EXCLUSIVE I was brutally beaten with brass knuckles by my ex... and it wrecked a lifetime of facial surgeries
Alexis Garcia Tule, 27, had finally started to feel confident after years of bullying and painful surgeries, including an intensive jaw reconstruction that involved metal implants to replace bone.
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The Guardian
10 minutes ago
- The Guardian
When Alice reported her husband to SA police, they said ‘people fight'. But it was far more than fighting
Alice* says that when she met the man who would become her husband, she didn't see any of the red flags that eventually led to her being 'physically, emotionally, verbally, financially and systematically abused by him'. 'Whilst pregnant he would shove me into walls, pushed me and backed me into corners yelling in my face,' she wrote. When she tried to report him to the police, she was told 'people fight'. He was eventually charged with aggravated assault. Alice's story is one of many that Natasha Stott Despoja says will haunt her. It's one of hundreds submitted to the South Australian royal commission into domestic, sexual and family violence, a commission Stott Despoja describes as being 'born out of unimaginable loss'. After four women were killed in a single week in South Australia, the state government set up the commission in July last year. It heard 'harrowing' stories from hundreds of victim-survivors. Stott Despoja, a former senator and ambassador for women and girls and founding chair of Our Watch, was appointed as commissioner. The royal commission's report, With Courage, was released on Tuesday and runs to almost 700 pages. It includes 136 recommendations, some of which the government has already agreed to, including a dedicated portfolio for domestic violence. Stott Despoja wrote in the foreword that the commission received more than 380 submissions, held 48 public hearing sessions, more than 170 listening sessions, and consulted with hundreds more people. She wrote that the report was a 'call to action' for SA, which has 'lost its way' on domestic violence. The recommendations focus on structural reform to create a 'cohesive and effective system'; increasing the awareness and visibility of violence; supporting victim-survivors to get help; programs for people who use violence; longer-term supports for survivors, and a 'strong foundation for prevention'. Some specific recommendations include a national standard for responsible media reporting, more resources for police, more accommodation, free healthcare for victim-survivors, screening for non-fatal strangulation, and strategies to minimise harm to young people on social media from pornography, the manosphere and incels. Other recommendations included restrictions on overnight alcohol sales, a 24-hour crisis line, and addressing rape myths and misconceptions. The commission found many communities are underserved, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, children, culturally and linguistically diverse people, and men who use violence. An accompanying report, Voices, lays out victim-survivors' tales of violence and struggles with the system. Stott Despoja said the stories were 'confronting'. 'They tell the authentic stories of victim-survivors from all genders, backgrounds, beliefs and postcodes,' she wrote. 'While their stories share heartbreak and sadness, many exhibit resilience and strength.' One said: 'Every time a woman dies at the hands of her partner, a little piece of me dies. This will be my daughter one day as no one will stop him.' There were tales of sexual abuse being livestreamed, choking, coercive control, and stories of not being heard or believed, and of not being able to leave. People reported abuse by their partners, parents and children. The commission heard of the childhood trauma from an abusive home, of lingering injuries and financial suffering. There were also male victim-survivors, although the report noted victim-survivors were predominantly women and the overwhelming majority of perpetrators were men. Premier Peter Malinauskas said the stories made for 'harrowing reading'. 'But this report is also a document filled with hope,' he said. 'It sets out a pathway to improve the way we respond to this scourge, and to prevent it from happening in the first place.' * Not her real name In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380
Daily Mail
10 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Father who tried to strangle daughter in Muslim ‘honor killing' is jailed for 32 months after shock verdict
A father accused of trying to strangle his teenage daughter in a Muslim 'honor killing' has been jailed for almost three years. Ihsan Ali, 44, stood trial for second-degree attempted murder alongside his wife Zahraa Subhi Mohsin Ali, 40, over the October 18, 2024, attack. A Thurston County Superior Court jury found them not guilty on July 31, but convicted Ihsan of lesser charges against his daughter Fatima Ali. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Case: Ihsan Ali, 44, listens as his daughter Fatima Ali tells the court at his attempted murder trial how he tried to choke the life out of her in an alleged 'honor killing' Ihsan was jailed for 14 months for second-degree assault, 12 months for unlawful imprisonment, and 182 days for fourth-degree assault. He was also ordered to complete a parenting class, do 18 months of community service, and have no contact with his daughter for 10 years. Judge Christine Schaller blasted Ihsan for his 'horrific actions' including the 'vicious assault on Fatima' outside Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington. The judge said she gave him maximum sentences because of the brutality of the crime and that Fatima was under Ihsan's care as his daughter. She said of his assault on Fatima's boyfriend: 'He victimized a defenseless young man for no reason and it is Isiah's good fortune that he was not more badly injured.' Judge Schaller also sentenced Zahraa for breaching a restraining order, which she already served in pretrial detention. Ihsan spent the past almost 10 months behind bars since his arrest days after the attack and will be credited with time served. Zahraa was released on July 31. Zahraa cried as Fatima, now 18, read an emotional victim impact statement to the court before the sentencing, calling Ihsan a 'monster' who tried to kill her with his own hands. Fatima told police she ran away from home after her parents tried to put her on a plane to Iraq. 'Her father had recently been threatening her with honor killing for refusing an arranged marriage with an older man in another county,' the initial police press release alleged. But this claim, central to the prosecution's original case last year, was completely absent from the three-week trial last month, by court order. Jurors were shown horrifying video footage of Ihsan grabbing Fatima by the throat before putting her in a chokehold on the ground outside the school. The footage is shocking, as were numerous witness accounts from traumatized teens, her boyfriend Isiah, and two men who stopped to help. 'Her face was looking pale and her eyes were starting to roll back,' Isiah, who was just 16 at the time, told the court through tears as he gave evidence. Other students described how Fatima 'couldn't breathe', her 'lips were turning purple' and she grabbed at her father's arm in 'obvious distress'. Josh Wagner, a motorist who stopped his car in the middle of the road and ran to help, said her face was 'changing color... she was gonna lose consciousness if it continued'. Fatima herself took the witness stand and testified that she lost consciousness four times and was terrified that she was going to die. The jury also heard that after Isiah, her classmates, and Wagner freed her by punching and kicking Ihsan dozens of times, Zahraa tried to finish the job. 'When she (Fatima) got away from her father, she tried to run, and her mom had grabbed her and she was grabbing her by the throat,' one classmate testified, as did other witnesses. That Ihsan choked his daughter to unconsciousness and punched Isiah in the face as he protected her was indisputable, due to the video evidence and overwhelming witness testimony. Had she died, there would likely be a slam-dunk case for manslaughter, at minimum. But that alone was a long way from proving intent to kill, the vital component that separates murder, or in this case attempted murder, from mere assault. The jury had to be satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that Ihsan and Zahraa intended to kill their daughter when they choked her. They weren't, and entered not guilty verdicts after three days of deliberation. Prosecutors were hampered by the collapse of the 'honor killing' claim that served as a powerful motive for the jury to convict. Deputy Prosecutor Heather Stone made it clear in a memorandum in the leadup to the trial that the state would no longer rely on it, and she wasn't sure how it became such a big feature of the case. 'There is no express evidence that such was the motivation of either defendant in this case and the state does not intend to argue such,' she wrote. 'Further, the state has no intention of even using the term at trial.' Judge Schaller also ruled before the trial that prosecutors couldn't bring up the arranged marriage or allow Fatima to talk in detail about a family trip to Iraq when she was 16. The veracity of the arranged marriage claim is less clear, but it was wholly denied by the defense during the trial. 'The entirety of the claims appears to be the result of Islamophobia,' Ihsan's lawyer Erik Kaeding wrote in his own memorandum. 'There is no evidence of either honor killing or arranged marriage supported by the evidence uncovered in the investigation of the case.' Ihsan's treatment of Fatima at home was also banned from being characterized as 'abuse'. The reason for Judge Schaller's rulings that stymied the prosecution's case was that their inclusion would unjustly prejudice the couple in the eyes of the jury. The result was a bizarre situation where everyone outside the court referred to the case as 'the honor killing trial' while inside the term was never uttered. Prosecutor Olivia Zhou didn't even mention the barbaric Muslim practice in her opening statement, or allude to any motive for murder. Fatima's testimony also didn't include the backstory she recounted to police in two-hour-long interviews in the days after she was attacked. Had the Daily Mail not obtained 100 pages of police reports detailing her interviews, and those with others, the public would never known the full alleged story. The evidence provided by Fatima in those interviews created a compelling argument for the thesis presented in Lacey Police Department arrest affidavits. They detailed her fears of being sent back to Iraq to be married off, after she saw how women were treated there during the trip when she was 16. Once her father found out she was dating Isiah, an American boy, he pulled her out of school and planned the arranged marriage, the story goes. When she protested, he allegedly threatened to kill her multiple times as he felt it would bring shame to his family. None of that was in the trial. The best prosecutors could do was rely on Fatima's ticket to Iraq being one-way, and her saying she 'didn't feel safe' in her birth country. Defense lawyers downplayed the significance of the flight by noting that one of the reasons for the trip was to get passports for her younger brothers, saying the tickets were one-way as Zahraa didn't know how long that would take. Absent of a compelling argument for motive, prosecutors were stuck trying to paint Ihsan and Zahraa as so determined to strangle their daughter that the backstory didn't matter. 'The state is not asserting that Ihsan Ali showed up on that day with the intention to try and kill his daughter,' Stone said in her closing argument. 'There was no premeditation that the state is asserting, but by the time Ishan goes into these events, the state's position is that that has changed. His intent has substantively changed.' Numerous prosecution witness accounts focused on the horrifying effects of cutting off Fatima's airway during the chokehold. Much was also made of how Ihsan withstood 30 to 40 punches to the head by Isiah alone, plus dozens more from classmates who also kicked and stomped on him. Isiah claimed Ihsan had to be knocked out cold before he let go, and Wagner spoke of prying the father's arms apart enough to free her. In the most gut-wrenching moment of the trial, Fatima took to the stand to testify against her own parents. 'Did you have any fear?' Stone asked. 'Yes.' 'Fear of what?' 'Of dying,' Fatima choked out, her voice breaking into a sob. She was barely able to respond 'no' when asked if she could say anything during the attack. '[I'm] heartbroken for what my dad did,' she said, sobbing as she described losing consciousness four times during the attack. If Ihsan wasn't trying to kill her, why did he choke her for so long and refuse to let go despite the battering he took, the argument goes. 'She's unconscious, and he continues to strangle her around the neck for another 15-18 seconds and would have continued to do so even longer but for the intervention of those adults,' Stone told jurors. Physicians who examined Fatima in hospital spoke of the severity of her injuries, which left her ordered not to swallow anything for a whole day. She also had a condition where air in the lungs is forcefully expelled, but due to her airway being blocked it caused the same effect as popping a balloon. The defense countered with their own expert, saying the lung issue - and other injuries - could have been caused by the efforts to free her, and that they were relatively minor anyway. 'There's no nefarious intent. There's no intent to hurt anybody badly, there's no intent to kill anybody. There's an intent to take your daughter home, a 17-year-old daughter who's run away,' Kaeding argued in his closing statement. The case against Zahraa was even more problematic. Footage from the bus camera that was damning for Ihsan didn't clearly show anything Zahraa did as there were so many people standing around. Prosecutors instead leaned heavily on witness testimony alleging Zahraa had her arms around Fatima's neck, while the girl mouthed that she couldn't breathe. Zahraa's lawyer Tim Leary disputed this in his opening statement, portraying her as a concerned mother who was comforting her daughter by holding her. 'You will see my client, her mom, come and attempt to help her daughter,' he said of the video. 'She is holding her daughter, she's not holding on to her neck.' Leary, both in his opening statement and in cross-examination of Fatima, noted the teenager told police she didn't think her mother was trying to hurt her. 'She was just trying to protect me from the chaos,' Leary quoted. Fatima admitted this, but told the court it was more that she 'didn't want to believe' that her own mother would try to hurt her. But Stone in her closing statement insisted Zahraa appeared to also be strangling her. 'You can't strangle your child to restrain them,' she said. 'She watches Fatima being strangled by Ihsan. 'She then puts her own arms around Fatima's neck. She's not comforting her. She's strangling her to keep her from fleeing. 'And when you look at that video, you see she does not provide any aid at any time to her child, zero aid. That is not an effort to comfort her child.' Leary claimed that when Zahraa chased Fatima and Isiah inside the school, it was out of concern, not an attempt to finish a murder. 'What does my client do? She leaves her husband behind, she runs into the school. Where is my daughter? Where's my daughter?' he said in his opening. He concluded: 'That is the accusations against my client for what she did attempting to hold her daughter - in the state's eyes is the allegation of attempted murder.' Fatima is in extended foster care and, now an adult, cannot be compelled to return to her parents.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
The ‘serious risks' of fake Labubu dolls
An urgent safety warning has been issued over fake Labubu dolls, known as Lafufus, due to a 'serious risk of choking and death' for young children. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) stated that these counterfeit plush figures and keychains are small enough to block a child's airway and can easily break into small, hazardous pieces. Consumers are advised to immediately stop using any existing Lafufus and to avoid purchasing them, with the CPSC also requesting the seizure of thousands of fake dolls being shipped into the US. Peter A. Feldman, acting chairman of the CPSC, emphasised that these fake dolls are dangerous and illegal, urging parents to buy only from reputable sellers. The CPSC provided guidance on identifying counterfeit dolls, including looking for unusually steep discounts, overly bright colours, the absence of nine teeth, and the lack of official Pop Mart holographic stickers, QR codes, or UV stamps. Urgent safety warning issued over fake Labubu dolls which pose 'serious risk of choking and death' for young kids
