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

Unbelievably self absorbed. A period of silence given that there are TWO men charged from the organising group would seem appropriate.

Two men charged. Whistleblowers intimated there should be further investigations.

Yes, exactly what 'extension' of LGBTQ+ rights do they want? What rights are these that those in LGBTQ+ 'community' do not have? Who is in this community?

It's all so vague. Nobody wants to look at anything too closely. Let's just have a great big rainbow coloured party. Anyone who asks questions is shouted down as a bigot. And look where it's got them.

Well, we know they don’t give a flying fuck about L rights, for a start.

Yes, exactly what 'extension' of LGBTQ+ rights do they want? What rights are these that those in LGBTQ+ 'community' do not have? Who is in this community?

I would dearly love to hear straightforward answers to these questions but alas they are never given. Same with asking about Trans Rights - what rights do they not have that everyone else does? What rights do they want? Why do they deem they should have extra rights over and above everyone else?

Same with asking about Trans Rights - what rights do they not have that everyone else does? What rights do they want? Why do they deem they should have extra rights over and above everyone else?

They already have extra rights. No one else has the right to falsify legal documents for example (ie changing their sex).

Yes, I can't even have my BC corrected, my dad didn't notice the mis-spelling at the time.

My sister was born at 23:59 and my dad got the date wrong on the birth certificate. They wouldn’t change that either so for years she spread her birthday over 2 days.

There was a similar mistake on my father's birth certificate,he was never allowed to change it.

I'd argue that 'being themselves unashamedly' no matter the harm to children is why these men have been arrested. A good old dose of shame might have saved some of the poor children affected.

I'm fucking sick to the back teeth of men with their fetishes wanting to 'be themselves unashamedly' which always seems to involve forcing their perversions onto unconsenting others with varying degrees of harm and abuse as a result.

I agree. Shame is useful for society to keep bad behaviour in check. The pendulum has swung too far on this one.

And the absolute tone-deaf evil of that statement.

Yeah, not one but TWO men in this organisation are arrested on suspicion of child sexual abuse and their response is to say they think men should be free to be 'unashamedly themselves' (because we know it's about the men, lesbians tend to give a tiny crap about child abuse).

Surrey Pride should be very, very ashamed at this point and the fact they're not is ringing great big red flag safeguarding alerts for me. I hope the police are looking into any other concerns brave whistleblowers have about people in this organisation, who don't seem to care about child sexual abuse.

Given Surrey police accompanied one of the accused into a school to talk about Pride? himself? to children days before he was charged makes me somewhat sceptical that they will be following up other concern. The police seem to be fatally compromised in all this.

Agreed.

When I try to puzzle it out, I think that the activists themselves confuse legal rights (eg the 2010 Equality Act) and the sort of everyday freedoms and treatment we all encounter.

We know there's still quite a bit of homophobia around (a lot of it meted out by transactivists!) and definitely a lot of lesbophobia.

I'm prepared to believe that a lot of trans-identified men face casual prejudice, and sometimes violence - because they're breaching social codes/ sex-based stererotypes of masculinity NOT because they're "women." I hasten to add.

But really, as a PP says so well upthread, if they want to tackle prejudice (not the same as being denied rights), then they might stop behaving like the very criminals they deny they are. IYSWIM ...

I'm fucking sick to the back teeth of men with their fetishes wanting to 'be themselves unashamedly' which always seems to involve forcing their perversions onto unconsenting others with varying degrees of harm and abuse as a result.

Imagine if women and girls were "themselves unashamedly" at work (bring your whole self to work)? No more worries about bleeding through & it showing. NO more having to pretend that humans aren't emotional beings. No more being polite to dickheads.

That’s what comes from letting the idea of ‘progress’ rule the way you think. Once something makes it into the magic circle of enlightened ideas, there must always be more of it. Doesn’t matter what the ‘more’ is, the decision is already made.

Once you see the pattern you see it everywhere, in every well-meaning policy that can never be revisited no matter how horrible the outcomes. It’s not just sex stuff – but the sex stuff is ultimately the weak link because at the end of the day it’s where people most fundamentally know the difference between what’s actually right and what’s wrong.

Honestly, at this point we need a couple of decades of acting like unpleasant reactionary dicks about everything, just to break the cycle.

Pride in Surrey event still going ahead tomorrow. Their tone deaf comment about people being unashamedly themselves has been recycled. I guess they are avoiding the press and their pesky questions about safeguarding children.

BBC News - Pride parade to take place despite controversy
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70zexj2jz7o

On the bright side, at least the BBC is admitting that there is a problem, even if it does describe it with the mealy-mouthed term "controversy".

Yes, I know proceedings are still at an early stage but describing the situation as a 'controversy' hardly reflects the horrific nature of the alleged offences. These are criminal charges of the most serious kind. The BBC makes it sound like there's been a bit of a Twitter spat over sparkly lanyards or summat. I wish they'd grow a backbone.

Name changed.

I understand from twitter that this is now in Guildford Crown Court. Does anyone know how to check if it is live and how I can attend as a member of public?

A few weeks ago my local (public! not closed) facebook group for over 30k members put a sanguine post up about Pride in Surrey having their annual parade taking place in Guildford this year.

I very (very!) politely replied that it would be great if Pride in Surrey explained how they have changed their policies to insure safeguards for children before they put any more events that attract children. I was immediately and without any warning or explanation banned from the group. When I messaged an admin asking why I cannot access the group I was immediately blocked.

So, I would like to follow this case closer as it seems there are a lot of people who would rather this case was not in the public domain.

Hope someone will be along soon to help. You're asking the right questions

There's a court listing service called Courtserve which shows daily listings for Crown Courts (and others). It's free and all you need to do is create a sign in with a password to access it. The lists are updated every day. Just scroll down until you find Guildford Crown Court and it will tell you which court and what time.
If you want to attend in person you can just turn up and sit in the public gallery.

@WokingGal Hope this helps.

Definitely, thank you so much. Will check now!