The Paedophile Information Exchange, a movement set up in the 1970’s to promote sexual activity between minors and adults could hold the key to unlocking controversial allegations about a VIP paedophile ring. It could also give the nation’s Statutory Inquiry Into Child Abuse a foothold on the scale and extent of child sexual exploitation within government.

PIE, as it was known, was as notorious for its open stance on overtly sexual relationships with children, as it was for its membership. High profile politicians and peers have all been linked to the movement, which was disbanded ten years after its inception. But claims now surfacing about abuse in the 70’s and 80’s by politicians and Lords in Westminster raise fresh questions about PIE and its involvement with an alleged VIP paedophile ring.

If we were chairing the nation’s inquiry into child sexual abuse, this is certainly where we would start our investigation in relation to potential abuses within government. And we would look to PIE’s membership to find out more.

The internet is teeming with information on PIE’s members, both established and suspected.  Street Democracy has a long, and lurid list of confirmed and possible members, many of whom worked in academia, or advised the government on child welfare issues. Brynalyn Victims has an updated list which also focuses on areas in the United Kingdom where child abuse appears to be most acute. There are also forums where people gather and discuss abuse at the hands of PIE – all materials the Inquiry should be scanning and analysing to mobilise their investigation.

What is startling about these sites is that they do not just detail PIE’s monstrous membership. They also bring together victims of abuse who talk about their experiences, where they occurred and whom they were abused by. Cynics will be quick to point out that until proven otherwise, sentiments on sites like these are nothing more than allegations, but the culture surrounding victims is an oppressive one and many can only air genuine abuses online, historically ignored and marginalised by society as they have been. Those allegations which are false, will be a small minority nestled amongst the truly appalling truths survivors are sharing. The sites also hold newspaper clippings highlighting the amount of indecent material PIE members held in their homes. And whilst much of this material may be gone by now, some may remain and by implication offer a rich source of information for any inquiry attempting to discover the truth about high-profile child abuse in Britain.

PIE members have always maintained that their movement was pure, liberated and progressive and that children needed sexual stimulation from a young age. This was not a movement campaigning for mature 15 year olds to be able to engage in relationships with young men – when surveyed, PIE members’ truly grotesque preferences were laid bare: most were attracted to girls aged 8–11 and boys aged 11–15. 

Their magazine, MagPIE, available online for reading, attempts to intellectualise sexual activity between adults and children, without any attempt at demonstrating that children feel comfortable with the concept. It is a one way conversation. The publication confuses homosexuality with child sexual exploitation and tries to bolster the latter, using the former. It is a disgraceful exercise in the legitimisation of child abuse.

Here is an extract from the magazine:

You show me yours…
Remember playing Doctors ? As kids, most of us discover this marvelous excuse for touching and exploring another human body. The work of many social scientists and researchers have uncovered an abundance of early sexual experience – in sharp contrast to the common disclaimers from parents and teachers alike that the years before puberty are not sexual, not REALLY.
Statements about children being uninterested in sex are becoming less and less credible. The belief that preadolescence represents a period of sexual latency or inactivity is being rejected along with several other Freudian teachings. In their place we find a new understanding of sexual development as a lifelong process that begins at birth.

And here is one member’s encounter with a young boy of around 12:

I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE and it works
Keith Spence
I met him at the local swimming-pool. He was by himself, practising jumping feet-first off the spring-board with a single-mindedness that suggested Olympic training. 1 guessed he was about twelve years-old – his long, coltish body was still softened by the last traces of puppy-fat, but the way he stood and moved showed that he was growing up fast. He had silver-birch-blonde hair dropping to his shoulders, and grey eyes that sparkled when he laughed. And freckles. I’m kinky for freckles. He was absolutely my kind of kid.
For half-an-hour we jumped, dived, splashed, wrestled, ducked, bombed, and generally behaved in a thoroughly irresponsible fashion: and all without speaking a word. But finally, when we had dried and changed. I decided that the time had come to put our friendship onto a more regular basis.
“Do you want a coke?” I asked.
“Ferlot?” he said. “Vad sayer du?”
“A coke” I said, pantomiming desperately. “To drink. Do you want? Do you speak English?”
“Ferlot” he repeated, “jag forstor inte. Nu maste jag go. Hcj-do”. And he grinned maddeningly, waved once, and was gone.
If you think England is frustrating for paedophiles, you should try living in Sweden for a bit.

The nation’s inquiry has been tasked with looking at child abuse from the 1940’s to the present day. PIE’s activity spanned the 70’s and the 80’s (and perhaps even the 90’s and beyond after it was shut down). This makes the movement ripe for investigation, not least of all because of the movement’s ethos and the subsequent arrest and charge of several of its members for child sexual exploitation-related offences. It could also be at the heart of child sexual abuse claims within Westminster. It makes sense to start with PIE.

The Inquiries Act 2005, gives the Chair the power to compel witnesses and to demand the production of documents and other materials to assist the inquiry. We think the Inquiry should compel PIE’s members to give evidence, and to produce it. Do you?

Tom O’Carroll was a Chair for PIE. His vault contained images of boys as young as six being raped and tortured. Please click on the image if you’d like to read more about O’Carroll.

We would like to say a very big thank you to The Real Victims Voice for their help in sourcing the PIE membership materials.

Four months seems like a lifetime away in the world of politics and more so for the nation’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse which has yet to get started, but it was only four months ago that our Prime Minister insinuated that a Westminster paedophile ring was nothing more than a conspiracy theory.

You have to wonder at the motivation for that. One can understand taking a view on something if you’re holding definitive proof that your statement is accurate. But in this exchange, which saw David Cameron telling a survivor in person that he was essentially lying about there being a VIP paedophile ring by virtue of the fact that no cover up for such a ring has yet been established, it’s not hard to imagine that the Prime Minister’s knee jerk response could have been fuelled by political ambition. Especially if there’s a chance that a ring might include Conservative politicians. After all, there are contradictions in the corridors of power on this issue, not least of all Theresa May’s own admission that there may have been a cover up in the investigation into the ring.

That no one has yet thought to connect the now infamous Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) with the possibility of a thriving Westminster-based paedophile ring seems like a rather large oversight, both by government and the national media. But the more you delve into this sordid movement, the more obvious the connection becomes.

PIE was established in 1974, by Michael Hanson, and although he was based in Scotland, he found himself having to move the group down to England because the vast majority of those interested in joining were there. So, in 1975, PIE relocated to London, its dubious aim, “to alleviate [the] suffering of many adults and children” by campaigning to abolish the age of consent thus legalising sex between adults and children.

The movement was taken seriously and no one at the time questioned its agenda. It attracted high-profile individuals who believed that PIE was a liberated and forward-thinking organisation. Its supporters included Harriet Harman, and one of its members was the now deceased Sir Peter Hayman – the man who has since been identified as the subject of a newly found document relating to child abuse. A document which the government refused to release, and which refers to “unnatural sexual proclivities”.

Hayman was never prosecuted, some say due to his connections with MI6. This failure was widely documented and later established as a cover up. Although PIE was shut down in 1984, dogged by several controversial incidents including allegations of rape relating to PIE’s treasurer, Charles Napier and other members being charged with child pornography related offences, and incitement to promote indecent acts between adults and children, very little is known about what happened to its members after the group’s dissolution.

Fast forward to 1993, and more news items on the suspicious deaths of whistleblowers who claimed to have been victims of a high-profile paedophile ring in the 1970’s and the 1980s. These tragic stories are, sadly, followed by yet more controversy, as claims of a complex web of child abuse emerges, and appears to involve yet more politicians and peers during the ’70s and 80’s. That these events within this time period match exactly with PIE’s own timeline, could be more than just a passing coincidence.

News of children being murdered during paedophillic orgies involving senior politicians have also surfaced in the last few months.  But this time, the allegations stem from the 1990’s – shortly after PIE was disbanded, and its members found themselves without a spiritual home. Did they seek solace in their perversions under a different organisation, or did they simply gather in informal groups and carry out despicable acts much like this one? It is hard to believe that paedophiles would simply vanish into thin air, just as their monstrous alma mater did.

So where did they go, and whom are they abusing now? These are questions which our Prime Minister may well know the answer to, and which may be set at least in part, inside the newly discovered historical files on child abuse, which the Cabinet Office is holding so close to its chest. At the heart of the request to reveal just the titles of these files, lies a family whose son went missing in 1979 – at the time PIE was still very much alive and kicking. Martin Allen’s family have been left devastated by the government’s refusal to share the names of these files.

The government has promised to release the documents to the relevant inquiries, but can we trust our officials to hand those materials over in the same condition they found them? That is the concern for many, who fear that the Prime Minister may be seeking to avoid revelations about politicians being aired in public and which may damage his party’s chances of re-election.

And that is why the nation’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse must delve into the heart of this vile organisation and probe its history, its legacy and the subsequent movements of PIE’s members after the organisation closed its doors, not only in order to establish the extent of any connection between PIE’s members and the allegations surrounding a VIP paedophile ring, but also to ascertain whether or not our Cabinet is suffering from a conflict of interest which may be preventing the Inquiry from carrying out its job.

We very much hope Inquiry Chair, panel and counsel will have the stomach for such an onerous task – and the courage to demand the truth, wherever it lies.

We should be used to disappointment by now as far as the nation’s inquiry into child sexual abuse is concerned, but the latest statements from Home Secretary Theresa May are not encouraging.

In a piece she wrote for The Daily Telegraph, May warns that what we have seen so far is just the tip of a grotesque iceberg which will highlight that, “sexual exploitation runs through every level of British society like a “stick of Blackpool rock.” This all sounds on cue and very much in line with what many of us working in the sector have known for a very long time, but then, the caveats start to creep into May’s rhetoric.

She goes on to say that “the trail” will lead into schools, hospitals, churches and youth clubs as well as “many other institutions that should have been places of safety but instead became the setting for the most appalling abuse”. However, she doesn’t mention Parliament in the list, despite the very many allegations we are seeing now about high profile paedophile rings operating inside Westminster, and the fact that the current terms of reference include Parliament, and its ministers.

And then May tells us that the inquiry will not be probing individuals at all. This she says in connection with questions about the VIP paedophile ring. We can only speculate as to whether she read our piece suggesting that members of the now infamous Paedophile Information Exchange be summoned to give evidence to the Inquiry, but it seems rather uncanny that she should make that point now.

This latest revelation will be an enormous blow to many. It is most likely that members of PIE will be mentioned by certain survivors and that they will have a great deal of information on the movement both during and after its heyday in the 70’s and 80’s. May tells us that any allegations surrounding individuals will be passed on to the police, but their remit is not to work out how the abuse came about, or the wider implications of the cases they will receive.

The Inquiry is missing an incredibly important opportunity, not only to understand the cultural and social origins of child sexual abuse in Britain, but the structure in which it works – and therefore the mechanics of how to stop it. Which, as Theresa May knows, is part of the Inquiry’s remit after all.

UPDATE: The original piece from the Daily Telegraph was published a few hours after we wrote this post – you can read it here.

Theresa May