标签： Europe

MADRID – More than half a century after she endured repeated sexual abuse at the hands of a Marist priest as an 8-year-old catechism student in Valladolid, northern Spain, Paula Alonso-Pimentel is finally pushing for accountability. Decades of buried trauma, followed by years of unmet demands for justice, have led her to this moment: a new joint reparations program between the Spanish government and the country’s Catholic bishops that aims to address long-unpunished abuse cases involving deceased or statute-barred perpetrators. For a nation that has lagged far behind other Western countries in confronting the clerical abuse crisis entrenched within its once-dominant Catholic institutions, this launch marks an unprecedented new chapter in a decades-long reckoning.

Spain’s journey to this reparations framework began in 2018, when leading national newspaper El País published a searchable public database of alleged clergy sexual abuse cases, pulling back the curtain on a crisis the Catholic Church had hidden for generations. As public outrage mounted, Spain’s Parliament tasked the national ombudsman with conducting a full independent investigation. The resulting 2023 report, an 800-page exhaustive assessment, delivered a damning conclusion: based on a representative survey of 8,000 adults, the report estimated hundreds of thousands of people across Spain had experienced sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy over the course of decades. The Spanish Bishops Conference immediately pushed back against the estimate, releasing its own internal count that documented just 728 identified abusive priests since 1945. Church leaders noted that 60% of those accused abusers were already deceased, and most of the alleged crimes occurred before 1990, placing them far outside the window for criminal prosecution.

In 2024, the Spanish government threatened to mandate church-backed compensation, arguing the Church had consistently minimized the scope of the crisis. The bishops responded by launching their own unilateral victim assistance program, which critics quickly dismissed as toothless: run entirely by the Church, it lacked independent oversight, making it impossible to ensure fair outcomes for survivors. For many victims including Alonso-Pimentel, the idea of seeking compensation from the same institution that enabled and covered up their abuse was unacceptable. “You can’t be a judge and a jury in your own case,” Alonso-Pimentel put it, a sentiment shared by hundreds of other survivors who avoided the Church’s in-house process.

The new joint reparations program, approved by both the bishops conference and the government months ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s upcoming visit to Spain, was designed to address that core criticism. Under the new framework, claims are first reviewed by an independent panel of experts convened by the national ombudsman, which proposes a package of compensation that may include symbolic recognition, psychological support, or financial payouts. The Church then reviews the proposal, and if no agreement can be reached, the case moves to a joint committee with representation from the Church, the ombudsman’s office, and victim advocacy groups. If the committee deadlocks, the ombudsman – an independent state official – retains final say over payout decisions, a landmark shift that gives government, not Church leaders, the final word on compensation. Survivors have exactly one year to submit claims, and as of the latest update, 420 people have already filed applications.

For the Vatican, the program aligns with Pope Leo XIV’s recent public commitments to addressing clerical abuse. In his first encyclical, Leo wrote that listening to abuse survivors requires explicit acknowledgment of harm and delivery of “just reparation.” Josetxo Vera, communications director for the Spanish Bishops Conference, framed the new program as a natural expansion of the Church’s ongoing work to address past harm, while emphasizing that the bishops do not view the crisis as systemic within the Spanish Church. “We believe that, indeed, human nature is flawed, that it has a propensity for evil, and that it needs a great deal of reconciliation and forgiveness,” Vera said. “But I can’t say that it’s a systemic issue. We are part of this society. We share some of its virtues, and we also share some of its vices and crimes.” The conference has already paid out roughly 2 million euros ($2.3 million) to survivors through its earlier internal program, and leaders say they recognize why many survivors were uncomfortable engaging directly with the Church.

Even with these reforms, the program faces widespread criticism from survivors and advocacy groups, who warn it retains critical structural weaknesses. A core point of contention is the one-year application window, which many argue is too short for survivors who have spent decades hiding their trauma to come forward. Critics also note the program lacks a standardized compensation matrix that ties payout amounts to the severity of abuse, meaning outcomes could be inconsistent across cases. Most alarmingly for opponents, the program is not legally binding, leaving no formal recourse for survivors who disagree with final decisions.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of Bishop Accountability, a U.S.-based nonprofit that tracks global clerical abuse cases and institutional cover-ups, called the new protocol “quite fragile.” “It has a very short time frame. It has no matrix to establish minimum awards for various categories of injuries,” she noted. “So will it be fair? Will it be consistent?”

Those doubts are echoed by Spanish survivor activist Miguel Hurtado, who has spoken publicly about his own abuse at the hands of a monk at the iconic Montserrat Abbey, a historic Benedictine monastery outside Barcelona. As a 16-year-old Boy Scout in a group led by monk Andreu Soler more than 20 years ago, Hurtado says he was molested by Soler. He says the monastery immediately pressured his parents to not report the abuse to law enforcement, and decades later, after an independent 2019 report acknowledged Soler had abused multiple victims over decades, the monastery still refused to accept formal responsibility for compensation, arguing all claims were time-barred under criminal and civil law. Hurtado says he is disappointed that Pope Leo XIV will still visit the Montserrat Abbey during his trip, despite his detailed submission of the allegations to Vatican and church authorities. Like many other survivors, he fears the new reparations program will ultimately fail to deliver meaningful justice. “The problem is that it’s built on sand,” Hurtado said.

For her part, Alonso-Pimentel shares that skepticism, but remains cautiously hopeful that the new independent model will deliver the accountability she has chased for 50 years. She declined to participate in the Church’s earlier internal program, distrustful of an institution that enabled her abuse and ignored her claims for decades. When she reached out to the Marist order in Valladolid after Pope Francis’ 2019 global summit on clerical abuse, all she received was the name of her abuser, with no further accountability. Now, she says she will file her claim under the new program no matter what, but is waiting to see if the process lives up to its promises. “It must cost them, the Church,” she said. “It must cost them because this cannot come for free. It cannot be that they can continue doing it without paying a huge price.”

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario — A years-long saga over the fate of dozens of captive marine mammals at a closed Ontario tourist attraction has taken a major step forward, as Canada’s federal government has formally approved a plan to transfer the remaining animals to accredited aquariums across the United States and Spain. The approval removes a critical regulatory barrier to moving 30 beluga whales and four bottlenose dolphins held at Marineland, the iconic Niagara Falls amusement park and zoo that shut its gates to the public permanently in late 2024, and saves the animals from what could have been a mass euthanasia if no permanent new homes could be secured.

Marineland first hit the market in early 2023, nearly five years after the death of founder John Holer. Holer’s widow Marie, who took over operations after her husband’s passing, put the 1,000-acre property near Horseshoe Falls up for sale before her own death in 2024. Since then, the estate has been working to sell the land, wind down operations and rehome the hundreds of animals still left on site. To date, no buyer for the sprawling property has been announced.

The park has long faced controversy over its treatment of captive animals, and a major 2024 legal ruling cemented its troubled reputation: a Ontario court found Marineland guilty of violating provincial animal cruelty laws in a case connected to inadequate care for three black bears held at the facility. Provincial data, obtained through freedom of information requests and official disclosures, also shows that 20 cetaceans — 19 belugas and one killer whale — have died at the park since 2019, a statistic that amplified calls from animal welfare advocates for urgent relocation of the remaining creatures.

Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans has now issued the first round of required relocation permits, including international trade permits under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Additional permits will be issued closer to the transfer date, which is currently projected to take place within the next several months. Federal officials are coordinating across multiple agencies, including the Canada Border Services Agency and Health Canada, to ensure the complex cross-border transfer adheres to all animal welfare and safety protocols.

Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson framed the approval as a meaningful milestone for the years-long effort to secure the animals’ future. “I think this is a positive step forward,” Thompson said. “There’s still more work to be done, but it’s a step forward.”

As of Wednesday, the Canadian government has not made a final decision on whether to allocate public funding to cover the high costs of the relocation, a process that park officials acknowledge is extraordinarily logistically complex. Marineland has reaffirmed its commitment to moving the animals safely, calling the project its top organizational priority. “Relocating these animals is an extraordinarily complex undertaking,” the park said in an official statement released Wednesday.

The 34 marine mammals will be split among five participating institutions across North America and Europe: Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, SeaWorld parks in San Antonio and San Diego, and Oceanogràfic València in Spain. Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, which accepted five beluga whales from Marineland in a 2021 relocation effort, will also support the transfer operations, the U.S.-based coordinating consortium confirmed.

An 18-year-old first-year university student lost his life in a senseless, violent random encounter in Southampton in December 2025, with newly released CCTV, police bodycam footage, 999 call transcripts and judicial sentencing remarks shedding full light on the tragic sequence of events that led to his death.

Henry Nowak, just a few months into his university studies, was killed on his journey back to his off-campus student accommodation on December 3. His killer, 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, was found guilty of murder in late May 2026 and sentenced to life imprisonment with a mandatory minimum term of 21 years behind bars.

The night’s timeline is clearly laid out through the recovered CCTV footage. At 20:30 GMT, Nowak was recorded entering the lift at his university halls of residence, dressed in a white shirt, tie and quarter-zip fleece and carrying a bottle. He adjusted his hair in the lift mirror before exiting, walking to a local convenience store to purchase a drink, and then continuing on to The Hobbit pub, where door staff checked his identification at the entrance. Internal pub footage captured him moving through the venue, passing a small group in the beer garden before heading back out onto the street. By 23:07, CCTV shows Nowak walking back toward his accommodation, passing a group of pedestrians along a street lit by streetlamps before increasing his pace to jog down the road.

During Digwa’s sentencing hearing on June 1, Judge William Mousley KC outlined the fateful chance intersection of the two men’s paths. Nowak was traveling north along Belmont Road, which brought him to the junction of St Denys Road – the street where Digwa resided. Digwa was walking south along the same road at exactly the same time, creating an entirely random meeting. Judge Mousley confirmed that Nowak was alone, carried no weapons, and was not intoxicated: post-mortem testing found his blood alcohol level was below the legal limit for driving in the UK.

As a Sikh, Digwa carried a required religious kirpan knife sheathed at his belt, which Judge Mousley noted is a strict obligation for observant Sikhs. However, Digwa was also carrying a second, larger dagger, a tradition tied to his membership in the Nihang Sikh order – a practice that is not a required religious obligation. Nowak noticed the larger blade and began filming it on his mobile phone, before asking Digwa if he was a “bad man”, according to the judge’s recounting. Digwa responded by confirming he was “a bad man” and seized Nowak’s phone.

No witnesses other than the two men saw the immediate confrontation that followed, but Judge Mousley laid out the logical and evidence-based conclusion of events: “It would not be unreasonable to conclude that Henry would have wanted his phone back, believing it had been stolen from him or that he had been robbed.” In the ensuing scuffle, Digwa pulled the larger dagger from its sheath and deliberately stabbed the unprotected student in the chest. He went on to stab Nowak three more times – two additional wounds to the upper leg – and the judge noted that the initial stab wound had such a devastating impact that Nowak never had the chance to raise his hands to defend himself from further attack.

Footage recorded by Digwa himself shows Nowak desperately fleeing the attack, climbing a residential fence, scrambling onto a communal waste bin before falling onto a car parked in front of the neighboring property. Rather than calling for emergency aid, Digwa continued to film the mortally wounded teen as he suffered, ignoring his desperate pleas for help.

Roughly 25 minutes after Nowak was captured on CCTV heading home, Digwa’s brother, Gurpreet Digwa, placed the 999 emergency call. He falsely told operators that Vickrum had been the victim of a racial assault by Nowak, telling the handler, “He’s physically attacked my brother. We’re Sikhs, we wear turbans and he’s just attacked my brother.” When asked if weapons were involved, Gurpreet claimed none had been used, but conceded that Nowak required medical attention. The 12-minute call ended with the emergency handler confirming that police and an ambulance would be dispatched immediately to the location.

Seven minutes after the call was placed, at 23:37, the first police officers arrived at the scene. Police bodycam footage shows four people standing on a residential driveway, with Nowak collapsed on the ground. Digwa repeated his false claim to responding officers, telling them Nowak had racially abused him. Just 71 seconds after officers arrived, Nowak was clearly heard on the bodycam footage repeating that he had been stabbed, saying “I can’t breathe” seven times. Despite this, by 23:38, officers had handcuffed Nowak and placed him under arrest, reading him his Miranda rights before calling for an ambulance a minute later and starting cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Judge Mousley confirmed that the severity of Nowak’s injuries meant his death was unavoidable, even if emergency medical treatment had been administered immediately. Less than four hours after he was recorded leaving his halls of residence on that Saturday night, Nowak was pronounced dead.

Five days after the killing, on December 8, Vickrum Digwa was formally charged with murder and possession of a bladed article in a public space. He was convicted of murder by a jury on May 28, 2026, and sentenced three days later to life imprisonment with a minimum of 21 years to serve before eligibility for parole.

Additional reporting for this story was provided by Marina Costa, covering policing in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

A fatal training accident has claimed the lives of three Royal Navy service members after their Merlin Mk4 helicopter crashed on Sourton Down near Okehampton, Devon, in the early hours of the morning.

Emergency response teams were first alerted to the incident at approximately 3:45 BST, with a major incident formally declared 15 minutes later. Seven fire engines from six local stations were deployed to the remote crash site, located near Dartmoor’s Okehampton battle camp, a well-used training ground for Commando Helicopter Force crews. By 13:30 BST, the main stretch of the A386 between the A30 and Fowley Cross had been reopened, though the A30 eastbound exit slip road remained closed to allow investigation work to continue.

Local residents, familiar with routine military training traffic in the area, described hearing unusual sounds from the aircraft before the crash. One local resident named Paul, who lives in a nearby hamlet, said he was woken by the extremely low-flying helicopter, which sounded irregular. Another resident, Julie Ricketts, who lives across the valley from the crash site, called the incident devastating, noting “They were only training. It’s just very, very sad for the families.” By the afternoon, local members of the public had begun leaving floral tributes near the site to honor the fallen personnel.

Senior military and political figures have quickly issued statements of condolences following the tragedy. The Princess of Wales, who holds the honorary position of Commodore-in-Chief of the Fleet Air Arm, said she and Prince William were “holding their families and friends in our hearts” following the loss. The BBC understands the royal couple will contact the bereaved families directly in the coming days, while King Charles III is also aware of the incident and will send private messages of sympathy to the next of kin.

General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, head of the Royal Navy, described the crash as a devastating shock to the entire naval community. “My deepest condolences go out to the families, friends and loved ones impacted by this tragedy,” he said. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called the fatal crash “utterly tragic” on social media platform X, while Defence Secretary John Healey said he was “devastated by the loss of three service personnel.” Local MP Sarah Dyke, who represents Glastonbury and Somerton, added that her thoughts were with the victims and their grieving families.

The crashed aircraft was confirmed to be a Merlin Mk4, a variant of the Royal Navy’s Merlin helicopter fleet that entered service in 1999. The Mk4 variant is operated by the Commando Helicopter Force out of RNAS Yeovilton in Somerset, with 25 of the aircraft currently in service supporting Royal Navy operations. The area around north Dartmoor between RNAS Yeovilton and RNAS Culdrose, where the older Mk2 anti-submarine variant is based, is a regular training route for military helicopter crews. This is not the first fatal incident involving the Merlin Mk4: in September 2024, another Mk4 ditched in the English Channel during a training exercise, killing Lt Rhodri Leyshon. A 2004 crash at RNAS Culdrose left five crew members injured, with two trapped in the wreckage.

An official investigation into the cause of the crash has been launched immediately. The UK Civil Aviation Authority confirmed the Defence Accident Investigation Branch (DAIB) will lead the probe into the circumstances of the incident, while local police continue to support on-site investigation work. The Royal Navy confirmed that the next of kin of all three deceased personnel have been informed, and have requested privacy to grieve before any further details are released to the public.