The media must be desperate. Since the Jimmy Savile story broke they have been phoning me, of all unlikely people, in the hope of getting further revelations.
The Daily Mirror‘s chief crime correspondent, Tom Pettifor, said “name your terms”; the Daily Mail‘s reporter Lucy Osborne offered “a fee”. Both were interested in whether Savile or any other celebrities were once in PIE. The Mail, true to its chronic anti-BBC agenda, wanted to know about anyone in the beeb who might be linked to child pornography.
The Mirror made a second call, this time asking if I knew Peter Righton, named recently in the House of Commons by MP Tom Watson as a former member of the Paedophile Information Exchange, which I chaired in the late 1970s. We campaigned for liberalising the age of consent laws.
Righton was convicted of an age of consent offence many years ago.
Watson told parliament: “The evidence file used to convict Righton, if it still exists, contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring. One of its members boasts of his links to a senior aide of a former Prime Minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad.
I knew nothing of any such links to Downing Street, or any talk of smuggling.
I knew Peter Righton, though. He used to be Director of Education at the National Institute of Social Work. The man I knew was a cultured, easy-going, affable type, large and jolly. He very kindly read a proof copy of my then forthcoming book Paedophilia: The Radical Case and gave an endorsement comment for the dust-jacket, under his own name, and with his job-title included. It’s still there for anyone to see, although there can’t be many dust-jackets that have survived so long: the book was published in 1980.
As for celebrities in PIE, there were none I know of, but there was certainly a very big fish who joined under an assumed name. This was Sir Peter Hayman, former High Commissioner to Canada. I had no idea about his membership until it was revealed by Private Eye in a story alleging an Establishment cover-up of his membership. Hayman was later “outed” in parliament by Geoffrey Dickens MP.
Hayman had also been deputy commandant of the British military government in West Berlin 1964-66, during the Cold War. Any member of a sexual minority in those days, gay or paedophile, would certainly have been regarded as a prime target for Soviet blackmail and hence a major security risk. Little wonder, then, that the government was less than keen for his name to come out.
Another paper to contact me was the Guardian. But I’ll leave that for another post.
That reporters from the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail would offer what are essentially bribes to get any kind of story from Tom O’Carroll should be no surprise in view of recent highly unethical behavior by reporters from similarly inclined and now defunct News of the World.
To my mind, there are only two possibilities for such sleazy behavior. One, these reporters truly believe that Tom has some inside track on some factual but juicy morsels, the discovery of which will endear them to their editors and explode circulation. Believe that and you probably also believe in alien abduction.
Two, probably based on these reporters’ experience, if you offer a great enough incentive, your mark will tell you almost anything, fact checking be damned. I’ll bet on this one.
Love the fresh take on Savile, and it us good to see an occasional other picking up on it, too. Call me a cockeyed optimist, but while others see things just getting constantly worse, I see what approaches a critical mass of people beginning to accept more radical ideas.
The Jimmy Savile case quickly showed that “innocent until proven guilty” does not apply to the dead, so (taking a leaf from Aristogeiton) it is entertaining to imagine what would have happened if you had revealed to the Daily Mirror that the late Geoffrey Dickens was a member of PIE, under a pseudonym of course …
‘Minor’ correction.
The title of Judith Levine’ great book, glad to mention it again is, ” HARMFUL TO MINORS, THE PERILS OF PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM SEX.”
Ever true Tom.
If not new.
Indeed centuries old, that the media must be desperate.
While the real silenced voices must include the millions of mainstream ignored and unreported non-victim aMused-not-aBused ADULTOPHILES (jurisdiction, not morals, defined). Sample list includes: Priscilla Presley, Myra Lewis, Dale Winton, Rosie Swale-Pope, Judith Levine. The latter author of iconic 2002-published book, “Harmful To Children, The Perils Of Protecting Children From Sex”. Causing predictable mock-outrage among all the usual bent-mainstream suspects.
Meanwhile we defer to Brit-victim Ireland’s own special Brit-victim Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, a whole century and more ahead of the game, way beyond the curve. Among the all-time greatest of all wits, intellects, and humanitarians. He rightly stated:
” In old days men had the rack.
Now they have the Press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it.
We are dominated by Journalism. “