BBC Radio 4 series this week about PIE: In Dark Corners

[ILikeDungs]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00272c6

Starts Wednesday 8th Jan. 9:30 a.m. R4

Journalist Alex Renton is shown a secret document, containing the names and addresses of people signed up to a pro-paedophile group called the Paedophile Information Exchange, or PIE, which was active in the 1970s and 80s.
That’s not all: weeks after getting the membership list Alex meets a contact who gives him bags full of documents, crammed with reports, contact details, letters.
As Alex starts following up on leads; detail of the criminal activities committed by some of PIE’s members, and those connected with them, begins to emerge.
It’s a lot to take in. Alex is not only a journalist, he’s a survivor of child sexual abuse. All of this information about PIE; it feels like a heavy weight to carry. Are children still at risk?

This should be good - Renton is a very impressive journalist who has written extensively about sexual abuse in boarding schools.

I heard this advertised and thought interesting timing.

Probably coincidental, but another potential nightmare for Labour given the defense of the group by some members of the party whilst working at the National Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty).

Whilst in the same period of time was saying women only groups was a breach of men's rights. Yes seriously, the NCCL when consulted by newly formed women's groups in the 70s, said it would be illegal.

Same old, same old.

It's great that they're talking about PIE at long last. The BBC used to be good at this in the olden days.

I was on the Marxist left back in the early 80’s when gay people were organising and supporting the miners strike and miners led pride. (I am a miners wife)

I can remember a couple of male friends came out as gay. At a later day one of them was banging on about PIE, I was gobsmaked and put him right about this insidious organisation.

My point is that PIE and its new incarnations have always been lurking around looking for a way to promote their sexual desires as acceptable and now we have the kinks communities all joining in in which many PIE types can also be found.

Thanks for the heads up

Episode 2 sounds especially interesting

Journalist Alex Renton investigates the Paedophile Information Exchange. He tries to find some of its members and explores how the group inveigled its way into civil rights groups.

Will it mention the founder members still being trotted out on the BBC today?

The title is misleading though, they were in plain sight.

Good article about the programme which starts today.

My shock when I learnt my old Eton master’s set included paedophiles

https://www.thetimes.com/article/2bcb1f7e-f436-4bd2-b2be-3ee8b8d35fd5?shareToken=ff39be027bbd04ca3d0f8c99c6429cba

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq62dp092nzo

This has just started on Radio 4.

Perhaps this thread needs to be on a more general thread? Rather than FWR. I remember PIE from its early days.

Interesting that the main significant interviewee is Francis Wheen. He's long investigated PIE, and his interest comes from being a victim.

Wheen has also shown opposition to gender identity ideology.

The Times have covered this today. It appears that there are quite a few more names to be exposed:

www.thetimes.com/life-style/parenting/article/my-shock-when-i-learnt-my-old-eton-masters-set-included-paedophiles-lnrxp2xfs

PIE are mentioned in a Tom Sharpe book - one of the Wilt series ("The Wilt Alternative" ?).

Which means they were hardly low profile in the (checks) 1979.

Being a (very) old fucker, it can be annoying when younger folk think they are in the vanguard.

DH was listening and I heard the last part of it. I was half expecting some high profile people at the bbc in the media to be exposed.

I was pretty mindboggled and horrified by the idea that one member thought 4 should be the age of consent!! 😳

I wonder if Harriet Harman's name will come up

I am old enough to remember PIE. They were reasonably high profile. It probably seems remarkable now that an organisation advocating for the right of adults to have sex with children (though they framed it as the right of children to have sex with adults) was allowed to operate in plain sight but it shouldn't be. Their modus operandi - allying themselves with gay rights, talking about children as if they are capable of making adult decisions - is exactly the same as that now used by gender propagandists.

I haven't listened to the programme yet, but it's interesting to see in Alex Renton's article that part of the pushback against PIE was led by Mary Whitehouse, a woman who was denigrated and mocked at the time for being middle-aged, prudish and frigid. Sound familiar?

I don't remember PIE but i recall the mockery of Mary Whitehouse. The BBC should do something about that. She deserves recognition for what she achieved in the face of that.

Children don't seem to be safe anywhere. Money just buys a better class of predator.

Mary Whitehouse didn't protect children from her friend and supporter John Smythe and she didn't protect children from Jimmy Savile to whom she gave an award.

There was a great programme about Mary Whitehouse 2 or 3 years ago I think, asking if Mary Whitehouse was right.

I never knew she did so much to protect children. Her involvement with the protection of Children act, also getting video nasties banned.
I also didnt realise how bad the 70s were for video nasties. Born in the mid 80s, all I knew about her was in reference if someone was acting prudish.

I do also know however, she was very religious and opposed gay relationships. So she wasn’t someone people wanted to side with and I understand that.

I don't remember PIE but i recall the mockery of Mary Whitehouse. The BBC should do something about that. She deserves recognition for what she achieved in the face of that.

Personally I remember MW as a proto Musk. Sticking her (and her followings) unelected noses into all our lives. Using the media platforms of the day to browbeat and bully all and any dissent as somehow sinister and evil.

And given recent - not very unsurprising - revelations about the CofE, her "Christian" moral stance really should be called into question.

"what she achieved" was to muddy the discussion around content and availability to provoke an almost knee-jerk "If Mary Whitehouse objects then it's worth seeing" response.

I thought the BBC did address Mary Whitehouse anyway ?

There's an article in the Telegraph too

https://archive.ph/WCdbY

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-listen-to/paedophile-information-exchange-scandal/

In this he mentions the grooming gangs, although I think he's too quick to dismiss 'political correctness' as one of the reasons why the children were, are, let down.

I agree Mary Whitehouse, from my recollection, was far too scattergun in what she protested against. It doesn't surprise me that she had her own blindspots.

History Today is still referenced in my household. My kids are baffled by it.

Ah yes, Mary Whitehouse! The 1970s equivalent of the Religious Right who are supposed to be funding us GC rights-hoarding transphobic dinosaurs.

Feminists who objected to blatant sexism, organised Reclaim the Night marches, set up women's refuges, and objected to PIE were anti-men and anti-sex and on the same side as Mary Whitehouse.

Plus ça change, eh?🙄

Gold star if anyone can remember the comedy reference "Buggered if I'm going on tonight"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Romans_in_Britain#Whitehouse's_prosecution