranged marriages are the norm among conservative Pakistanis, and hundreds of women are murdered every year in so-called honor killings carried out by husbands or relatives as a punishment for alleged adultery or other illicit sexual behavior.

Stonings in public settings, however, are extremely rare. Tuesday's attack took place in front of a crowd of onlookers in broad daylight. The courthouse is located on a main downtown thoroughfare.

A police officer, Naseem Butt, identified the slain woman as Farzana Parveen, 25, and said she had married Mohammad Iqbal, 45, against her family's wishes after being engaged to him for years.

Her father, Mohammad Azeem, had filed an abduction case against Iqbal, which the couple was contesting, said her lawyer, Mustafa Kharal. He said she was three months pregnant.

Nearly 20 members of Parveen's extended family, including her father and brothers, had waited outside the building that houses the high court of Lahore. As the couple walked up to the main gate, the relatives fired shots in the air and tried to snatch her from Iqbal, her lawyer said.

When she resisted, her father, brothers and other relatives started beating her, eventually pelting her with bricks from a nearby construction site, according to Mujahid and Iqbal, the slain woman's husband.

Iqbal said he started seeing Parveen after the death of his first wife, with whom he had five children.

"We were in love," he told The Associated Press. He alleged that the woman's family wanted to fleece money from him before marrying her off.

"I simply took her to court and registered a marriage," infuriating the family, he said.

Parveen's father surrendered after the attack and called his daughter's murder an "honor killing," Butt said.

"I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it," Mujahid, the police investigator, quoted the father as saying.

Mujahid said the woman's body was handed over to her husband for burial.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a private group, said in a report last month that some 869 women were murdered in honor killings in 2013.

But even Pakistanis who have tracked violence against women expressed shock at the brutal and public nature of Tuesday's slaying.

"I have not heard of any such case in which a woman was stoned to death, and the most shameful and worrying thing is that this woman was killed outside a courthouse," said Zia Awan, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist.

He said Pakistanis who commit violence against women are often acquitted or handed light sentences because of poor police work and faulty prosecutions.

"Either the family does not pursue such cases or police don't properly investigate. As a result, the courts either award light sentences to the attackers, or they are acquitted," he said.

Three arrested after girls are gang-raped and left hanging from tree in India

CNN,

30 May, 2014

A police officer and two other people have been arrested after two teenage girls were gang-raped and left hanging from the branches of a mango tree in a northern Indian village, authorities said Friday.

The shocking attack on the girls -- two cousins aged 14 and 16 -- sparked outrage in the village of Katra Sadatganj and beyond.

Angry villagers protested around the bodies, preventing police from taking them down from the tree for about 15 hours Wednesday, the day after the attack, said Mukesh Saxena, a local police official.

A photo from the village, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, showed the body of one girl, dressed in a green tunic and pants, hanging from the tree. A large group of people, many of them young children, were gathered around the grisly scene.

Police said an autopsy confirmed the girls had been raped and strangled. The cremation of their remains took place late Wednesday night in line with Hindu customs, Saxena said.

Armed police officers have been deployed in the village to prevent any further unrest, he added.

Alleged gang rape, hanging of 2 girls in India sparks global outrage

Police under scrutiny

The girls' families accused three brothers of carrying out the rape and killing. Two of the brothers are now in custody, said R.K.S. Rathore, a deputy-inspector general of police. One was arrested Thursday night, he said.

Police are still searching for the third brother.

The families of the victims have accused local police of initially failing to respond and siding with the suspects when the parents went to report the case. The allegations have fueled anger among the villagers.

Saxena said three police officers have been temporarily suspended for negligence of duty, and one has been arrested.

He said the girls had gone out into the orchard to relieve themselves Tuesday night when they were grabbed by the attackers.

Some people saw the abduction but were unable to stop it, he said, citing eyewitnesses.

'Endemic' violence

The horrific gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi in late 2012 shook India, focusing sharp attention on violent crimes against women in the country, the world's second most populous after China.

The case prompted protests in many cities, soul-searching in the media and changes to the law. But shocking instances of sexual violence continue to come to light with grim regularity.

"Laws can only do so much when you have to end something which is as endemic and as entrenched as violence against women," said Divya Iyer, a senior researcher for Amnesty International in Bangalore, India.

The country's new prime minister, Narendra Modi, has said he wants to take steps to make sure woman are safe, particularly in rural India. But women's rights groups have criticized what they say is a lack of specific proposals to tackle the problem, suggesting gender inequality doesn't appear to be high on his list of priorities.

"There is a lot more to do," Iyer told CNN. "That political leadership is unfortunately missing."

Four men convicted over gang rape of photojournalist in Mumbai

'Medieval lawlessness'

An opinion article in The Times of India, a prominent daily newspaper, linked the attack this week to rising crime and a crisis of authority in Uttar Pradesh, which it said was sliding into "medieval lawlessness."

It wasn't immediately clear whether India's entrenched caste system, which continues to cause prejudice and persecution in some rural areas, played a role in the attack. Rathore, the police official, said that the victims and the suspects belonged to different low caste groups.

Zainab Salbi, the founder of Women for Women International, pointed out that "violence against women is a global issue," not limited to developing countries.

But Salbi told CNN that in many Asian and Middle Eastern countries, "the concept of women as property is still a common thing," meaning they don't get treated as equal human beings.

This is a case that has NOT got into most of the media, presumably because it involves the King of Saudia Arabia with whom the elite loves to do business.

'We have no water, running out of food:' Saudi princesses kept hostages by king in their own palace

RT,

5 May, 2014

The Saudi princesses who have been locked up by their father - the king of Saudi Arabia - for about 13 years for speaking out against the country's oppression of women, told RT they are on survival mode in their own palace.

“We are running out of food and out of water. We are on survival mode. We are eating some expired food. All that we can find,” Sahar and Jawaher Al Saud, the daughters of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, told RT.

The sisters are being kept, as they say, against their will in two mansions inside a royal compound in the city of Jeddah along with their two other sisters - Maha and Hala. They are between the ages of 38 and 42, with at least one said to be suffering from psychological problems.

“We’d like to know what we are being charged with. We’d like to know that. ... This is called captivity and captivity is illegal anywhere in the world. This is abuse,” Sahar and Jawaher added.

The sisters say they are waiting for international bodies to react to their situation.

“We are waiting to hear from some so-called international community, everyone who is defending human rights and obviously call human rights organizations to come out and actually hold the king and his sons to account,” Sahar and Jawaher told RT.

Earlier, in rare interviews to media outlets, the sisters said they don’t have any passports or ID and the king has also forbidden any man to seek his daughters’ hands in marriage.

In the interview to the New York Post in April, the sisters said they were suffering from dehydration and their rooms were full with bugs. Water and electricity were shut off at random, sometimes for days or even weeks, they added.

According to their mother, Alanoud Al-Fayez, who married king Abdullah back in 1970s when she was only 15, “her daughters’ case is a tip of the iceberg.”

“They speak about driving. It’s funny… women in Saudi Arabia need more than driving, they need their rights first,” Al-Fayez, a descendant of a well-to-do Jordanian family, told RT.

“My daughters were mistreated psychologically, some are physically abused, sometimes by their brothers, father, yes my daughters’ plight is highlighting this,” she added.

Abdullah who has had over 30 wives, and has fathered more than 40 children, divorced AlFayez in the 1980s. In 2001 she left for London.

In 2002, less than one year after Al-Fayez escaped, Abdullah began tormenting his daughters. The girls told their mother that he drugged their food and water to keep them docile when the sisters openly spoke in opposition to women being illegally detained and placed in mental wards.

In March, Al-Fayez asked Barack Obama, who visited Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to help release her daughters.

“They need to be saved and released immediately. Mr Obama should take this opportunity to address these grave violations committed against my daughters,” she said, reported AFP.

The Saudi Arabia authorities, however, rejected the allegations, saying the princesses are allowed to freely move about Jeddah, as long as they are accompanied by bodyguards.

Meanwhile, in April Sahar urged there should be a popular revolution against her father in her video message.

“Greetings to martyrs and to free men in jail! It is an honor for me to learn the meaning of freedom, rights and dignity from you revolutionary people … God’s hand will be above us,” she said.

Women in SA can’t go to school, travel, open any business or get medical treatment without male permission. It is the only country in the world that prohibits women from driving.

Attempts to resist the rules are few and rarely successful. The latest protest against the ban on woman driving in October 2013 saw some 60 activists taking to the wheel At least 16 women were stopped by police during this protest; they were fined and forced to obey state laws. Many Saudi clerics condemned the act.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah (Reuters / Kevin Lamarque)

'No real reform in Saudi Arabia'

According to Naseer Alomari, writer and political commentator, “the crescendo of the criticism” towards SA has increased judging from social media.

“The legal system in Saudi Arabia is not even written down. There is no real reform going on in Saudi Arabia and the Saudis understand this more than at any time in their history,” Alomari told RT.

Alomari added that the Obama administration “turned a blind eye” to these human rights violations that have gone on for so long in the country.

“You can never have an American official on record as saying that ‘we do not accept human rights violations.’ … Arabs in the Middle East can see the hypocrisy and the double talk when it comes to human violations in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world,” he added.

In March, during Obama’s visit to the kingdom, the subject on the new controversial anti-terrorist law wasn’t raised, according to a US official despite mounting concern over human rights abuses in the country. Earlier, human rights groups urged Obama to mention a controversial new anti-terror law in the Saudi kingdom that any act that undermines the security of the state may be treated as an act of terrorism.

Rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have been extremely vocal in their demands that Saudi Arabia soften its clampdown on human rights activists in the country.

And lest we think that this is just happening 'out there' here is a case in New Zealand. There has been nothing more happen as a result of this case and the media has been pretty silent.

Police criticised over Roast Busters communication

Police mishandling of the Roast Busters case in the media has "seriously undermined" the trust the public and sexual abuse victims had in police, a lawyer says.

Stuff,

22 May, 2014

The comments come after a review of police handling of publicity around the Roast Busters found police misled the public, but not intentionally.

The Roast Busters were a group of West Auckland men, understood to be aged 17 and 18, who boasted online about their sexual exploits with drunk and underage females.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) this morning published its report on police handling of media inquiries after the story broke in November last year.

Auckland lawyer Catriona MacLennan said that during the past decade the public had become aware of a history of police mishandling sexual abuse cases.

While police claimed to have "changed", cases like the Roast Busters saga added to the cumulative picture that police had not improved their handling of sexual abuse cases, she said.

The IPCA found that due to a "collective breakdown in communication", owing to "other commitments and time pressure", no individual officer could be blamed for the inaccurate information provided to the public.

"When the story first broke, the media approached police for comment about their knowledge of this group and details of the police investigation," the report said.

"It became apparent over the following days that the information originally provided by police to the media was incorrect."

Initial statements claimed that despite a "full and thorough" investigation, prosecution was not possible without a formal complaint from a victim.

It later emerged four girls came forward over incidents involving the group between 2011 and 2012. One of those girls, aged 13, had gone through the formal complaint process.

MacLennan said she was "very shocked" when Detective Inspector Bruce Scott said none of the girls had been "brave enough" to come forwards to make a formal complaint in the Roast Busters case.

That was an "appalling" statement, which again put the onus on the victim, she said.

"It's a concerning indication of ongoing police attitude in that area," the lawyer said.

The IPCA report said the false information would have had an impact on all of the young women who had had some contact with police, in particular the woman who gave the video evidence.

"Understandably she was confused and upset by the information being provided by police as she had in fact made a formal statement to police," it said.

MacLennan said it was "very concerning" police comments at the time gave the public and other sexual abuse victims and survivors the impression that police could only lay charges if a formal complaint was made.

Police Minister Anne Tolley said she welcomed the report's findings.

"The report confirms that there was a communication breakdown within police," she said.

"Although not deliberate, this was disappointing and the commissioner personally apologised to me at the time for this mistake."

It was "vital" both the public and victims of crime had trust and confidence in the police, "which is why they must do everything they can to provide accurate information".

Tolley disagreed with the report claims that the error was "systemic".

"This is an isolated case and in most cases, the police deal with hundreds of thousands of victims every year and in those cases they get it right," she said.

"In this case, they go it wrong. It's a good opportunity for them to learn, and they are serious about becoming more victim-focused."

Tolley said she was awaiting the outcome of the IPCA's review of the criminal investigation, and acknowledged it couldn't be released until Operation Clover had been concluded.

IPCA chairman, Judge Sir David Carruthers, said maintaining public trust and confidence should be "top priority" for police.

He said that although no police employee made a deliberate decision to mislead, time should have been taken to obtain the correct details from police files in response to questions from the media.

"The provision of inaccurate information was compounded by the fact that the police did not identify or rectify the mistake themselves, despite the opportunity to do so, and instead had to admit mistakes publicly only when contradictory information was ascertained and published by the media," he said.

"This resulted in a consequent negative effect on the credibility of police."

Labour police spokeswoman Jacinda Ardern said Tolley was right to apologise, but wrong to say the problem wasn't systemic.

"Unlike the minister I wouldn't agree with her statement there weren't systemic issues at play here and in fact, IPCA have made it very clear there was a systemic breakdown in communication," she said.

"There's no excuse for what happened, but when you cut $40 million out of a police budget, mistakes start happening."

In a statement today police responded to the report by saying it had been a "learning situation for all staff involved".

Public relations expert Carrick Graham said the excuse of time pressures and other commitments was an "old political line", and at some stage people needed to see some accountability.

"The buck has to stop somewhere," he said.

AUT public relations senior lecturer Averill Gordon said time pressures and other commitments were no longer a valid excuse for communications mistakes or for providing inaccurate information to the media or the public, adding there was growing pressure on organisations to have transparent communications.