This story was reported in the UK Telegraph. (H/T Dina)

Excerpt:

Social services insisted on returning Andy Cannon to live with the couple, even though staff at Wakefield council had received up to six allegations of physical and sexual abuse over a number of years.

Mr Cannon, now 23, said he believed social workers would have removed him from his abusers had they not been gay.

He said: “If my adoptive dad was in a heterosexual relationship then my complaints would have been listened to earlier.

“It seems the council didn’t want to be seen as victimising gay people – they’d rather look ‘politically correct’ and let them get away with it to avoid any repercussions.”

In a damning report now obtained by Mr Cannon’s legal team Wakefield social services officials were accused of “folly and gross misjudgement” and of putting the victim at “significant risk” of harm after missing six opportunities to save Mr Cannon from his abusers.

The 160-page internal report by Patrick Ayre, a former child protection manager, said social services records of his history were “fragmentary” and even censored to keep certain details secret.

Mr Ayre wrote: “That any consideration at all was being given to returning the claimant to his father’s care must be regarded as surprising, in view of the concerns which should have been felt both about the possibility of violence and about the allegations made about sexual advances from Mr Scarfe.”

During his ordeal Mr Cannon was repeatedly plied with Ecstasy and cannabis before being molested by David Cannon and John Scarfe.

His complaints to care workers were ignored and at one stage he was wrongly diagnosed as having mental disorders.

Both men were eventually arrested and charged after Mr Cannon was readmitted to into council care following a domestic incident, at which point he managed to persuade a Forster carer he was being abused.

Cannon, 54, and 31-year old Scarfe were each jailed for 30 months in 2006, for inciting sexual activity with a child.

[…]”The council should have been there to prevent this from happening but they would rather just sweep it under the carpet. Of course I was happy when I was finally listened to and dad and John were sent to prison – but their conviction was a walk in the park compared to what happened to me.

“I have overdosed so many times in the past and I have tried to kill myself at least six occasions after what happened. I had a breakdown about four years ago and still have days thinking that my girlfriend would have a better life without me.

“I was my dad’s sex toy and there were many times that I thought he was going to kill me. Most people when they grow up want a nice house, highflying job and holidays abroad each year – but all I live for are my kids and my girlfriend.”

Cannon was allowed to adopt Andy in December 1997, when the youngster was aged eight. This came despite the fact he had earlier been convicted and put on probation for 12 months for assaulting the boy’s mother, Elaine Moss, possessing cannabis and handling a stolen computer.

Miss Moss had also claimed Cannon had been abusing her son.

A social worker failed to bring the allegations to the attention of the family court and instead called Cannon a “very caring parent who considered his children’s need”.

Further allegations of sexual impropriety were made against Cannon by Andy and his mother after he started dating a gay man in 2002 and again when he began a relationship with Scarfe.

Associated Press reported before about a homosexual Penn State coach who sexually abused boys.

Excerpt:

An explosive sex abuse scandal and allegations of a cover-up rocked Happy Valley after former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, once considered Joe Paterno’s heir apparent, was charged with sexually assaulting eight boys over 15 years. Among the allegations was that a graduate assistant saw Sandusky assault a boy in the shower at the team’s practice center in 2002.

[…]Sandusky, 67, was arrested Saturday and released on $100,000 bail after being arraigned on 40 criminal counts. Curley, 57, and Schultz, 62, were expected to turn themselves in on Monday in Harrisburg.

The allegations against Sandusky, who started The Second Mile in 1977, range from sexual advances to touching to oral and anal sex. The young men testified before a state grand jury that they were in their early teens when some of the abuse occurred; there is evidence even younger children may have been victimized. Sandusky’s attorney Joe Amendola said his client has been aware of the accusations for about three years and has maintained his innocence.

[…]A preliminary hearing scheduled for Wednesday would likely be delayed, Amendola said. Sandusky is charged with multiple counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of a child, indecent assault and unlawful contact with a minor, as well as single counts of aggravated indecent assault and attempted indecent assault.

[…]The grand jury said eight boys were targets of sexual advances or assaults by Sandusky. None was named, and in at least one case, the jury said the child’s identity remains unknown to authorities.

One accuser, now 27, testified that Sandusky initiated contact with a ”soap battle” in the shower that led to multiple instances of involuntary sexual intercourse and indecent assault at Sandusky’s hands, the grand jury report said.

He said he traveled to charity functions and Penn State games with Sandusky, even being listed as a member of the Sandusky family party for the 1998 Outback Bowl and 1999 Alamo Bowl. But when the boy resisted his advances, Sandusky threatened to send him home from the Alamo Bowl, the report said.

Sandusky also gave him clothes, shoes, a snowboard, golf clubs, hockey gear and football jerseys, and even guaranteed that he could walk on to the football team, the grand jury said, and the boy also appeared with Sandusky in a photo in Sports Illustrated. He testified that Sandusky once gave him $50 to buy marijuana, drove him to purchase it and then drove him home as the boy smoked the drug.

The first case to come to light was a boy who met Sandusky when he was 11 or 12, the grand jury said. The boy received expensive gifts and trips to sports events from Sandusky, and physical contact began during his overnight stays at Sandusky’s home, jurors said. Eventually, the boy’s mother reported the allegations of sexual assault to his high school, and Sandusky was banned from the child’s school district in Clinton County in 2009. That triggered the state investigation that culminated in charges Saturday.

But the report also alleges much earlier instances of abuse and details failed efforts to stop it by some who became aware of what was happening.

Another child, known only as a boy about 11 to 13, was seen by a janitor pinned against a wall while Sandusky performed oral sex on him in fall 2000, the grand jury said.

And in 2002, Kelly said, a graduate assistant saw Sandusky sexually assault a naked boy, estimated to be about 10 years old, in a team locker room shower. The grad student and his father reported what he saw to Paterno, who immediately told Curley, prosecutors said.

Again, reports about the gay coach’s activities were ignored by authorities. Why?

And here’s another similar story, this time from Scotland where the head of a gay youth organization was running a child sex ring.

Excerpt:

Eight men in a Scottish paedophile ring have been found guilty of a series of “horrific” sex offences against children and babies.

[…]Two of the men – convicted sex offender Neil Strachan and gay rights campaigner James Rennie – were convicted of sex attacks on children.

Strachan, 41, and Rennie, 38, both from Edinburgh, were also found guilty of conspiring to abuse youngsters, as were three other members of the gang.

[…]The jury found Rennie, the former chief of LGBT Youth Scotland, an organisation dedicated to helping young gay people, guilty of molesting a young boy over more than four years.

The child was just three months old when the abuse began.

I think that we need to be more careful about the needs of children when making decisions about public policy.