Founder of Surrey Pride charged with child sex abuse

[CriticalCondition]

Gosh. I remember this person from a few years ago when Starbucks was doing its Mermaid biscuits campaign. A local councillor (?) raised her concerns about safeguarding at Mermaids and he had a real go at her.

BBC News - Surrey Pride founder faces child sex abuse charges
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0k4g6ek3xvo

Who's funding all this? That's what I want to know. How have we gone from basic sensible safeguarding to this in such a short space of time? It makes me think that there has been a deliberate push. To the benefit of abusers only it appears.

We are - many of these organisations have been receiving hundreds of thousands of £££ of tax payer's money via national and local government funding, schools, the NHS etc. The DfE used to fund & push Stonewall, Mermaids and other queer theory activist groups to schools. The last government finally got wise to this but by then it was too late. Who knows who this government will decide to throw money at.

dfe award "educate and celebrate"

Putting the above in a favourite search engine shows a fair list of schools who competed for gold, silver, bronze status for E&C awards.

Despite this:

In 2015, E&C received a £214,000 grant from the Department of Education to implement their programme across the country.
In a promotional video, which was subsequently deleted when Dr Randall’s story appeared in the media, Elly Barnes outlined the approach of E&C in schools, saying:
“The whole concept of Educate and Celebrate is to treat everyone equally and fairly, and really the bottom line is to completely smash heteronormativity. That’s what we want to do, so that kids can grow up and be who they are. We are all more productive and so much happier when we can be ourselves. So we completely encourage intersectional ways of teaching, lots of pedagogies and usualising, so making LGBT+ people an everyday occurrence within the school. And that can come through simply teachers being ‘out’, it can come through the curriculum, it can come through what you are putting on the walls, and how you are engaging with your community, and that’s our goal.”
The media has since exposed that Miss Barnes has advised teachers that it is permissible not to tell parents if a pupil declares themselves to be transgender, and also said that terms such as “boys”, “girls”, “son” and “mother” should be replaced with the gender-neutral words, such as “pupils”, “students”, “child” and “parent”.
For years, E&C has been featured on multiple primary school websites as an Ofsted-recognised “best practice” programme. However, last year, it was revealed that this was a lie. The school inspectorate ordered E&C to remove any reference to Ofsted from its website.

https://christianconcern.com/ccpressreleases/patron-of-educate-and-celebrate-whose-schools-gender-identity-teaching-led-to-christian-chaplain-blacklisting-charged-with-sexual-abuse-against-children/

I hadn't realised that his case relied so much on the Judge citing Educate & Celebrate's false claims to be "an Ofsted approved and DfE recommended best practice programme".
Nor that Judge Butler, and a lay magistrate have since been forced to recuse themselves from a similar Christian freedoms case this year due to a "perception of bias" after anti-Christian comments on social media were unearthed. I see there's an appeal in progress.

There are of course other groups with similar concerns who the DfE have funded. At one stage the paedophile scandal hit Mermaids charity were named as a support organisation by the DfE and I believe received funding.

And the powerful Stonewall got a free pass from the DfE after their decision to give Aimee Challenor a role - despite the paedophile revelations and subsequent report by the Greens that identified Challenor as failing to understand safeguarding. Stonewall gave AC a role on their "Trans Advisory Group" who were working to wedge trans ideology into schools. In plain sight, Stonewall, while working in schools with children, offered AC a role.

There are of course other groups with similar concerns who the DfE have funded. At one stage the paedophile scandal hit Mermaids charity were named as a support organisation by the DfE and I believe received funding.

It might well be eye-opening to see if and how much Children in Need has funded Educate and Celebrate in total.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/4661698-children-in-need-18-november-2022

NB: the linked CiN page is 404 (I haven't checked to see when that happened)

A random comment on a 2022 story about E&C claims that "From the charity’s own accounts, one of the charity’s major funders had been BBC Children in Need" but the accounts no longer seem to be online.

If there ever is a public inquiry on all this (we can live in hope!), FWR will be a veritable mine of information. It has already done most of the hard work for whoever undertakes it.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 17/08/2024 12:16

^In other words, if this is correct, Surrey Police went into a school with Ireland while they were simultaneously investigating him for child sex abuse.
If that is true, then there's an even greater scandal brewing.^

DameMaud · Yesterday 13:09

If there ever is a public inquiry on all this (we can live in hope!)

Heads really need to roll for this, it's not an oversight, it's enablement. I think that any Police personnel involved need a thorough examination.

I was trying to find out a bit more about Educate and Celebrate, and came across a primary school website that is still boasting about its association with the charity, and still claiming that E&C is endorsed by Ofsted:

www.abbott.manchester.sch.uk/page/educate-and-celebrate/44042

Lots of them are, I was quite surprised when I searched the other day but I wonder if a fair number of schools

• haven't heard
• don't care (despite learning the E&C isn't Ofsted-recognised "best practice")
• have IT SLAs that mean that they can't ask for an update until Sept or beyond?

I saw more than a couple of hundred schools the other day when I was looking but didn't check many to see how many end in a 404.

It's the nature of AI tools that this is still being returned for this Google search (which delivers an AI tool summary at the top) and mentions the Ofsted recognition that Ofsted denies:

search: "educate and celebrate" primary school

Schools deal with so many initiatives I'm not surprised they've missed the current scandal. But what is a primary school doing applying for a "Gold Award in Pride Inclusion"? Apart from the inappropriate spending of public money on an organisation that was wound up under a cloud, where's the due diligence? How is this relevant to 4 - 11 year olds. Work in schools is meant to be targeted and relevant to children, not an opportunity to line the pockets of activists.

All fine questions, MrsO. You might expect a headteacher and board of governors to be asking the same things, but apparently many of these people don't even possess the bare minimum in the way of critical thinking skills.

@MrsOvertonsWindow Wasn't there a male employee of the IOPC outed for abusing GC women on twitter?

Yes- Head of Comms to 'restore trust' in the police- now left!
https://x.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1825476878217421067:
'The UK's Independent Office for Police Conduct has revealed that its head of communications, Smyth Harper, a trans activist who repeatedly posted online abuse aimed at women, including calling them Nazis if they don't believe men are women, is no longer an employee'

As ever, people who should know better continue to consider high quality governance is tedious and a waste of time until they find themselves in the midst of events like these or (eventually) invited to feature in an inquiry.

Thank you. Defies belief that he ever thought he was suitable for the Independent Office for Police Conduct - and very telling about their embedded attitudes towards women that they actually employed him, given his online presence.

It's on a lesser level but it brings to mind Shane Andrews, "Network rail’s LGBT+ lead, who is also a scout leader (and a trustee of the Scouts), an independent police custody inspector, a school governor - used abusive sexist/homophobe slang all over his social media".

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4995911-london-bridge-railway-station-political-gender-flags-how-to-complain

I'm in awe of the amount of research some posters have done and the variety of knowledge and experience.

The latest update

BBC News - Pride event to go ahead despite founder’s arrest
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgdq9znqw0o

I can't see how arranging 'additional security around the event site' is in the slightest bit reassuring when it's the organisation's own staff who've been charged with appalling crimes against children. I'd rather know what measures have been taken to ensure anyone wearing a Pride in Surrey lanyard can be trusted.

Another hearing at Guildford Crown Court in September..

As I understood the report, the extra security is for attendees, who feel uncomfortable. It's hardly surprising that they feel uncomfortable.

I wonder if the police will turn up in their rainbow car with their rainbow badges, flags and face paint this year?

Yes, I wondered if 'additional security' meant more police. We know they love a cheery photograph with people in puppy masks and harnesses.

What the hell? Do children count for nothing, then?

Still maybe we should all have a day out on the 21st September with chants of 'child abuse is evil'. Or something.

The police don't seem that good at investigating alleged paedophiles operating in plain sight for years. How many of these men have we identified as dodgy on here, years before they're arrested.

Jesus Christ that quote from Pride in Surrey in that article:

"Pride in Surrey marks an important date for Surrey’s LGBTQ+ community, acting as an opportunity for people to be themselves unashamedly and to call for the extension and protection of LGBTQ+ rights, which are under constant attack"

Maybe paedophiles shouldn't be encouraged to 'be themselves unashamedly' - most parents would definitely agree with this - and I wonder what they're asking for when they say LGBTQ+ 'rights' need extension. It's not MAP is it, in the +? Arresting someone for alleged child abuse also isn't an 'attack' on LGBTQ+ rights either and it almost sounds as if this is what they're saying.

No fucking consideration or thought of the child victims I see. Just 'poor us' (for enabling alleged paedophiles). I hope the word gets out so parents can avoid their children seeing / being involved with this. Wrong on so many levels.

Another woman publically shamed for being right.

For gawds sake don't say that. You'll get someone who has difficulty in thinking straight that it means far right 😬

The 'extension' of LGBTQ+ rights?