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Appeal after rapist Neil Trennan fails to return to Boston prison

Appeal after rapist Neil Trennan fails to return to Boston prison

BBC News10-07-2025
Police are appealing for information on the whereabouts of a sex offender who failed to return to prison earlier.Neil Trennan, 60, was released for the day from North Sea Camp in Boston on temporary licence, but did not return to his meeting point.Lincolnshire Police believe Trennan caught a Nottingham-bound train from Boston Train Station at about 10:49 BST.Det Insp Dave Penney said: "Trennan is a dangerous individual; we need to find him as soon as possible. He is a convicted rapist and may pose a real danger to members of the public."
There were a number of stops or directions Trennan could have taken having boarded the train, the police said.The force added that he was wearing a black t-shirt and grey bottoms but it is unknown if he would have changed his clothing.Det Insp Penney said: "Our investigations have been ongoing, they are not contained just to Lincolnshire and we are doing everything we can to locate him."Police have asked anyone with information to contact them and not to approach him.
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Moral outrage over Bonnie Blue's porn empire misses the point: this is hardcore economics
Moral outrage over Bonnie Blue's porn empire misses the point: this is hardcore economics

The Guardian

time7 hours ago

  • The Guardian

Moral outrage over Bonnie Blue's porn empire misses the point: this is hardcore economics

Bonnie Blue has sex with men on camera for money. Lots of men one after the other, to be precise, for lots and lots of money: the commercial niche she invented to distinguish herself from countless other amateur porn stars jostling desperately for attention on OnlyFans was inviting 'barely legal' ordinary teenage boys (which in porn means 18-plus) to have sex with her on film, and flogging the results to paying subscribers for a fortune. Unusually, her model involves a woman making millions out of men generating content for free, which makes it slightly harder than usual to work out exactly who is exploiting whom if she turns up (as she did in Nottingham) at a university freshers' week with a sign saying 'bonk me and let me film it'. But debating whether getting rich this way makes Bonnie personally 'empowered' seems tired and pointless. It was with this old pseudo-feminist chestnut that Channel 4 justified last week's ratings-chasing documentary on her attempt to sleep with 1,000 men in 12 hours, a film that finally brought her into the cultural mainstream. There's more to this story than sex, gender politics or Bonnie herself, and whatever is driving her (which she swears isn't past trauma, 'daddy issues' over a biological father she never knew, or anything else you're thinking: though she does say maybe her brain works differently from other people's, given her curious ability to switch off her emotions). It's at heart a story about money, the merging of the oldest trade in the world with a newer attention economy inexorably geared towards rewarding extremes, and what that does to the society that unwittingly produced it. As her now-estranged husband explained admiringly to camera, though OnlyFans performers often invite a man to imagine he's doing whatever he wants to them, that's an illusion: really they're out of reach. But Bonnie (real name Tia Billinger) isn't. She actively encourages her fans to come and do it to her for real. She is the parasocial relationship – that strange confusion created when you think you know someone because you've seen so much of their life unfold on your phone screen, though in reality they're a stranger – taken to its fantasy conclusion: a stalker's dream made flesh. Like what you see? Then just reach through the screen and grab it. Bonnie/Tia comes across essentially as a female Andrew Tate, telling teenage or otherwise vulnerable audiences that they have a right to sex – in one video urging men not to feel guilty about taking part in her stunts, she says it's only what they were 'owed', the language of the incel forum – and that it's hot to be slapped around or degraded; but, unlike Tate, with the apparent authority of actually being a woman herself. Channel 4 filmed the men queueing up to join her 1,000-men stunt mostly as a line of mute, anonymous shuffling feet. But we already know that watching near-ubiquitous porn online has changed the way younger generations have sex. What does being invited into the picture do? No wonder Ofcom is taking an interest, while the children's commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, warns against TV normalising things that – as she put it – teenagers find 'frightening, confusing and damaging to their relationships'. Ironically, the biggest short-term beneficiary of such a storm may be Bonnie/Tia herself, already a dab hand at posting rage-bait videos expertly calibrated to provoke women who already can't stand her (and are willing to explain why at length to their own followers on their own social media channels). Being hated is great for business, she explains chirpily: the more women publicly denounce her, the more their sons and husbands will Google her. Her real skill is in monetising both lust and rage, crossing the internet's two most powerful streams to capture its most lucrative currency: attention. 'She's a marketing genius,' her female publicist tells Channel 4, laughing as the team discuss how best to commercially exploit footage of an appalled mother trying to retrieve her son from one of Bonnie/Tia's filmed orgies. OnlyFans performers can't advertise as a normal business would, so they promote themselves by seeding clips across social media, ideally of them doing something wild enough to go viral: since people get bored easily, the pressure is always on to keep getting wilder and wilder, pushing way past whatever you thought were your limits. That has long been the trajectory of porn stars' careers, of course. But it's also recognisably now true of so much contemporary culture, from fully clothed influencers to reality TV shows forced to introduce ever more cruel plot twists to stop the formula getting stale (this year's Love Island has noticeably morphed from dating show into a kind of brutal sexual Hunger Games), and arguably even broadcasters such as Channel 4 fighting desperately for audience share in a world of almost infinite competition for eyeballs. When I finish watching 1000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue Story on catchup, the channel's algorithm perkily suggests an episode of Sex Actually with Alice Levine. Like the sexy stuff? Want more? Please don't leave me for YouTube! As with Tate, if Bonnie was somehow shut down there would be another one along soon enough. She's a feature, not a bug, the inevitable product of an economy relentlessly geared to giving an audience what it most reliably pays for – to feel angry or horny, or both at once – and then endlessly pushing its luck. But society does still have some limits to impose on what is in the end just another business model. Her current nemesis is Visa, which processes OnlyFans payments and which she says declined to be associated with her 1,000-man marathon, leading to her being banned from uploading it and cashing in. (Legislators have long regarded mainstream financial services companies on whom porn sites rely to rake in their profits as the crack in their armour, more susceptible to public opinion and regulatory pressure.) Meanwhile, a new taskforce on pornography headed by the Tory peer Gabby Bertin, who formerly worked for David Cameron in Downing Street, is arguing for a ban on content likely to encourage child sexual abuse – which Bertin argues could encompass 'barely legal' material or (as Bonnie has also experimented with doing, as her options narrowed) casting grown porn actors as schoolgirls. Like Labour's battle against Page 3 girls in the 1990s, which in retrospect seems an astonishingly innocent era, if ministers want to pick this fight with porn it will be brutal. But doing nothing might, in the end, be more so. Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Australian politician refuses to stand down despite being jailed for rape
Australian politician refuses to stand down despite being jailed for rape

Telegraph

time8 hours ago

  • Telegraph

Australian politician refuses to stand down despite being jailed for rape

An Australian politician has refused to stand down despite being jailed for rape, sparking an urgent court battle to expel the sex offender from a state parliament. Gareth Ward, a New South Wales state politician, was found guilty last month of sexually abusing two young men, aged 18 and 24, between 2013 and 2015. The 44-year-old former Liberal Party member has refused to stand down from state parliament, despite sitting in prison while awaiting sentencing for his crimes. Chris Minns, the state premier, said Ward had 'no shame', pledging to move a motion that would expel him from parliament, saying it's the 'first and most obvious choice'. 'Unconscionable situation' Mr Minns said: 'It's an unconscionable situation to have someone who's currently sitting in jail in Silverwater, convicted of serious sexual offences, who is demanding to remain a member of parliament and continue to be paid.' But Ward has so far stymied these efforts, obtaining a temporary injunction late on Monday that prevented the Labour government from removing him. Mark Speakman, the opposition leader, joined calls for Ward to step aside. The leader of the NSW Liberals, which Ward was formerly a part of, said: 'Every day he clings to his seat from a jail cell, taxpayers are footing the bill and the people of Kiama are left voiceless. It's not just wrong, it's offensive.' Ron Hoenig, the leader of the House, said the government would seek an urgent hearing this week to have the injunction lifted. He told reporters: 'The issue is, as you would appreciate, of considerable significance. 'The House needs to be able to make its judgment to protect itself. And we will be seeking a review of the judge's decision.' Ward said he planned to appeal his convictions, and should remain in parliament until this appeal is heard. He is due to be sentenced next month, for three counts of indecent assault and one count of rape.

‘High risk' sex offender jailed for breaching orders
‘High risk' sex offender jailed for breaching orders

The Independent

time8 hours ago

  • The Independent

‘High risk' sex offender jailed for breaching orders

A 'high risk registered sex offender' has been jailed for persistently breaching an order to prevent further offences by using aliases online. The 24-year-old, who appeared on the court list as Luke Hardy but identifies as Zoe Hardy and was referred to using female pronouns during the sentencing hearing, breached Sexual Harm Prevention Orders (SHPO), Teesside Crown Court heard. The first order was imposed in 2022 after Hardy was sentenced to a community order for three counts of making indecent images of children, including eight of the most serious kind, which were found on his mobile phone. Hardy breached that order in 2023 by deleting his internet history on his phone, including erasing dating apps from the handset, which was against the provisions of the order. Later that same year, Hardy breached the order by registering on a pornography site using the name Lucy which was prohibited as that was an alias which he had not notified the police about. The court heard that Hardy explained to police at the time how he was 'struggling with her sexuality, sometimes feeling like Luke, sometimes like Lucy'. Saba Shan, prosecuting, said the latest breach occurred in July when officers visited Hardy's home in Yarm Lane, Stockton after officers had designated him a 'high risk sex offender', and found he had used the name 'Zoe' as part of his identification on a dating app, in an email account and his name on a mobile game. It was understood that the breach occurred because Hardy did not inform police about any use of an alias online. Judge Richard Clews jailed Hardy for eight months for breaching the SHPOs and an extra month when he activated part of previous suspended sentences. He told the defendant: 'It is appropriate to describe the breaches of the Sexual Harm Prevention Order as persistent and deliberate.' He sentenced on the basis that there had been no harm caused to anyone else by Hardy breaching the orders.

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