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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Mermaids being investigated by the Charity Commission - thread 2

1000 replies

ResisterRex · 06/10/2022 05:55

The first thread, towards the end of which there was a discussion about having a second thread but it wasn't added:

Mermaids being investigated by the charity commission
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4644323-mermaids-being-investigated-by-the-charity-commissionn_

There's been a new development so maybe a second thread would be useful:

Lottery pauses trans charity cash during investigation

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c959a286-44e4-11ed-8885-043c27446b97?shareToken=6d482edb1a386656502f33453da5c230

OP posts:
Thread gallery
117
Birdsweepsin · 07/10/2022 16:46

Ceri Black (FemmeLoves) has written a very powerful take on all this:

ceriblack.substack.com/p/why-on-earth-is-anybody-still-supporting

ScreamingMeMe · 07/10/2022 16:55

Hat Pin Woman has done some digging into other connections that Breslaw has.

twitter.com/hatpinwoman/status/1578409990641139712?t=xWCh1spBr8rqO3YxXqwkVw&s=19

LaughingPriest · 07/10/2022 17:01

BewaretheIckabog · 07/10/2022 16:40

Charity Commission confirms Mermaids have filed serious incidents on a number of matters.

Suggests the chat and phones were not closed due to abuse of staff and volunteers to me.

Can you explain a bit what this means please?

Having seen what Mermaids have done in the past few years, openly, I had assumed this was just another thing they'll shrug off in a cloud of BIGOTS MADE US DO IT nonsense

Birdsweepsin · 07/10/2022 17:02

Oof. That article she found... May 2022. Before JB was on the board. Jesus.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 07/10/2022 17:02

BewaretheIckabog · 07/10/2022 16:40

Charity Commission confirms Mermaids have filed serious incidents on a number of matters.

Suggests the chat and phones were not closed due to abuse of staff and volunteers to me.

I suspect this is just the tip of a very nasty iceberg. Hopefully the CC will refer to the police / social services if it's evident that children have been harmed.

ScreamingMeMe · 07/10/2022 17:06

BewaretheIckabog · 07/10/2022 16:40

Charity Commission confirms Mermaids have filed serious incidents on a number of matters.

Suggests the chat and phones were not closed due to abuse of staff and volunteers to me.

Do you have a link for this?

ValancyRedfern · 07/10/2022 17:07

Sorry haven't rtft but just want to howl with rage with the amount of people defending Mermaids on twitter. What is wrong with people?!?! Strange it's only 'transphobes'who want children in gender distress to have adequate safeguarding.

Handsoffmyrights · 07/10/2022 17:07

This reply has been withdrawn

This message has been withdrawn at the poster's request

ScreamingMeMe · 07/10/2022 17:09

ScreamingMeMe · 07/10/2022 17:06

Do you have a link for this?

Never mind, found it.

www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/mermaids-charity-halts-helpline-services-due-to-intolerable-abuse.html

ArabellaScott · 07/10/2022 17:36

Birdsweepsin · 07/10/2022 16:46

Ceri Black (FemmeLoves) has written a very powerful take on all this:

ceriblack.substack.com/p/why-on-earth-is-anybody-still-supporting

God, yes.

'They cannot accept that an organisation they have supported is actually, shit at a whole bunch of things they need to be good at, because to accept such a thing would be to admit complicity in evil. That, psychologically, is a very hard thing to do. And having once admitted it to oneself, saying it in public requires almost Herculean effort. It is more than most people can manage.'

'The horrible truth is this: it boils down to access, cover and, in my mother’s case, complicity.'

'to all those currently still defending Mermaids, I believe that you have a reason to do so. If you are out calling people who raise safeguarding concerns “terfs” and other slurs, and blaming and shaming them, and calling them liars, it is because you have reason to do so. You are not defending a vital service for children. You are advertising that you think that inviting foxes to the hen house is not an act of heinous evil, but par for the course.'

YouSirNeighMmmm · 07/10/2022 17:55

Why would the charity commission need to know about abuse of staff? I would have thought that the CC would be interested in things such as safeguarding breaches. I'd have thought that charities like mermaids need to be honest about failings so that they can be shown to be taking seriously the need to put them right, whereas it is much worse if the failure is uncovered. Why would the abuse of staff fall under this category?

Someone help!

NewBootsAndRanty · 07/10/2022 18:02

From the link above:

Protecting people and safeguarding incidents
Protecting people and safeguarding responsibilities should be a key governance priority for all charities, regardless of size, type or income, not just those working with children or groups traditionally considered at risk. A charity should be a safe and trusted environment and trustees must take reasonable steps to protect the people who come into contact with their charity through its work from harm. These people include:

the charity’s beneficiaries, including adults at risk and children
the charity’s staff and volunteers

BitossiBlues · 07/10/2022 18:14

Just been listening to the Clive Simpson podcast with Dennis Kavanaugh (barrister). DK speculating that the judge in the tribunal case between Mermaids and LGB Alliance could re-open evidence to take evidence on this week's developments. That would be spectacular.

BitossiBlues · 07/10/2022 18:22

ScreamingMeMe · 07/10/2022 16:55

Hat Pin Woman has done some digging into other connections that Breslaw has.

twitter.com/hatpinwoman/status/1578409990641139712?t=xWCh1spBr8rqO3YxXqwkVw&s=19

Pass the brain bleach! How many of these paedophiles are hiding in plain sight in academia?

TheBiologyStupid · 07/10/2022 18:26

Birdsweepsin · 07/10/2022 16:46

Ceri Black (FemmeLoves) has written a very powerful take on all this:

ceriblack.substack.com/p/why-on-earth-is-anybody-still-supporting

Thanks for the link, Birdsweepsin - that's a very powerful piece of writing.

ResisterRex · 07/10/2022 18:29

I wonder which category the NSPCC filed the rubberwankman incident under?

www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/exclusive-nspcc-admits-employees-rubber-clad-smut-serious-incident-after-barristers

We know how it ended. With nothing to see. But these were their choices for the only charity with statutory powers. The powers to intervene like state can, in family life:

•	protecting people and safeguarding incidents – incidents that have resulted in or risk significant harm to beneficiaries and other people who come into contact with the charity through its work
•	financial crimes – fraud, theft, cyber-crime and money laundering
•	large donations from an unknown or unverifiable source, or suspicious financial activity using the charity’s funds
•	other significant financial loss
•	links to terrorism or extremism, including ‘proscribed’ (or banned) organisations, individuals subject to an asset freeze, or kidnapping of staff
•	other significant incidents, such as – insolvency, forced withdrawal of banking services without an alternative, significant data breaches/losses or incidents involving partners that materially affect the charity

Can only really have been the first one. And you have to give a reason when filing. I wonder what they selected?:

•	harm to people who come into contact with your charity through its work
•	loss of your charity’s money or assets
•	damage to your charity’s property
•	harm to your charity’s work or reputation

My guess is reputation. I do wish the media would connect the dots here when reporting on Mermaids. The NSPCC runs Childline, which was inexplicably lauded in that Bannerman piece in The Times. But if Childline is so great, explain the action James Esses is taking - linked in his Twitter:

twitter.com/jamesesses?s=11&t=5BRggr8_UTrfiPbOUKqAYQ

OP posts:
TheBiologyStupid · 07/10/2022 18:38

BitossiBlues · 07/10/2022 18:22

Pass the brain bleach! How many of these paedophiles are hiding in plain sight in academia?

Indeed!

"What about the right to be treated cruelly, the right to be beaten according to one's wish at the hands of adults, or, as a child, to inflict such pain? [...] But can children, who cannot legally consent to their sexual pleasure with adults, consent to the giving or receiving of pain [...].

"The Smart Child is the Masochistic Child" - FFS!

BlueBrush · 07/10/2022 18:42

nilsmousehammer · 07/10/2022 13:13

In particular this Twitter thread mentioned in both above links.

twitter.com/PankhurstEM/status/991258039511670784?s=19

Thank you so much for sharing this, @nilsmousehammer , although that feels like such a weird thing to write given what an appalling read it is. I just wanted to urge others to read it. So many things clicking into place...

BewaretheIckabog · 07/10/2022 18:43

@ScreamingMeMe

Thank you - I’m not good at links and things.

Looking forward to a statement on Monday.

ArabellaScott · 07/10/2022 18:48

ScreamingMeMe · 07/10/2022 16:55

Hat Pin Woman has done some digging into other connections that Breslaw has.

twitter.com/hatpinwoman/status/1578409990641139712?t=xWCh1spBr8rqO3YxXqwkVw&s=19

JFC. Seems this is a whole burgeoning new area of academia. Gross.

ResisterRex · 07/10/2022 18:52

Breslow/Andersson connection appears to have been made:

reduxx.info/resigned-trans-youth-charity-trustee-authored-blog-on-minor-attraction-praised-child-porn-creators/

OP posts:
Birdsweepsin · 07/10/2022 19:04

All this has reminded me of something

DD, when only a toddler, went on a sponsored toddle round the park in aid of Barnados. Organised by the preschool, all very sweet.

So I went round collecting donations, everyone very happy to support of course, except my dad who just refused to give to Barnados. No reason.

A few years later, of course... Stuff came out. It always does.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/15326932.child-abuse-cover-up-claims-barnardos-admits-systematically-destroying-files/

TheClogLady · 07/10/2022 19:09

In WankyRubberMan’s defence he was working at the NSPCC motivated by the job of celebrity booker and would’ve been happy to do that role anywhere - he hadn’t deliberately targeted a children’s charity and we had a proper comb through the dirtiest parts of his internet footprint and the only thing remotely connected to anything sexual underage was his own story about being able to trace his rubber interest back to seeing adult men in surfing wetsuits when he was about 9. His interest seemed to be in men bigger, hairier and older than him, he wasn’t sexualising children.

Obviously wanking at work is completely unacceptable (let alone uploading footage, the man is proper plum) and he was stupidly naive to pick Munroe ‘private message, me little trans children’ Bergdorf as celebrity endorsement but the failures of the NSPCC to step in and refuse to sign off on the appointment of Bergdorf, for their social media team to dismiss concerns of those reporting as being motivated by homophobia, and indeed to not properly train WankyRubberMan in safeguarding on his appointment to the charity (which would’ve presumably meant he was able to spot the Bergdorf issues immediately) nor, seemingly, to have (and enforce!) a social media policy for employees that would’ve made it impossible for us mere Mumsnetters to hop from his Linked In to the Rubbermen of London to his personal porn account is the real scandal.

NSPCC fucked up big time, and WankyRubberMan behaved both appallingly and naively, but WankyRubberMan is not anywhere as worrying a person as Jacob Breslow, and the NSPCC did not have anywhere near the sheer catalogue of fails that Mermaids are demonstrating right now (although even smaller fails are bad considering the NSPCC has statutory powers).

WankyRubberMan is a naive pervert who inadvertently opened a safeguarding gateway, but there are is absolutely no suggestion, let alone evidence that WankyRubberMan is, nor ever has been, remotely interested in sex with anyone who isn’t a fully consenting adult.

Which is why I’m not using his real name, because as long as he stays in the world he came from (gay lifestyle, celeb gossip, London fashion week type stuff) he’s not a problem. And from the blog he posted months after the dust settled, the last thing he is ever going to do is try and get another job even tangentially related to children.

Breslow targeted a children’s charity (multiple, looking at his CV) actively and publicly demonised the people most likely to criticise him (terfs) and as far as we know, was a trustee at Mermaids without financial remuneration.

(whereas WankyRubberMan was at the NSPCC for the salary and the celebs).

BewaretheIckabog · 07/10/2022 19:09

The recent incidents we know about that are serious safeguarding and reputational harm are:

An adult able to pretend to be child to join a chat room
Moderator recommending users move to a non-moderated platform
Offering to send a binder to a child without parental consent or knowledge
The appointment of JB and lack of vetting
The pause in funding from the lottery

I’d hazard a guess volunteers were taken off the rota due to insufficient vetting, lack of DBS and inadequate training.

Have I missed anything?

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