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?

Before the internet, how did they find each other? Cards in phone boxes? Ads in mags? Graffitti in loos. In coded conversation? And relying on the boys they approached at school not to snitch to the head? It must have been an edgy existence. Not that it matters now they have freedom of speech on SM.

It's an interesting setup - they facilitated each other, but also exposed themselves to potential blackmail or prosecution of any one member breaks out. I keep thinking about all those police turning a blind eye to the rape gangs, and about the BBC and a lot of people elsewhere in the Meda and in the Churches, Charity sector etc doing nothing to question recent fads that harm children.

We already know the police are corrupt. It's no real stretch to add a few lawyers, barristers judges and MPs into that rarefied mix.

Starmer recently mentioned Labour will bring in mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse so perhaps, if the government actually does that, it will reduce the number of people who turn a blind eye to this. Self-interest can be a useful motivator.

I used to live in a village on Deeside in Aberdeenshire when my children were young, and my daughter, then aged 8/9 played chess and was taken to various chess tournaments around Scotland by the mother of a boy in her school chess club. The mother was a professional counsellor,as well as very involved in junior chess.

She was approached one time by a man also involved in Scottish Junior Chess - who -knowing she was bound by codes of profesional confidentiality - confessed to her that when he drove the children ( mainly boys) to chess tournaments he would sometimes fantasise about crashing the vehicle with them all in it...and that he had feelings towards some of the boys.

The mother was understandably highly conflicted - but ultimately, and obviously, felt that she could not keep this confidential and so approached the Scottish Junior Chess board/committee with this revelation. They immediately closed ranks in order to protect him, and nothing ever came of it as far as I'm aware.

He was clearly being very manipulative in confessing this to her...maybe because she was getting a little too involved with the chess tournaments herself for his liking. It also semed clear that committee members must have already known and were maybe even involved.

Also ,when I was living in Aberdeenshire there was a suggestion that many senior men in the city, including judges, magistrates and high level police officers were involved in a paedophile ring that was abusing disabled children, including a child of one of the 'members'.

I can't help but think that that is just shifting responsibility onto individuals rather than the government taking more targeted steps itself. They've done that with the issue of single sex facilities and services too...leaving it to individual organisations and bodies to make their own decision, rather than issue clear guidance.

What would happen, for example, if a teacher had a gut feeling that something was going on with a specific pupil in their class......but had no firm evidence...and then took their concern to their line manager or the safeguarding lead......and they did nothing because of the lack of evidence.

I think the Aberdeen case ( above) was the Holly Grieg case...which people have been trying to discredit for years.

You make a good point. Recent governments have things like ‘nudge’ units that want to be very involved in shaping our everyday lives but there do seem to be big, serious areas where the government prefers to stick its fingers in its ears or prefers to drag its feet slowly in order to deal with problems such as child sexual exploitation and women’s rights. We seem cursed with politicians with little vision who prefer to tinker around the edges of things. No politician of this modern era seems to have the vision or ability to undertake wide scale transformative social plans like the post-WWII housing schemes or creating the NHS.

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

Men on secret 1970s pro-paedophile list could still work with children today

A secret list of more than 300 people who belonged to a network that called publicly for the legalisation of sex with children has been handed to the BBC.

A small number of those named on the list may still have contact with children through paid work or volunteering, the BBC has discovered.

They were all members of a group called the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).

The Metropolitan Police had the list for about 20 years from the late 1970s, a BBC Radio 4 podcast team has been told.

The whole article is concerning and very damming wrt the positions these people held and the lack of action following up on some of them.

Many on the list were later convicted of a range of serious sexual offences against children

We then searched for the names in media archives, crime reports and death register listings from the past 50 years.

They found records or further information for 45% of the people on the list - with a reasonable degree of certainty - and discovered that half of them had been convicted or cautioned (or had been charged and died before trial) for sexual offences against children.

Charges included distributing abuse images, kidnap and rape.

Of the small number of men who may still be in contact with children professionally, none has any criminal conviction that the BBC has been able to find - meaning they could have passed in-depth background checks when applying for jobs.

Those men are part of a wider group of nearly 70 on the list, who the BBC team has identified as having been in work likely to bring them into contact with minors.

Teachers make up half that group - work addresses are typed alongside some of the names on the list. The rest include social workers, sports coaches, youth workers, doctors, clergy, lay preachers and military officers involved in youth activities.

The podcast team tried to contact all those people still alive and working - most of whom are believed to be living in the UK.

Bloody hell, that’s horrific! I can’t believe so many people think DBS checks are the best way of keeping children safe when in fact it looks as though they’re often safety theatre.

And that's just the list of names they had from the 80s, pre internet

Just reading the BBC News article about this from a few days ago and this paragraph jumped out at me

"PIE was formed in 1974 - when the country was going through rapid transformative social change. Its leaders sought to further their cause by attempting to align themselves with feminist, anti-racist and gay rights movements. It was not an illegal organisation and cost £4 a year to join, and to receive its members' magazine."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq62dp092nzo

All feminists object to blatant sexism. There were feminists who were anti-men and anti-sex. Sheila Jeffreys comes to mind. She didn't believe that women should have sex with men. She said that orgasms are overrated.

As far as I can tell, Sheila Jeffreys had nothing to say about PIE or paedophilia. I could be wrong about that, but I can't find anything.

All feminists object to blatant sexism. There were feminists who were anti-men and anti-sex. Sheila Jeffreys comes to mind. She didn't believe that women should have sex with men. She said that orgasms are overrated.
As far as I can tell, Sheila Jeffreys had nothing to say about PIE or paedophilia. I could be wrong about that, but I can't find anything.

I am no particular admirer of SJ but this is just total rubbish.

There was and still is a strong tradition in feminism, or rather Women's Liberation, that quite happily as many of us on FWR frequently comment that womenn are oppresses as a sex class by the sex class of men.

What is extraordinary is that many women who know this is the basis of our oppression as women, continue to frantinise with them!

In terms of the programme I thought it really disappointing.

The BBC seems to have created this house style where the programme maker drones on for hours with what is basically background admin, and then "reveals" some tiny fragment of information.

I am not even sure if I can be bothered to watch.

Am hoping that when it has finished being broadcast someone will do a synopsis of any actual facts and follow up in the current time.

I'm sure Esther Rantzen on the 70s programme that's life done an expose of PIE .

I seem to recall a monthly magazine that was used to promote their activities and put them in touch with others of the same ilk.

I’ve just listened to the first episode. Although I’d heard of PIE I had no idea that it was all legal and free to exist.

I too have often wondered how they found each other. How did the conversation start?

At the time, without saying the groups thought they were the same, both the then transexual group and PIE thought that the strain of 70s socialism that was influencing by queer politics would be supportive of them.

At that time being young and niave, it seemed really strange that they occassionally lobbied together because whatever muddled thoughts I had about transexual I just could not see how they were in any way similar as campiagning to lower the age of consent to 4.

Although now I suppose I would say they are both groups that think their rights, one to exploit children and the modern trans movement to undermine women's rights have the same conviction that because they want something, it should automatically be given.

There wasn't even a big division in women's liberation because I think the vast majority of women just could not conceive how PIE was in any way connected to other liberation movements, let alone one focused on women. But some, who much as current socialists are about trans, seemed to think it was a badge of honour to support a group so opposed to "normal" standards. But then many women's liberationist never thought that being trans would ever be anything other than a tiny group of people. Only because it was so clear that much of this identifying as the other sex was in fact what Women's Liberationists were trying to dismantle. Gender stereotypes.

I think Mary Whitehouse, as the BBC programme referred to up thread, was one of those instances, much like KJK now, that many women agreed with what was being said, but some were nervous about supporting it. Only because loud and assertive Marxist feminist painted her as the enemy.

But like many issues, whether abortion, or child safeguarding, although different politics may express concerns and solutions in a different way, they are often based on a similar concern or belief.

Just to add that I suspect 99% of those who were active in Women's Liberation, would have been totally unaware of PIE, because it wasn't in the news, and it was fairly focused on London.

And the vast majority of women's liberation was small local groups who were active in their own area, addressing issues of importance to them, and certainly weren't dependent on this or that self appointed commentator to tell that what to think, say or do.

It's strange that PIE has still remained under the radar as it were, whilst trans activism is now very much part of currentl social norms.

It was really depressing to read on the thread about SM latest survey that 54% or the population agree that sex is biological.

That is staggering little. Given that even 20 years ago the majority of the population would have automatically known that to be a fact.

PIE was / is (to my mind) more an explicit movement to try and make child sex abuse legal. And I suppose it is a slight sign of some decency that society as a whole has not accepted it.

Not that that has had any impact on lessening the continued abuse of children.

re how did anyone find out about anything pre technology

Well mailing lists and telephone trees.

Fly posting was in fact really brilliant in find out about things happening that were off the radar of main stream society.

Not forgetting that the alternative press was very active, but as now heavily male dominated. This is fact was one of the strands of entrenched sexism that started Women's Liberation in the UK (not the sanitised it was all acadmics and students).

And strange as it might seem, because so many people were not tied to their mobile phones and computers, you would bump into people who would drop things into conversations. In many ways a better way of distributing information, as by and largel social media is now just a series of echo chambers.

re Alternative press - worth remembering the Oz obscenity trial. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/aug/02/pressandpublishing.g2 - not saying directly linked to PIE but very much that so called liberated sexuality was all about what men wanted and fantisised about.

I thought it was pretty well known that they aren't really all that effective. Insurance companies and organizations love them as much for their effects on liability as anything else.

How would she have known that Savile was an abuser? Some of those who worked at places where he carried out his abuse knew, e.g. the BBC, Stoke Mandeville, Broadmoor, Leeds General Infirmary etc. But most people had no idea until it all came out after his death.

It sounds as if John Smyth’s activities weren’t known about until after he acted for her in court cases.

So how could she have protected children from them if she didn’t know they were abusers?

Treating knowledge of CSA like money laundering is a good idea. Liability for you if you know and don’t report.