Black Collar Crime Round-Up: December 12, 2009
Madeleine Martin
John William McConaghy • Keith Morton
Because we could spend 24/7 tracking the sex crimes of right-wing religionists (especially “youth pastors”) and never get caught up. Of the following, the more interesting cases will probably end up with their very own Conservative Babylon entries.
Sentenced and facing new charges: Kenneth Graham Gibbs, 77, retired Anglican minister, St. John’s Anglican Church, Chapleau, Ontario, and St. Peter the Apostle, Elliot Lake, convicted in November, 2009, and sentenced December 3, 2009, to three and a half years for “indecently assaulting five now-grown women when they were girls” during the 1960s, and charged four days later with with two new counts of indecent assault against two other children. “The incidents are reported to have taken place in Chapleau, Ontario between 1965 and 1971, when one victim was a child and the other a young teen.” Story: SooToday.com, December 3, 2009; December 7, 2009
Arrested: Julian Sheppard Heyman, 52, sixth-grade teacher, Ebenezer Middle School, Effingham County, Georgia, president of the Georgia Salzburger Society, and director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Savannah, on multiple chiuld-molestation charges, including aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy, sexual battery and enticing a child for indecent purposes, among others. “Two victims reported to investigators that they were molested from as far back as 1997 and 1998. Both victims were under 10 years of age at the time the crimes took place.” Heyman had been named Ebenezer’s teacher of the year, 2009. Story: Effingham Herald, December 3, 2009
Sentenced: Madeleine Martin, 39, religious education teacher in Machester, U.K., to 32 months after pleading guilty to 10 counts of “causing a teenage boy to engage in sexual activity.” Martin, who is married and the mother of two teenage girls, had sex with the 15-year-old boy “in the back of her car in a country park, at a shopping centre and inside the mother of two’s family home during a brief relationship.” She “also persuaded the pupil to have her name tattooed on his arm after they became involved when she was assigned to mentor him at an all-boys school.” Story: Tameside Advertiser, November 25, 2009; Daily Mail, November 26, 2009
Deemed “too fat for jail”: John William McConaghy, 66, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, church elder, convicted of sexually abusing the same girl fro some eight years. Convicted of indecent assault, McConaghy received just two and a half years, which Judge David Smyth suspended, citing the 420-pound pedophile’s “precarious” health and declaring his “lack of mobility, ulcerated legs and need for frequent dressings amounted to ‘wholly exceptional circumstances.’” Story: BBC, December 3, 2009; Huffington Post, December 4, 2009
Under investigation again: Keith Morton, 43, lay preacher, Elm Ridge Methodist Church, Darlington, England, “over allegations of child abuse committed in the North-East… Keith Morton is on remand after admitting a string of sex offences against young boys in the Midlands dating back to 2002. The 43-year-old Methodist preacher was due to be sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday, but the hearing was adjourned after new allegations came to light… Police have questioned him about indecent images found on his computer and alleged sex offences involving three boys under the age of 16… Morton has been sacked and banned for life from working with children in the church. … A trial will take place at Teesside Crown Court if Morton contests any further charges. A date for the next hearing is yet to be confirmed.” Story: Northern Echo, December 5, 2009
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