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

[Doyenne]

Just wondering whether the Scout Association have made any sort of announcement re their assistant leader being charged. They will have been told by the police at the very latest when he was charged so they have had plenty of time to prepare a statement

I have two sons in Scouts and will email them on the safeguarding address.

This sort of thing should get the Guides to rethink their policy, but sadly, I don't think it will

Nor the fact that DC publicly supported the stance.

I hate the way media has managed to influence the public into using the term, ‘child pornography’.

The police use it too. In a letter I received it was used 3 times in capitals. Mybe they don't anymore this was a quite a few years ago.

That’s true sashh. I often wonder if the term, child pornography used by the powers that be, because they are mostly run by men. Does it make them uncomfortable to use the terms, child rape and abuse, because the perpetrators are vastly Male. A kind of ‘softening’ of the terms, because sigh 🙄 NAMALT.

I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this, in any way sashh. 💐

The Scouts definitely need to answer some questions about this.
Appalling.

Positively

Thank you, it isn't as bad as you are probably thinking (obviously it is horrendous for the children involved), it was a housemate who borrowed my pc while I was away from home.

I’m glad to read that sashh, though it I’m sure it was still very upsetting at the time. Just proves how many perverts are in our midst.

Can anyone tell me which area he was a Scout Leader in please? I’ve seen on another thread yesterday that he’s lived in Stoke on Trent and my son goes to Scouts in that area.

I'm a scout parent and have sent the below to the info centre and safeguarding email address. I actually feel sick to think that their safeguarding has gone so wrong and will also be emailing my district once I've had a national response. Would urge any Scouting parents to do the same, this cannot be swept under the carpet:

As a parent of a child who has been involved in Scouting for many years, I am astonished that there has been no comment from Scouting UK about the case of David ‘Baloo’ Challenor. As I’m sure you are aware, Mr Challenor was an active Scout leader who was recently found guilty of the rape, sexual abuse and torture of a ten-year old child. While he was only recently found guilty/sentenced, he was charged with the offences a number of years ago and, according to media reports, maintained his position as a Scout leader when on bail for the offences, during his trial and right up to sentencing.

I’m sure you don’t need me to point out that this is an utter failure of your safeguarding policy. I want to know what you are going to do about it and how you propose to make things right within the Scouting community, to investigate, apologise and reassure the Scouting parents who have left their children in Mr Challenor’s care over the past years.

Mr Challenor’s pack isn’t local to me, but I believe this issue is of national concern to everyone involved in the movement and beyond. It is an utter disgrace.

I look forward to your response.

As above. I'm wider Warcs area.

@Cachailleacha feel free to borrow my wording above

Don’t think he’s ever lived here.

He’s from the Stoke area of Coventry.

I will be contacting the scouts, planned to today but forgot it was a bank holiday. I have children involved.

From what I have seen online it suggests he was at some stage a scout leader (I'm not sure when this was) but continued to use the nickname afterwards in more social groups. It may be he stopped volunteering long before charges/SS involvement with his own children so I will await the response.

Scouts don't currently use DBS updates services (although ime neither do lots of other organisations including schools and the NHS) so I will suggest that this may be worth considering.

The police don't automatically inform other organisations if someone is charged with a serious offence.
I once had to inform a school myself as an ordinary member of the public that a teacher was implicated in serious child abuse.

UndercoverGC
Horrendous that it was up to you, but thank you for standing up for the safety of children

Why the hell don't police tell people about serious allegations? Or prevent suspects from having contact with children? WTF is going on?

Good email Lonny

My email, if it's of any use to anyone:

I am writing to you as a concerned parent and Scout Association volunteer to raise my concerns about the above named Assistant Scout Leader who has recently been imprisoned for child sex offences relating to a ten-year-old girl. He has been sentenced to 22 years: while I cannot bear to read details of the case, such a long custodial sentence surely means the crimes are serious.

Mr Challenor and his wife appear to have had a lot of social services involvement over several years, including their 3 children together and Mrs Challenor's 2 existing children having been taken into care, and the three youngest having been on the Child Protection register since birth . There were also serious animal cruelty offences by Mr Challenor, and yet he was able to volunteer within the Scout Association after these incidents.

I would like to see a full apology from the Scouts for this grave error of judgement, and an official statement particularly addressing the children (and parents of those children) left in Mr Challenor's care over the years. The Association will have had several months, since David Challenor was charged by police, to prepare a statement and frankly I am surprised one has not been forthcoming. This is important.

The Scout Association appear to have failed enormously in their duty of care. What use are your current safeguarding policies if this kind of man - with a known history - can still gain access to children? Although Mr Challenor's pack is not local to me, this is of national importance and a review of safeguarding procedures is urgently required.

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

Oh, they have.

Warning: child abuse.

Thanks. In this case the teacher's live in partner had a caution for child abuse from several years previously, and was now under investigation for further online child abuse.
The offender themselves was involved in several organisations where they would be in contact with children, including one where I was the person with formal responsibility for Safeguarding.
I was not formally informed, and the school knew nothing until I told them. I found out because I was interviewed with reference to the offender's second online offence, and read the police report which they'd left out on the desk describing the first offence while I was being interviewed.
I don't know if the police were deliberately hoping I'd read their paperwork, but they did confirm the caution and history when I asked.

I am not happy that a caution was the only penalty for a serious contact offence. The offender had apparently been boasting online about what he had done to a girl, but the police could not trace the victim or prove that it was more than empty boasting. The second offence might have involved my WiFi, hence my finding out.

As part of the investigation my own home was searched for images of child abuse. It took half a day, and wasn't particularly thorough, possibly because the offender didn't live there. All electronic devices were confiscated for months, and there is no way that I could have lived there and not have known.

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.

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

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.

I wouldn't send a child to scouts or guides at the moment. Despite all the scandals scouts continues to have a problem and seem ill prepared to handle it every time & guides insistence on secrecy around trans girls and leaders is deeply deeply concerning (the secrecy is the most concerning aspect)

I find it hard to believe David Challenors crb check came back completely clean given his history and their children going into care was made so public by them it should have been picked up by someone in the scouting organisation

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

Wonder why?

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.