Have Scouts said anything about Assistant leader 'Baloo' Challenor?

Thanks for that Alexander.

Yes I am hoping he hasn't been involved for years and so the scouts were blissfully unaware and it will be like you say tomorrow morning.

littleducks

I think we have to remember this is a bank holiday weekend, and tbh, most people will have missed this story, unless they've been following a particular strand of social media.

When they open their inbox at scouting HQ tomorrow morning, I strongly suspect the shit will hit the fan.

I'm not defending him. But maybe there was nothing on record that showed up in a CRB check when he was involved with the scouts. The animal cruelty conviction was in 2014 and the police investigation was at the end of 2015.

His Baloo profile upthread is from a website with dates which suggest it was pre-2011; I have no idea when he stopped.

The worrying thing is that if he was involved with scouting in 2010, then this was around the same time as when the attack on the girl took place.

I know NAMALT, but personally, I would be looking for a cub pack that had female leaders.

@TimeLady I'm hoping this was the case- that he was no longer involved by the time SS had concerns or there was the animal abuse convinction. But I do think the scouts should have made a statement even if that was the case to clarify their position.

He didn't become a child rapist over night through did he?

We don't know when DC stopped being involved with the scouts. It may well have been years before his arrest.

So... If the girl guides allowed for boys who say they are girls to, say go on ca.pa and sleep in the same tent... This guy likes to pretend to be a little girl so... (See where I'm going here?).

And yet people are still defending him, their child and their demands for self certification because no one wild ever get this because they are intending to abuse women or children or have a sexual perversion that makes them a danger, would they?

Nope, never happens.

Absolutely relevant.

Thanks numbkinnuts it sounds like it would have been relevant to his role in scouting.

I found this. It’s from July 2016. Not sure if that’s the most up to date publication. It’s long but page 5 is where you need to start for the vetting process and child protection policies.

scouts.org.uk/media/761122/POR_July2016_ALL.pdf

An enhanced DBS can show relevant charges and pending cases if relevant to the subjects current role.

An enhanced DBS can show relevant charges and pending cases if relevant to the subjects current role.

There are procedures in place (Working Together to Safeguard Children - Statutory Guidance ) that if a person who is in a position of trust with children regardless of paid or volunteer work and it is alleged they they have harmed a child organisations using that person should be informed.

If the scouts did not know about his arrest then there are failings with the relevant statutory agencies.

If they did know about the arrest through this process then there would have been meetings to discuss what Safeguarding measures were being put in place. A suspension and a complete removal from their role is usual.

I’m actually surprised that the TRAs and their handmaidens haven’t said that the child rapist isn’t trans.

I actually saw a tweet from a trans person last night accusing “txxfs” of trying to link DC to trans people.

WRT CRB checks, is it only convictions that show or do charges/pending trials show too?

(No matter how hard the BBC tries to stop that from happening by pretending it isn't newsworthy.)

Yep. This is a massive scandal in the making. The longer politicians and organizations take to act, the angrier the public will be when it all comes out. And it will.

👆what Lang said

I know that opinion formers and politicians and their researchers read this forum.

LOOK AT WHAT IS BEING SAID.

Our safeguarding procedures are not comprehensive and often fail as it is. Yet extremist transactivism wants to dissolve and/or weaken them further. We evidence this here over and over. And yet government and big third sector money (hello Comic Relief, hello Children in Need) continues to be funnelled to these lobby groups even as they issue guidance which in some cases is unlawful.

FUCKING DO SOMETHING.

THIS.

I know that opinion formers and politicians and their researchers read this forum.

LOOK AT WHAT IS BEING SAID.

Our safeguarding procedures are not comprehensive and often fail as it is. Yet extremist transactivism wants to dissolve and/or weaken them further. We evidence this here over and over. And yet government and big third sector money (hello Comic Relief, hello Children in Need) continues to be funnelled to these lobby groups even as they issue guidance which in some cases is unlawful.

FUCKING DO SOMETHING.

"When I stepped as idea and went back to being assistant leader..."

Wonder why?

Some of my Cubs

I'm finding this extremely distressing, to know that this man had contact with so many children. How am I supposed to send my son to Scouts on Friday night? Fuck sake, how can you trust anyone.

In his own words. Looks like it was from 2011 (and best to have a copy here, in case it goes AWOL

www.dogandbear.org/profile/baloo

Why am I known as Baloo?

When I first became an Assistant Cub Scout Leader, my Cub pack choose what I was to be known as to the pack. I had no control over what they picked but was very pleased when they choose Baloo from the options available to them from the Jungle Book characters. I have always though it was good choice, using the original book character.

I continued to use the name Baloo outside of Scouting when I started to play wheelchair basketball to avoid confusion on court as there were already several other Davids (my real first name). It sort of made sense as the first team I joined was known as the Bears.

The name followed me when I was a volunteer helping with children's gymnastics and also when volunteering for the Coventry Half Marathon.

As I said above, I was quite happy with nickname and identified with the character from the book, so when I registered for parkrun, I used it again, partly because it was by now my volunteering / sporting nickname, and partly because it makes in much easier to find when looking through a long list of results (there might be quite a few results for David but not many for Baloo)!

When I was the Leader for the pack I became known as Akela as is traditional within Cubs but the Baloo identity never left me, to the extent the some of my Cubs decided to call me 'Aloo', and when I stepped aside from and went back to Assistant Leader, I resumed my Baloo name and am now one of the biggest kids in the pack.

Even my own children often call me Baloo, first just activities, but now even at home sometimes.

Once I started to run with Scooby Doo, a choice of fancy dress was not really difficult

My role as a Safeguarding person for a local branch of a well known national organisation was only voluntary, but the paid regional specialist professionals weren't informed either, which I found most worrying.
My role wasn't to make decisions about Safeguarding, just to be alert, follow procedure, get the paperwork done, and pass difficult issues up the chain. I could understand the Police thinking that an unpaid volunteer at my level was not the most suitable person to inform. But the hadn't informed the trained specialist social workers at a more senior level, or the school where the partner worked as a teacher.