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Otago Daily Times
6 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
'Cry for help' exposes man's serious addiction to 'child porn'
By Tracy Neal, Open Justice multimedia journalist Warning: This story covers topics including online child exploitation and attempted suicide that may be upsetting to some readers A South Island man's attempt at taking his own life opened a Pandora's Box on his addiction to child exploitation material. Now a judge has deemed the man's quick confession to the police was a cry for help but said it didn't excuse his actions. Nicolas Shaun Miller told the police after they found thousands of items of objectionable material on his computer that he had a 'serious addiction' to what he called 'child porn'. The confession to the police came about in 'unusual circumstances', Judge Jo Rielly said in the Nelson District Court. Crown prosecutor Daniel Baxter said it was a sad situation for all involved. Defence lawyer Mark Dollimore said in some ways, Miller's addiction had almost killed him. A boring, monotonous life The 31-year-old had been living alone in a caravan in Murchison, in the southern Tasman District, in what Dollimore described as 'squalid conditions'. Miller said he led a 'boring, monotonous life', and, when he was not working, he played video games and drank to excess. He no longer had much contact with family, he was alone and isolated, Dollimore said. He said that on November 17 last year when Miller had tried to end his life he had consumed cannabis, watched pornography and the reality of his situation and his addiction had overwhelmed him. Miller was taken to Nelson Hospital and treated for serious self-inflicted wounds. 'He came very close to killing himself. It was touch and go for him in ICU,' Dollimore said. Miller later said he had tried to take his own life because he knew he had a serious problem that he struggled with, but didn't know where to reach out for help. Miller believed his addiction might lead to contact offending with a child which he feared he might not be able to resist, and that he favoured a 'particular type' which he himself found abhorrent, Judge Rielly said. A cry for help She said Miller's effort to speak up was a cry for help, but it didn't excuse the illegal behaviour. He was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison on seven charges, one of which was a representative charge, of knowingly possessing an objectionable publication. It wasn't until after mental health services had assessed Miller in November that a police investigation followed and he was charged. Miller had told a mental health staff member that he had been viewing 'child porn' for the previous two or three years, and the police were notified. After a search of his address, several electronic items, including a computer tower, were seized. Forensic examination of the tower suggested it contained objectionable material on about 16,000 files. A subsequent search confirmed 14,146 items as objectionable. Miller had also accessed websites that had bestiality content on them. The representative charge covered an 'extensive number' of images found on a hard drive, some of which were classified as the most serious of their type. Miller told the police that he viewed the images daily because they 'excited him' but he knew he had a major problem. Miller also told the police he understood that viewing child exploitation material was not a victimless crime, and that children endured 'horrific atrocities' in the making of such material, fuelled by viewers such as himself. He 'fessed up' early Dollimore said Miller had 'fessed up' early and had co-operated with the police in every way he could, and that he was desperate for help. Baxter said it was Miller's honesty that led to his offending coming to light, and the Crown was not opposed to credit being given for Miller's request for help. Judge Rielly said that from everything Miller had said, not only was he feeling extremely low about himself, but he was also very concerned about where his addiction might lead him. 'This was a very tragic situation that led to you disclosing what had been going on. It has to be said at that time you had insight that you needed, and wanted,help.' Judge Rielly said Miller also knew his behaviour could change for the worse and he did not want that to happen. In setting a prison starting point at five years, Judge Rielly said although Miller's relationship with his family was now strained, he had not sought to blame anything about his background for his offending. He was given credit for his early guilty plea and for demonstrating his remorse, his shame, his insight into the offending and his readiness to rehabilitate, to arrive at a sentence of three-and-a-half years on the representative charge and two-and-a-half years on the remaining charges, to be served concurrently. Miller was automatically registered as a child sex offender. Where to get help: • Lifeline: Call 0800 543 354 or text 4357 (HELP) (available 24/7) • Suicide Crisis Helpline: Call 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7)• Youth services: (06) 3555 906 • Youthline: Call 0800 376 633 or text 234 • What's Up: Call 0800 942 8787 (11am to 11pm) or webchat (11am to 10.30pm) • Depression helpline: Call 0800 111 757 or text 4202 (available 24/7)• Helpline: Need to talk? Call or text 1737 • Aoake te Rā (Bereaved by Suicide Service): Call 0800 000 053 If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Labor's superannuation tax plan likely to hit many Australians currently under 40 once they retire
Federal MPs elected before 2004 and judges will be exempt from Labor's plan to double superannuation taxes until legislation design flaws are fixed. Unlike most Australian workers, Anthony Albanese and new Liberal leader Sussan Ley are on a defined benefits superannuation scheme where retirement benefits are guaranteed - as are judges, state MPs and many public servants. Labor wants to double earnings taxes on super balances above $3million to 30 per cent, but for the time being that will only apply to Australians who have accumulated super where the balance fluctuates with financial markets. The government is also proposing a new 15 per cent on unrealised gains tax above $3million, which would see a capital gains tax applied to super on the notional value of assets. This plan, known as tax division 296, would force Australians with a self-managed super fund to sell assets like real estate to avoid having to pay the tax. AMP deputy chief economist Diana Mousina and CPA Australia's superannuation lead Richard Webb have argued Labor's plan to tax super balances above $3million, without indexing it for inflation, would affect way more than the 80,000 people Labor is citing. Ms Mousina said the average 22-year-old worker would be affected in four decades' time but Liberal MP Tim Wilson said Labor's tax plan was likely to hit many Australians now under 40 once they retire. 'Anyone who thinks that the family savings tax isn't coming for them is wrong,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'Everyone under the age of 40 is going to be hit and hit hard, particularly if they do well.' Wilson warned Labor's plan to tax unrealised gains on super opens a Pandora's Box in which the government will look to tax other unrealised gains, such as the value of the family home. 'They will replicate it on to other asset classes and they'll be coming after your property, your small business and possibly even your family home,' he said. 'Once you create the legal framework, it will be shifted on to properties, on to trusts - it's a slippery slope.' Federal MPs elected before 2004 have their super in a defined benefits scheme making them exempt, with this small cohort also including Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Transport Minister Catherine King and independent MP Bob Katter, along with recently retired Labor MPs Brendan O'Connor and Maria Vamvakinou. Wilson, who is leading the fight again Labor's superannuation tax as the Opposition decides on a new shadow treasurer, said it was hypocritical to only tax super in accumulated savings accounts. 'When the Prime Minister designs a family savings tax that exempts his super but nobody else's - it shows a gross hypocrisy, that standard that's being applied,' he said. 'There's a standard for we but not for thee.' But Treasurer Jim Chalmers argued Labor's new proposed taxes on super would ultimately apply to defined benefit schemes too. 'The actuarial calculation is similar to the calculation that currently applies to the changes that the Coalition made when they were in office,' he told reporters in Brisbane. 'There's a formula which is calculated by actuaries and applied by the tax office in a way that is not inconsistent with the way it's currently calculated for some of the changes that my (Liberal) predecessor made.' Applying the tax to a defined benefits scheme would require finetuning of the bills first introduced in 2023 that the Senate last year declined to pass. A Parliament House bills summary noted the inconsistency in how the law would affect different types of super schemes was the basis for the rejection. 'Additionally, the proposed new tax affects individuals differently, depending on their ability to change their financial arrangements,' it said. 'Several factors influence this, including whether an individual is in the retirement or accumulation phase, the liquidity of assets held in superannuation, and whether an individual is in a defined benefit scheme.' A Treasury paper last year noted Labor was developing a policy to have the tax applied to defined benefit super schemes, but this issue was unresolved. 'It is the government's intent to ensure broadly commensurate treatment for defined benefit interests,' it said. 'Treasury will consult further on the appropriate treatment for defined benefit interests.' Labor could get its superannuation tax plan through the Senate with support from the Greens, who want the threshold reduced to $2million but with indexation. Parliament is not expected to sit again until July but the Treasury Laws Amendment (Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions and Other Measures) Bill 2023 and the Superannuation (Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions) Imposition Bill 2023 could be backdated to July 1, 2025.
Hindustan Times
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Q-leak case: Mukhiya worked in nexus with politicians, hired doctors to solve questions
The grilling of arrested Sanjeev Kumar Singh alias Sanjiv Mukhiya, the mastermind behind the leak of questions papers of a number of competitive exams including that of NEET-UG, has opened a Pandora's Box, exposing an organised racket and links of politicians with criminals. Mukhia, according to investigation, worked at several levels in nexus with criminals and politicians and kept evading arrests due to such proximity to power. In the NEET-UG case, the CBI and the Bihar police have so far arrested 46 persons, including Mukhiya. 'Of them 28 were arrested by the Economic Offence Unit (EOU) and the Patna police, while the rest were arrested by the CBI. The line of investigation of the CBI is similar to the one adopted by the Patna police. The CBI has, however, collected a lot of new evidences, including technology and digital evidences, on its own to track the movement of the accused,' said a police officer. Modus Operandi The officer said that Mukhiya's arrest was crucial as he was the kingpin and responsible for making the strategy for question leak and involving tech-savvy youth, who operated at the second layer to carry out the operation by reaching out to the stake holders and arranging the logistics. 'The third layer of the network comprised the coaching institutes and the parents desperate to get their wards into medical colleges at any cost. The fourth layer involved printing press and exam centres to have access to question papers and ensure delivery at the designated places on time and with precision. The fourth layer managed the printing press and exam centres,' said the police officer involved in interrogation. The investigation has so far revealed that those entrusted with the responsibility of solving the questions in minimum time and with accuracy included mostly pass out doctors, who worked for Mukhiya either for money or under pressure. They were provided all sorts of technological assistance. On his modus operandi, Mukhiya told the EOU officials that barring some competitive exams conducted by premier agencies and which have more safeguards and security features, it was easy to manage all. 'In case of premier agencies, it is difficult and requires more money. Else, it is managed at the level of question paper storage, question setting and transportation, administration, teachers, centre superintendents or supervisors, whichever works at that moment,' he added. Mukhiya worked with foolproof mechanism, keeping phone numbers, blank cheques and educational certificates of the students. 'The payment was done in the bank accounts of Mukhiya'a associates. He preferred cash payment through hawala transactions. He said that he took payment from clients in one go. The rates are fixed -- ₹40 lakh for NEET, ₹20 lakh for teachers' exam and ₹15 lakh for constables. For NEET, the rate fluctuates according to demand,' he told interrogators. The EOU revealed the modus operandi of the mafias while probing the question leak of the third phase of teachers' recruitment test (TRE), conducted by the BPSC. The gang members involved in the paper leak case had breached the security chain from printing press to transportation level to get the papers. According to earlier EOU investigation, the question leak was carried out through a well-hatched plan to lay hands on the sealed questions during their transit from the printing press, scan them through specialised tools and then hand them over to their clients for hefty monetary consideration. 'The arrested accused had admitted that they first collect information about the press where printing of questions takes place and the mode of transportation. Then they lure some officials on good monetary consideration to lay hands on question papers during transit. Once the questions are scanned, they are provided to solvers and from them they reach the targeted group, who are kept at a pre-determined place and made to mug the answers,' EOU ADG NH Khan had said earlier. The ADG had said in case of TRE-3, the accused admitted that they got to know of transportation of the question papers through DTDC Courier. The mafia touch with a Munshi with the Patna-based Zenith Logistics Company Ltd courier company. They scan question papers while in transit from Patna to Nawada. As soon as the question papers were despatched from DTDC courier for Nawada, stopped at Buddha Family Restaurant, Nagarnausa in Nalanda. How paper was leaked The question of how the NEET paper was leaked led the EOU team to Jharkhand's Hazaribagh, with the serial code on the seized papers from Patna, leading to examination centre at the Oasis School. 'We traced the box and envelope in which the T3 set of the papers was dispatched from the examination centre. Preliminary investigations showed it was torn at the back, and resealed to resemble an original sheet. The two boxes in which the question papers were transported to the examination centre also found tampered,' said an EoU official. 'Our suspicions have grown after we found that the latches and hinges had been tampered with as well as the seal. The envelopes inside the boxes had also been tampered with from the rear end, while the upper portion was intact. We have sent all this evidence to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL),' the officer said. In a chargesheet, probing agency (CBI) has alleged that trunks carrying NEET-UG 2024 question papers were delivered to the Oasis School in Hazaribagh and stored in a control room on the morning of May 5. Shortly after the trunks' arrival, Dr. Ahsanul Haque, Oasis school Principal-cum-city coordinator and Md. Imtiyaz Alam, Vice-Principal-cum-centre superintendent of Oasis School, permitted one Pankaj Kumar, one of the masterminds, to access the control room where the trunks were kept, the CBI has alleged. Pankaj, used sophisticated tools to open the trunks and access the question papers, CBI said. The agency has seized these tools along with CCTV footage from the room. Political ambition In his long interrogation under police remand, Mukhiya said that he got into the question paper leak to amass enough wealth so that he could get his wife elected to the Harnaut assembly segment or to the Parliament from Nalanda, said a police officer familiar with the matter. 'He is determined to get his wife elected at any cost to establish her in politics, as that would be the best way to wriggle out of all the court cases and controversies surrounding him. He tried in 2020 also, but his wife, who served as mukhiya after winning in 2016 to give her husband the 'mukhiya' title, lost from Harnaut, but finished second. She had polled nearly 40000 votes. He wanted to himself dabble in politics, but knows that it would not be easy due to the cases hounding him,' he added. During interrogation, Mukhiya was candid in admitting how desperate he was to get his wife established in politics. 'Had she fought the Assembly election as an independent candidate, she could have won due to the support of the Kurmi voters. Fighting election requires a lot of money and after his wife lost, he said that he spread his network to tamper with other exams like Constable recruitment, teachers' recruitment, besides NEET, as he could easily access the questions papers due to his clout,' the officer said. Mukhiya is, however, not the first from Nalanda to nurse political ambition through exam tampering route. Before him, Kumar Suman Singh alias Ranjit Don, the mastermind behind a spate of question paper leak scandals, fought the 2004 Lok Sabha election from as an independent candidate while still in jail and though he lost, he still managed to get over 60000 votes. Ranjit Don, who was arrested by the CBI for his alleged role in leaking question papers of CAT, AIIMS and CBSE entrance examinations in 2003 and remained in jail for nearly one-and-a-half years, continued his political pursuit and contested the 2005 Bihar assembly elections from Hilsa as an LJP candidate but was again defeated. He also lost in 2015 when he was fielded by the LJP in the biennial elections to the Legislative Council.
Hindustan Times
26-04-2025
- Hindustan Times
Driving test by proxies, old videos used to trick automated system in Punjab
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau's April 7 surprise inspections at regional transport authority (RTA) offices and driving test centres across the state opened a Pandora's Box unravelling rampant corruption allegedly involving officials and their intermediaries (agents) charging illegal fees to expedite driving licence processing or manipulate driving test results. The raids led to the arrest of several people allegedly involved in bribery and malpractices. It was found that many licences were being issued without proper driving tests, through agents who were taking bribes from applicants. A total of 16 FIRs were registered and 24 people were arrested, including private agents and some government staff. The agents and officials were arrested from Mohali, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, SBS Nagar, Sangrur, Tarn Taran, Bathinda and Gurdaspur. Investigations revealed that agents were bypassing the automated driving test system in multiple ways. Punjab has 32 automated tracks where driving tests are recorded on video and scored digitally. Agents, in collusion with RTO officials, were copy-pasting old video footage of candidates who had passed and uploaded it under the names of new applicants who never actually took the test. In many cases, the same vehicle was used multiple times, raising suspicion. Proxy drivers were also used to take tests on behalf of others, using vehicles arranged by agents. On Friday the state government suspended state vigilance bureau chief SPS Parmar and two other senior officers— assistant inspector general, VB, SAS Nagar, Swarandeep Singh, and senior superintendent of police, VB, Jalandhar, Harpreet Singh— for allegedly not taking action against the people involved in the alleged scam. However, many senior officials, privy to the development, have questioned the state government's move to take action against VB. 'It seems no action has been taken against the transport department. The question arises that it was VB, which after getting complaints on the Chief Minister's Anti-Corruption Action Line, took action and conducted raids to unearth the malpractices, while the transport department officials could go scot-free,' A senior IPS officer said on the condition of anonymity. 'How did such widespread and systemic corruption go unnoticed or unchecked? Didn't the senior officials of the transport department know about it?, an IPS officer said, asking why the top brass of the department, particularly civil servants, have not been acted against by the top state authorities. For the record, VB had arrested Ramandeep Singh Dhillon, assistant transport officer, SBS Nagar, while two others, Pardeep Singh Dhillon, RTO-Mohali and Ravinder Kumar Bansal, RTO-SBS Nagar, are currently on the run. The action came after chief secretary KAP Sinha, who also holds the charge of the vigilance department, granted permission under Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption Act against officials. 'When bribery, fake documentation, and backdoor licensing were happening openly across multiple districts, was it merely negligence, or wilful ignorance? Is it not a serious lapse on the part of the department's top leadership that they failed to detect or act on irregularities happening so consistently in their field offices,' questioned another official pleading anonymity. Despite repeated attempts, chief secretary Sinha and transport minister Laljit Singh Bhullar could not be contacted for comments.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
This shameful injustice cannot be allowed to stand
Demonstrators in downtown Raleigh declare Allison Riggs rightfully won the state Supreme Court race against Jefferson Griffin. (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline) It's hard to overstate the magnitude and importance of the injustice that four members of the North Carolina Supreme Court – Chief Justice Paul Newby and Associate Justices Curtis 'Trey' Allen, Tamara Barringer, and Phil Berger, Jr. – are attempting to perpetrate against the people of North Carolina and the rule of law. Veteran constitutional law scholar Prof. Gene Nichol rightfully put it this way in describing the foul foursome's decision last Friday to overturn the expressed will of voters and, in effect, steal a Supreme Court election: 'On Friday, April 11, 2025, a day in judicial infamy, the North Carolina Supreme Court crossed the Rubicon.' He called on all four to resign. The object of Prof. Nichol's thoroughly justified ire, of course, was the group's outrageous ruling that a large number of ballots legally cast in the November 2024 state Supreme Court election between incumbent Justice Allison Riggs and challenger Jefferson Griffin can be retroactively thrown out because they – the justices – disagree with previous unanimous and bipartisan rulings on managing those ballots rendered long prior to the election by the State Board of Elections. Think about that for a moment — it's a stunning concept. Thousands of voters who cast ballots according to longstanding and duly adopted rules — rules not even controversial enough to have received a single dissenting vote on an election board that's frequently divided on partisan lines – can now be disenfranchised months after the election in such a way that it will quite possibly overturn the result. The absurdity of the decision was even too much for conservative Republican Justice Richard Dietz. As he wrote in a passionate and on-the mark dissenting opinion: 'By every measure, this is the most impactful election-related court decision our state has seen in decades. It cries out for our full review and for a decisive rejection of this sort of post hoc judicial tampering in election results.' Dietz went on to say that even if the federal courts ultimately set the matter right, his four colleagues have opened a dangerous Pandora's Box: 'Even if the federal courts ultimately reverse the Court of Appeals decision…the door is open for losing candidates to try this sort of post-election meddling in state court in the future. We should not allow that.' Dietz's critique of changing election rules after the ballots are in goes to the heart of what's so grievously wrong with the majority's decision, but for those trying to better understand what's really going on here, a look at the practicalities of overseas voting and the rules the election board adopted is also helpful. The issue here is whether those voters should have been required to provide a copy of their photo ID with their ballots. As NC Newsline's Lynn Bonner reported in early February, there were big and utterly reasonable legal and practical reasons why the board opted not to impose such a requirement. First and foremost was the likely conflict posed by a federal law called the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA. The election board was rightfully concerned that if it tried to require photo ID of military and overseas voters, it would run afoul of both that (and the common practice in other states). And then there were the simple practicalities of how such a requirement might have even been implemented. In her report, Bonner spoke with overseas voter Aidan Hunt, who told her that he used the official electronic portal to vote and didn't believe it even featured a way to send a copy of an ID. 'As best as I can recall, there's no function to upload random stuff going through that portal. There wasn't any place designated for an ID,' he said. 'It's not like an email message where you can just put whatever in there.' All of these factors are more than sufficient to illustrate the folly of the Newby-Allen-Barringer-Berger ruling, but just to add another extra measure of mind-blowing absurdity, consider this: the ruling apparently only applies to some military and overseas ballots that the GOP candidate challenged. As Justice Anita Earls wrote in her dissenting opinion: 'What is worse, these targeted voters are only those who happened to have registered in Guilford County, or maybe one of three or four other counties that vote heavily Democratic, the special order is not clear, but in any case, not every such voter in the state.' You got that? North Carolina is preparing to throw out a bundle of ballots cast by lawful voters, but only in areas more likely to vote Democratic. Riggs, for example, won Guilford County by a margin of more than 25%. As the saying goes, you really can't make this stuff up. Justice Riggs has, of course, appealed to the federal courts, and if there's any justice left in this creaky old republic, the Newby-Allen-Barringer-Berger abomination will not stand. But even in the best-case scenario, the damage to the legitimacy of our judiciary and the democracy it's supposed to safeguard will be immense and long-lasting.
