Grand mufti says Boko Haram smears Islam

JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti has condemned Nigeria’s Boko Haram as a group “set up to smear the image of Islam” and condemned its kidnapping of over 200 schoolgirls.

Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Al-Sheikh said the group was “misguided” and should be “shown their wrong path and be made to reject it.”

His remarks came as religious leaders in the Muslim world denounced Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. “This is a group that has been set up to smear the image of Islam and must be offered advice, shown their wrong path and be made to reject it,” he told the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat in an interview.

“These groups are not on the right path because Islam is against kidnapping, killing and aggression,” he said. “Marrying kidnapped girls is not permitted.”

Boko Haram kidnapped some 250 girls on April 14 from a secondary school in Chibok village, near the Cameroon border, while they took exams. Fifty have since escaped. Shekau’s video was released on Monday, sparking a wave of revulsion in Nigeria and abroad and prompting offers of help from countries such as the United States, Britain and France to search for them.

On Thursday,scholars and human rights officials of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation denounced the kidnapping as “a gross misinterpretation of Islam”. This week, Al-Azhar also said that the kidnapping “has nothing to do with the tolerant and noble teachings of Islam.”

Chief Editor of Al-Ahram says: Al-Sisi met us after Mubarak’s fall to unite against Brotherhood

Source: MEMO

The following is a translation of comments made by the Chief Editor of Al-Ahram newspaper in an interview on Al-Tahrir TV about the meeting Al-Sisi had with some Egyptian newspaper editors. In the same interview, Adel Hussain, the chief editor of Al-Shorouq newspaper appeared to agree with what Al-Ahram‘s editor was saying, particularly because both knew about a meeting Al-Sisi had with leaders of secular political parties and youth groups after Mubarak stepped down to encourage them to work together against the Muslim Brotherhood and to offer the full support and assistance of the army.

The following is the translated text:

The army has its methods and can of course use them within a legitimate framework. There was talk that this did take place. In fact, the army supports civil forces. Perhaps His Excellency the Field Marshal told a story today for the first time [during his meeting with the chief editors]. This is the first time this information is divulged by an official, though both of us knew before [him and Al-Shorouq's chief editor]. After Mubarak stepped down he [Al-Sisi] gathered the leaders of civil political parties and youth from Tahrir Square and talked to them and told them where the country was going. [He said] “The Muslim Brotherhood is an organised group and the country is heading in the direction of a terrible disaster. You should work. We shall not [obstruct] you. Things changed after January 25 and the army believes this to be so. You have a role to play. We want to provide you with assistance in order to rescue the country.” Yet, they all let him down. Perhaps, and Al-Sisi explained this, at the time confidence in the armed forces was lacking; between the army and the youth

A Sad Independence Day

Yom Ha’atzma’ut, Israeli Independence Day, is a joyous holiday. In Israel, every year, from Eilat to Metulla, from Tel Aviv to the Jordan Valley, everyone across every spectrum – secular, religious; rich, poor; left, Right, Ashkenazi, Sephardi – is out celebrating.

The reconstitution of the Jewish state, and its growth within three generations from a third world economic and military basket case into a prosperous and powerful country, is among the most astounding success story in human history. Certainly it is the greatest story of Jewish success since Joshua led a nation of former slaves in conquering and settling the land of Israel some 3,500 years ago.

And today, three generations after the enslavement and genocide of European Jewry and the expulsion of the Jews from Islamic lands, the Jewish people in the Land of Israel have built arguably the most dynamic society in the world.

For the Jews of the Diaspora, Israel’s success should be a source of enduring pride and joy.

Independence Day should be celebrated by Jews throughout the world. But in recent years, associations of Israel with joy have become increasingly rare.

As one Jewish student activist put it, the celebration on his campus was nothing more than “a bunch of kids eating cake.”

And at the same time, he explained, many students were posting statuses on their Facebook pages talking about how the day was “bittersweet because of the Nakba.”

The situation was all too similar in campuses throughout North America. Yom Ha’atzma’ut, the celebration of the greatest act of Jewish will in modern times, was marked with a shrug, and small clumps of students eating felafel and humous, and cake.

No doubt, part of the problem is the distance.

It may be that you have to live in Israel to understand how amazing it is. But then again, thanks to programs like Birthright, far more young American Jews have visited Israel in recent years than had visited in previous generations. And previous generations of American Jews felt far greater joy in Israel’s accomplishments than young American Jews feel today.

Part of the problem is ignorance. With steadily decreasing levels of Jewish education and religious affiliation among non-Orthodox Jews in the US, young American Jews don’t know almost anything about their Jewish identity.

They are unfamiliar with their history. Their religious education – if they had any – generally came to a grinding halt immediately after their bar mitzvas. And their Zionist education, such as it may have been, was filtered through the media and then, once they arrived in college, through the rants of their anti-Israel professors.

And part of it is that they are intimidated.

Hate groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace harangue Jewish students for uttering even the mildest defenses of Israel.

When students are willing to stand up to these hate groups, they are beset by J Street U members telling them that there is nothing anti-Israel about being anti-Israel, and that being anti-Israel really means being pro-Israel.

The ignorant Jews shrug their shoulders and walk away because Israel is just too much trouble.

Or they stay and become convinced that they can be pro-Israel by being anti-Israel.

A poll of Israeli Jews published on Independence Day by Tel Aviv University found that 80 percent are optimistic about Israel’s future, and 85% are optimistic about their own future.

Eighty percent of Israelis wouldn’t want to live anywhere but Israel.

Israelis are most concerned about domestic issues. Forty-seven percent are most concerned about the divide between the wealthy and the poor. Twenty-one percent are most concerned with skyrocketing housing prices. Only 8.7% think the most urgent challenge is to make peace with the Palestinians.

For most American Jews, these Israeli priorities are incomprehensible. Over the past 20 years, and at an accelerated pace over the past five years, they have been browbeaten by the mantra that Israel is all but synonymous with the peace process, and that without it, the Jewish state will be lost.

This mantra, which denies Israel an existence independent of the Palestinian conflict, was created immediately after Israel embarked on the peace process with the PLO in 1993. It was bad enough from the outset. But it has become gravely exacerbated by the appearance of J Street on the American Jewish scene.

Before J Street, ignorant American Jews could defend Israel because it is pro-peace. But since J Street arrived at the scene, the fact that Israel has always sought peace with its neighbors is increasingly denied and replaced with lies about Israeli culpability for the pathologies of the Palestinians and the wider Islamic world.

J Street is an anti-Israel, pro-Iranian and pro-Palestinian lobby run by American Jews.

Since its founding six years ago, J Street has lobbied against US sanctions on Iran. It has lobbied for US support for anti-Israel resolutions in the UN Security Council. It lobbied in favor of the libelous Goldstone Report and then lied about its actions when they were exposed.

J Street opposes US strategic ties with Israel. It opposes efforts to defeat the campaign to delegitimize Israel. It hosts openly anti-Semitic speakers at its conferences. It raises money to defeat pro-Israel members of Congress.

J Street supports the BDS movement. It defends BDS activists against their Jewish victims on US college campuses. It hosts them at its conferences and cosponsors events with them.

J Street’s purpose is twofold. First, as an anti-Israel lobby that acts in support of the Iranian regime and Palestinian terrorist organizations, it seeks to diminish to the point of ending the US’s alliance with Israel. To this end, as Richard Baehr noted this week in Israel Hayom, J Street is working to wrest the Democratic Party away from Israel and so make supporting Israel a partisan issue in American politics.

Second, as the recently released documentary on J Street, The J Street Challenge, demonstrates, J Street strives to make it difficult if not impossible for the American Jewish community to support Israel in any coherent fashion.

In a speech at the New America Foundation, J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami explained that the organization’s goal is to destroy the power and influence of the American Jewish community.

In his words, “I think we’re taking on much more than AIPAC. I think that it is the Conference of Presidents. It’s the American Jewish Committee. It’s the lobbying structures of the Federations. It’s the network of JCRCs, the Jewish Community Relations Councils.”

He then employed classical anti-Semitic imagery to explain the magnitude of the challenge and of the danger allegedly posed by these groups.

“It’s a really multi-layered, multi-headed hydra. This monopoly, this many-headed monopoly, has been trying to squash us.”

The most effective means that J Street has employed to date to accomplish its destructive task has been joining the big communal tents.

In these efforts it has been most successful on college campuses.

After decades of living with the perception of Israel as inextricably linked to the “peace process,” most American Jews are extremely supportive of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

J Street exploits this popular position to undermine Israel. Falsely presenting itself as a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” organization, the anti-Israel lobby has entered into the big tent of Jewish communal life at campus Hillels to both undermine support for Israel, and render it all but impossible for Jews on campuses and in larger communities to voice a coherent Zionist message. They accomplish this by falsely arguing that strong pro-Israel positions undermine prospects for peace and that Israel itself undermines peace.

To be clear, J Street is to Zionism what Jews for Jesus are to Judaism.

Jews for Jesus call themselves Messianic Jews.

They dress like observant Jews and prey on the religious ignorance of young American Jews to convince them to convert to Christianity.

In J Street’s case, its members present themselves as pro-Israel and pro-peace, or simply as pro-peace, to exploit the ignorance of American Jews and subvert their capacity and willingness to support Israel.

Last week, J Street’s strategy of penetrating mainstream Jewish organizations hit a brick wall. The Conference of Presidents, one of the “heads” of the Jewish “hydra” that Ben-Ami declared J Street seeks to destroy, rejected J Street’s application for membership.

Partly due to the strong support J Street receives from the leftist media in the US, partly due to the rise of radicals to leadership positions in many major American Jewish organizations, J Street’s application for membership was a cause for concern. Many activists were convinced that it would be accepted.

So the fact that J Street failed to muster not only the two-thirds majority necessary to become a member, it failed to win even a simple majority of the votes, is a major triumph for the community and a cause for hope that the battle for Zionism in America has been joined.

And it must be joined, and won. As far as J Street is concerned, its bid to join the Conference of Presidents was merely one battle in its war against American Zionism.

Immediately after the votes were counted, J Street moved to Plan B. It mobilized its supporters in the Reform and Conservative movements to bludgeon the Conference of Presidents for daring to reject the membership application of an anti-Israel group whose leader publicly pledged to destroy the Conference of Presidents.

J Street exists to fight. Its goal is to destroy.

The tools it employs are demoralization and deceit. That is why the reticence American Jews feel about celebrating Yom Ha’atzma’ut is not merely sad. It is dangerous.

Israel is the most extraordinary collective achievement of the Jewish people in thousands of years. It is the embodiment of the dreams, faith, blood, sweat and tears of the Jewish people today and throughout time in both spiritual and physical terms.

Israel is something that every Jew should celebrate and be thankful not only on Yom Ha’atzma’ut, but every day of the year.

Israelis know this and that is why we are so content and optimistic.

It is J Street’s purpose to hide this truth from the American Jewish community. So it is the task of the American Jews to build on the decision of the Conference of Presidents and ensure through education, travel to Israel and aliya that J Street goes down in time as the great failure it deserves to be. Doing so will ensure that next year, instead of being reduced to the sad spectacle of “a bunch of kids eating cake,” Yom Ha’atzma’ut celebrations worldwide will be the unbridled expressions of joy that they are in Israel.

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Trial hears veteran entertainer Rolf Harris was 'Jekyll and Hyde' character 'known as Octopus because he put hands all over women'

Veteran entertainer Rolf Harris was a “Jekyll and Hyde” character whose “untouchable” reputation allowed him to carry out a string of alleged indecent assaults on under-age girls, a court has heard.

The 84-year-old was even known at an Australian TV channel as “the octopus” because of the way he put his hands all over women, London’s Southwark Crown Court heard today.

Opening the case against the star, who denies 12 counts of indecent assault between 1968 and 1986, prosecutor Sasha Wass QC said Harris’s alleged victims were “overawed” at meeting him, saying: “Mr Harris was too famous, too powerful and his reputation made him untouchable.”

Addressing a packed courtroom, Ms Wass said Harris was “an immensely talented man” who excelled in art, music and children’s entertainment. He painted a picture of the Queen in 2005 to commemorate her 80th birthday, before being made a CBE the following year.

It was his fame and reputation that meant he was able to carry out “brazen” sexual assaults, often when other people were present or nearby, she said.

Ms Wass said: “The prosecution does not, for a minute, suggest that there is not a good, talented and kind side to Mr Harris.

“But, concealed behind this charming and amicable children’s entertainer, lay a man who exploited the very children who were drawn to him.

“There is a Jekyll and Hyde nature to Rolf Harris and this dark side of Rolf Harris was obviously not apparent to all of the other people he met during the course of his work, and it was not apparent to those who may want to testify to his good character.”

The prosecutor said it was “a side of him which is sexually attracted to children and under-age girls” and “a side which gave him the confidence to molest girls knowing that they could not object and, even if they did, nobody would believe them”.

She said: “You will hear from a make-up artist from Channel 7 in Australia that Rolf Harris’s reputation was such that he was known as the octopus because of the way that he would put his hands all over women.”

Harris, sitting in the dock wearing a grey suit, white shirt and multi-coloured tie, listened intently to the proceedings through a hearing loop as the prosecution case was outlined.

His wife Alwen and other members of his family sat listening in the public gallery alongside dozens of UK and international journalists.

Ms Wass told the court that eight alleged victims will give evidence, four of whom are the subject of charges on the indictment, and the others supporting witnesses.

“The chances of so many people making up similar false allegations are just ludicrous,” she told jurors.

She went on to outline allegations made by one of the victims, who was allegedly groomed like “a young puppy who had been trained to obey”.

The alleged victim, who is the subject of seven of the counts, claims she was abused by Harris, first while on holiday in Hawaii when she was 13 and then continuing over 15 years.

Ms Wass said: “You will hear during the course of this case other instances where Mr Harris touched children and women alike in quite brazen circumstances.

“It may be that that was part of the excitement, knowing that he could do that and get away with it.”

It is alleged that the girl’s parents trusted Harris, so did not suspect him.

“Rolf Harris was a pillar of society, a well-respected man and somebody who was well-known for being fond of children,” Ms Wass said.

On one occasion, it is alleged, Harris gave the teenager oral sex as another girl slept in the same room.

Ms Wass said: “(The alleged victim) thought that it was as though the risk of doing this so near to (the other girl) was exciting him.”

The jury was told: “He never treated her as an equal or a human being. He never had a meaningful conversation with her. She felt, as I said to you, that she was his little toy.

“As a result of this grooming process, (the alleged victim) had become completely compliant.”

Eventually the woman - whose experiences at the hands of Harris led to her becoming an alcoholic - told her parents, the court heard, prompting her father to write a letter to Harris.

In a reply, thought to have been sent in March 1997, the artist confessed to having a sexual relationship with the woman, but denied it started when she was 13.

In the letter, he described being in a state of “self loathing” and feeling “sickened” by himself for the misery he had caused her.

“You can’t go back and change things that you have done in this life - I wish to god I could,” he wrote.

He went on: “As I do these animal programmes, I see the unconditional love that dogs give to their owners and I wish I could start to love myself again.

“If there is any way that I could atone for what I have done, I would willingly do it. If there is any way I can start to help (the alleged victim) heal herself, I would willingly do it.”

He apologised to the man for betraying his trust and added: “I know that what I did was wrong but we are, all of us, fallible and oh how I deluded myself. Please forgive me, love Rolf.”

In a police interview in November 2012, Harris gave a prepared statement that said: ``I categorically deny having had any sexual contact with the complainant whatsoever while she was under the age of 16.

“I admit that I did have a consensual sexual relationship with the complainant when she was an adult. I finished the relationship and she was extremely upset.”

He said he wrote the letter to her father because he had an extra-marital affair “which I knew to be wrong”, and that he was “very sorry if I had done anything to upset her”.

He was interviewed again in March 2013, when he made no comment in line with legal advice, and again in August that year when he made the following statement.

“In around 1994, I started hosting a programme called Animal Hospital on the BBC. It was an immediate hit.

“After it went on air, I received a telephone call from (the alleged victim) in which she said that she wanted me to give her £25,000 in order that she could set up an animal sanctuary with her boyfriend.

“I told her that I could not and would not pay. She told me that her brother would ’go to the papers’, by which I assumed she meant that he would reveal details of our affair to the media.

“I refused to make any payment to her. Although nothing appeared in the press at the time, I feared that it was only a matter of time until she would make our affair public.

“I believe that was the last time I spoke to (the woman’s name).”

The court heard that the woman had told other people about the alleged abuse.

Ms Wass said: “It demonstrates that this is not a recent invention by (the woman) to jump on any bandwagon arising out of the Jimmy Savile inquiry. It it not joining in the celebrity witch-hunt.”

The court heard that seven of the 12 counts relate to this woman, but Harris could not be charged in relation to alleged assaults while on holiday because, until 1997, someone could not be charged with alleged offences that happened outside the UK.

Harris has also not been charged in connection with offences that were said to have taken place after the woman was 19, because she was effectively consenting.

Ms Wass said Harris’s interest in the girl was not an “isolated aberration”, telling the court: “The investigation in this case has revealed that Mr Harris has used his position as a well-known and well-loved celebrity to access children and to touch them indecently in the knowledge and with the confidence that they would not make any complaints against him because of who he was.”

The court heard that some complainants came forward years ago, while others only did so after the publicity surrounding high-profile Operation Yewtree.

But jurors were told that none of the witnesses knew each other and had not “put their heads together”.

Ms Wass said one charge relates to a woman who claims Harris groped her when she was just eight years old as she went to get his autograph at a community centre in Portsmouth in 1969.

The woman, who is now in her 50s, said she watched Harris perform one of his songs at the centre and then queued for his autograph.

But after the entertainer gave her his autograph, he put his hands between her legs twice, in a way that she thought must have been deliberate.

“It was intrusive, it was not a gentle gesture in any way at all,” Ms Wass said.

Despite being young, the woman knew what he had done was wrong and threw the autograph away, the court heard.

Ms Wass said that, years later, when Harris appeared on television while the woman was watching with her husband, she described what had happened.

The woman also later made the allegations to a support group, telling them that Harris had indecently assaulted her when she was seven or eight.

And when the entertainer’s name emerged in the press in the wake of the Savile scandal, the woman sent a text message to her husband, saying: “I told you so”, the court heard.

There came a time when the woman told her support group she was confident enough to speak to the police as she now felt she would be believed, Ms Wass said.

The court then heard details of women who claim they were groped by Harris, but their complaints are not part of the charges on the indictment because they happened abroad before the law changed in 1997 to allow such claims to be prosecuted in the UK.

The first woman was aged 11 or 12 in 1969 when she claims Harris told her: “Come here, I want to be the first one to give you a tongue kiss.”

He then ran his hand up and down her back and “stuck his tongue in her mouth”, it is claimed.

Ms Wass said: “She froze. She described the experience as vile and it made her gag.”

A second woman claims she was groped after Harris asked her to dance at an event in New Zealand in 1970.

The entertainer gave her his autograph and posed for a photograph with her, before inviting her to dance.

“Everything was fine until Mr Harris slid his hand down (the woman’s) back and then placed it on her bottom and then under her dress, ” Ms Wass said.

“Not just smoochy dancing, but under her dress in a public situation.”

The jury heard that Harris “knew that whatever he did, he would be able to get away with it”.

Ms Wass said: “He was targeting people who were in awe of him and he pushed the boundaries, even in a public place, a dance floor. He knew he could get away with it.”

A third woman was on holiday in Malta with her boyfriend when she was 18 when she claimed to have been assaulted by Harris.

The court heard that the couple were swimming when the woman’s boyfriend cut his toe.

After getting a towel from a nearby bar to staunch the blood, the couple met Harris who had been inside.

He advised the boyfriend to go to a doctor and, once he heard about the woman’s interest in art, offered to show her some paintings in another room.

But when inside, he pushed her against the door and started to kiss her, “slobbering around her face and neck”, the court heard.

He then fondled her breasts and put his hand into her knickers, indecently assaulting her, jurors were told.

Ms Wass said the woman claimed he suddenly stopped and said something along the lines of being sorry.

Although there are no charges relating to the incident, Harris will deny that he touched her at all, let alone sexually, the court heard.

One woman, to whom one charge of indecent assault relates, alleges that she was working as a waitress at an event - possibly called It’s a Celebrity Knockout - in Cambridge when she was 14 in the 1970s, when she saw Harris playing with a small terrier outside the marquee.

Her rubbed the back of her body, from her shoulders to her buttocks a number of times, the court heard, then acted as if nothing had happened and walked away.

When she went back into the marquee, one of the staff commented that she had gone red, prompting her to reply: “ You would be red if you had done to you what he did to me.”

Ms Wass said again Harris had seemed undeterred by other people being present, but told the court that he would say the incident never happened and he was out of the country at the time.

The court heard that after the Savile inquiry began in 2012, the woman told her husband about the alleged incident with Harris, saying she had never told anyone before because she feared she would not be believed.

Ms Wass asked the jury: “Would these girls, unknown to each other, make it up? Or is the reality they are telling the truth and they are all describing the dark side of Mr Harris, the Mr Hyde character that lurks within?”

The alleged victim in the final three counts on the indictment was part of an Australian theatre company which visited the UK in 1986.

She claims that the group met Harris at a dinner, and that he rubbed his penis against her as she sat on his knee, and touched her vagina.

Ms Wass said: “As with the other children in the case, she was in awe of Rolf Harris. She was not the one in a position to shout or scream. Who was going to believe her?”

She tried to get away by going to the toilet, but it is alleged that Harris waited outside and touched her breasts and put his finger in her vagina.

The court heard that “the great Rolf Harris” had taken advantage of her.

It is claimed that the alleged victim cut her hair short and eventually became bulimic after the claimed abuse.

Later the court heard that her boyfriend persuaded her to go to the media, and she employed a PR agent and received 60,000 dollars to appear on a television programme called A Current Affair and give an interview to a magazine called Woman’s Day.

Ms Wass said: “(The woman) will no doubt be criticised for her contact with the media and the fact that she has sought to make money by revealing her experience at the hands of Mr Harris.

“But you will want to ask yourselves this. Just because she has received money, does that mean that what happened to her was not true?”

Harris gave a statement to police denying her claims.

He said: “ I have no recollection of (the woman). The allegations she has made have shocked and distressed me. They are absolutely without foundation and I deny them in the strongest possible terms.

“I have been informed that (the woman) only reported her allegations when she became aware of other allegations against me.

“I also understand that she instructed a well-known PR agent to sell her story to the media and that she is reported to have received a considerable sum in return for providing interviews.

“I do not know (the woman’s) motivation for fabricating these allegations but I am afraid that her actions do suggest that she may well be motivated by a desire for fame and financial reward.”

Prosecutors claim that her allegations are similar to the victim who is the subject of seven counts, and that this alleged victim is coming to the UK to give evidence despite the fact “she is likely to be severely criticised for making money out of her experiences.”

Dangerous predator admits trying to kill an eight-year-old Teesside boy to silence him

John Sykes, 50, smiled as his depraved acts were described in court :: He will not be released from prison for many years - if ever

A smiling monster who claims to have sexually abused more than 80 boys has admitted trying to kill an eight-year-old.

As John Sykes was today jailed for six years and nine months, a court heard that he confessed to another victim that he had attacked the boy in order to silence him.

Police are now appealing for anyone to come forward who believes they were also a victim of the 50-year-old.

One victim, who was then aged 14, said that Sykes told him: “You know what happened to little (the eight-year-old) you don’t want that to happen to you or your sister, do you?

“I had to kill the little *******. I don’t know how he survived. I went to town with him.”

Prosecutor Peter Makepeace told Teesside Crown Court that the threats left the boy too terrified to report Sykes’ assaults.

The victim revealed them to family in July last year.

Sykes, from the St Hilda’s area of Middlesbrough and later of Grangetown, denied attempted murder.

And the Crown accepted his guilty plea to inflicting grievous bodily harm at Teesside Crown Court in the 1990s. He was jailed.

Sykes is currently serving an indeterminate sentence, with a minimum of 42 months, imposed at Leeds Crown Court in June 2010.

That was for sexual activity with a child and a breach of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

His latest sentence will begin after December next year, which was the earliest previous date that he could apply for parole.

But Sykes, who smiled as his depraved acts were described in the prosecution opening, may not be released for years - if ever.

Mr Makepeace added: “He claims to have abused up to 80 other boys,with a predeliction for boys of eight to ten years of age, and it is apparent that he poses a significant risk.”

Paul Cleasby, defending, said the matter was clearly a grave case.

And he asked the judge to bear in mind the totality of any sentence because Sykes was likely to serve much longer than the parole application date for his previous offences.

Teesside’s most senior judge, the Recorder of Middlesbrough Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC, told Sykes that he was a dangerous sexual predator of young boys.

“You groom them, you ingratiate yourself with their families, and you do it for one reason to satiate your lust," the judge said.

“The risk you pose to the public is the risk to young boys of sexual offences and of serious violence to young boys.

“And I note from your attitude and conduct in this dock it is of extreme indifference to you.”

Sykes targeted boys by offering to babysit, which led to them staying overnight at his home.

The eight-year-old was in Sykes’ care when he was found lying unconscious with a fractured skull and swelling of the brain in an alleyway.

Mr Makepeace said Sykes told the parents when they returned from a night out that the boy had run away in the middle of the night.

But when the boy regained consciousness he revealed that he had been sexually assaulted by Sykes.

The defendant had then taken the boy from his home and tried to kill him to prevent him from telling what had happened.

Sykes, whose previous address was Sunnybank Road, Mirfield, Leeds, was sentenced to 81 months jail after he pleaded guilty to three specimen charges of indecent assault on a child and five actual offences.

Detective Sergeant Dave Smith said anyone who believes they may have been a victim of Sykes should contact him on the 101 number.

Man airlifted to hospital with serious injures after Saltburn smash in stable condition

The 60-year-old man remains in James Cook University Hospital after his car overturned on Liverton Whin close to Marske Lan

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Collision on Liverton Whin, in Saltburn

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A man who was airlifted to hospital with "very serious injuries" after a two car smash in Saltburn yesterday is now in a stable condition.

The 60-year-old man remains in James Cook University Hospital.

He was driving a silver Citroen car when it overturned after colliding with what has been described by police as a panel van on Liverton Whin, in Saltburn , close to Marske Lane.

Police, ambulances and fire engines were on the scene at the incident, which took place at around 11am.

Three appliances from the fire service attended the scene, one each from Saltburn and Redcar and the emergency response tender from Coulby Newham.

Firefighters helped free the passenger from the Citroen car, which had flipped on its side as a result of the collision.

The road was blocked for some time at the junction of Liverton Whin and Wilton Bank, close to the petrol station on Marske Lane - one of the main routes into Saltburn.

Rania Alayed murder trial: Accused's partner feared she would be killed

Agnieszka Belka, partner of a man accused of helping his brother murder his wife, sobbed as she told court she feared she too would be killed

The distressed partner of a man accused of helping his brother murder his wife sobbed as she told a court she feared she too would be killed.

Rania Alayed, a 25-year-old mum-of-three, was killed on last June 7.

Her husband Ahmed Al-Khatib, 33, of Knutsford Road, Gorton, says he fatally injured Rania, who formerly lived in Norton and Middlesbrough, in the crazed belief she was an “evil spirit”, and then buried her with the help of his 38-year-old brother, Muhanned Al-Khatib, of Arthur Millwood Court, Salford.

Both men deny murdering Rania because she walked out on her “abusive” marriage and became “too Westernised” – but they admit perverting the course of justice by hiding her body in a North Yorkshire copse.

Her body has not been found despite extensive searches by police close to the A19 near Thirsk.

In the weeks after Rania vanished from her Cheetham Hill home, her family and friends were sent texts and social networking messages purporting to be from her, and so did not know she was dead.

Agnieszka Belka, the Polish mother of Muhanned Al-Khatib’s two children, described seeing a TV appeal on July 5, as officers tried to trace the missing mum.

“I saw news about Rania, asking her to show herself. I was very excited that Rania was still alive, that perhaps she had run out of money, and now she will show herself. I went to Muhanned to tell him, and he told me ‘Rania is dead’.”

Bursting into tears, Ms Belka added: “The first thing which came to my head is ‘it’s my turn, and my children’s turn now.’ He told me Ahmed kill her, I just help, I just help, nothing to do with me, I don’t know how she died’.

“After that he told me that he had to phone police and show the body, because Ahmed will never do that.”

Ms Belka said Muhanned’s was “straight-faced” as he told her this, which she “can’t understand”.

Shortly afterwards Muhanned was arrested on suspicion of murder, and his parting words to Ms Belka were, “now you will get time to lose weight’’, the court heard.

The jury has been told that Rania was killed at Ms Belka’s flat at Arthur Millwood Court, Salford, after Ms Belka was told by Muhanned Al-Khatib to take the children out so he could host a family meeting.

Ms Belka told court that six years ago, when she was pregnant with her first child, Muhanned “push me, punch me, kick me and squeeze me all the time” to induce a miscarriage.

Describing a 2010 domestic violence incident, she said: “He tried to strangle me on the same bed on which I think Rania died, and he told me he will cut me in pieces and he will put me in a black bag and he will throw me off the M6 and my body will never be found.

“I didn’t take him seriously, he was saying a lot of things. Once even he mentioned that he knows what to do with a body – two, three days put in acid in the bath, body disappearing. I was little frightened.”

Proceeding

Morning news headlines: Scrutiny of spies 'embarrassing', report slams free schools programme

SCRUTINY OF SPIES ’EMBARRASSING’

The credibility of the security and intelligence agencies is being hit by ineffective oversight, an influential group of MPs has said.

Scrutinising the work of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ should not be undertaken exclusively by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), the Home Affairs Select Committee said in its latest report on counter-terrorism.

And the MPs have recommended that membership of the nine-strong ISC should be elected like select committees and the chair should always be a member of the Commons, subject to election by the whole House.

REPORT SLAMS FREE SCHOOLS PROGRAMME

The Government does not have a clear view of how taxpayers’ money is being spent on its flagship free schools and is too reliant on whistleblowers to expose problems, a cross-party group of MPs has warned.

In a scathing new report, the Commons Public Accounts Committee suggested that financial management and governance in some of these new schools is not up to scratch.

It also expressed concerns that there have been no bids to open primary free schools in areas that have a high or severe need for places.

MAN CHARGED WITH ARMED ROBBERY

A man who was arrested five days after going missing from an open prison will appear in court today charged with carrying out an armed robbery at a building society.

Michael Wheatley, 55, is alleged to have robbed the Chelsea Building Society in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, on Wednesday while he was on the run from HMP Standford Hill on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

He will appear at East Surrey Magistrates’ Court in Redhill charged with robbery, possession of a firearm or imitation firearm and being unlawfully at large, Surrey Police said.

CONCERN OVER DEBT COLLECTION PLANS

An influential group of MPs has expressed alarm about plans for the taxman to be able to seize money direct from millions of personal bank accounts.

The cross-party Treasury Committee said it had “considerable concern” over Chancellor George Osborne’s debt collection proposals, and called for further scrutiny.

In their report on this year’s Budget, the MPs suggested the change could amount to a back-door reintroduction of the discredited Crown Preference rule - which gave HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) priority access to assets when firms went bust.

CLEGG MOCKS CAMERON ON EU DEMANDS

Nick Clegg is to mock David Cameron for backing away from his demands for repatriation of powers from Europe - insisting the Tory leader is now only calling for “mild” change.

The Deputy Prime Minister will say his coalition partner is seeking a “way out” after making too many promises to restive Conservative MPs.

It is clear that Mr Cameron will only be able to negotiate “minor” changes ahead of a mooted in-out referendum in 2017, according to Mr Clegg.

RECESSION ’ON VERGE OF BEING OVER’

The recession that has gripped the UK for six years is on the verge of being over after a leading economic body said the economy is almost back to its pre-financial crisis peak.

Growth will exceed its 2008 high in the next few months, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said in a report today.

The institute predicts that gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 2.9% this year, an increase of 0.4% on its estimate of just three months ago.

ROLF HARRIS PROSECUTION CASE OPENS

The prosecution case in the trial of artist and entertainer Rolf Harris for a string of alleged indecent assaults is due to open today.

A jury of six men and six women was sworn in at Southwark Crown Court yesterday, along with three extras - two men and one woman - in case there are any issues that prevent the existing jurors hearing the case.

Harris, 84, is accused of indecently assaulting four alleged victims - the youngest of whom was seven or eight and the oldest 19 - between 1968 and 1986, which he denies.

MET CHIEF URGES FGM REFERRALS

Mandatory medical examinations to identify victims of female genital mutilation (FGM) may have to be considered in the UK, the head of Britain’s biggest police force has said.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said there had been a lack of referrals from schools and medical professionals about girls who had undergone the procedure, as an operation was launched at airports to identify possible victims.

An estimated 66,000 women in the UK have undergone FGM and more than 20,000 girls under 15 are thought to be at risk of the practice, which is classed as torture by the UN.

QUEEN JOINS ORDER OF THE BATH EVENT

The Queen and the Prince of Wales will attend a service of the Order of the Bath today.

The event, held every four years, is always attended by the Prince but he is joined every eighth year by the Queen, who was last present in May 2006.

The Order of the Bath is usually awarded to high ranking officers of the armed services and to a small number of senior civil servants.

DANNY ALEXANDER IN GIBRALTAR VISIT

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander will promise to keep pushing Spain to ease border restrictions as he visits Gibraltar.

Speaking at the Garrison Library on The Rock, the senior Liberal Democrat is to mark Europe Day by stressing the importance of free movement.

“On this special day, I reiterate the Government’s firm commitment that we will respect your wishes on the question of sovereignty,” Mr Alexander will say.

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