Foot, the controversial group that defended pedophilia and operated openly in the United Kingdom until its dissolution in the 80s
- Author, Drafting
- Author’s title, BBC News World*
The BBC received a secret list with the names of more than 300 people who belonged to a group in the United Kingdom that publicly requested the legalization of sex with minors.
The list- which was in the hands of the Police since the 1970s for 20 years- contains 316 names of members of the group known as Paedophile Information Exchange (Exchange of pedophile information in Spanish or foot, for its acronym in English).
Standing members, who operated in the country legally between the 70s and 80s, were mostly British, but there are also details of Eastern Europe, Australia and the United States.
Some of them are still alive and, as a BBC team that investigated the topic for the “In Dark Corners” podcast, could be in contact or care of children through payment or volunteer.
However, the BBC found no evidence that any of them committed abuse.
The MET (as the London Police are known) pointed out that it could not provide specific information about their historical research on foot, but said it will continue to investigate crimes if there are sufficient evidence and the alleged authors are still alive.
But how did this group come about? And how could he operate openly for at least a decade?
Legal organization
Pie was created in 1974, at a time when the country was going through a rapid and transformative social change. The group campaigned in favor of “child sexuality.”
I wanted the government to suppress or reduce the age of consent and offer support to adults “in legal difficulties in relation to sexual acts with minors.” His true objective was to normalize sex with children.
Image source, Getty images
It was not an illegal organization and at that time it cost about US $ 5 a year to join and receive the magazine of its members.
In a 2014 interview with the BBC, the journalist Christian Wolmar remembers his tactics. “They did not emphasize that they were 50 -year -old men who wanted to have sex with 5 -year -old children. They presented it as the sexual liberation of children, that children should be entitled to sex,” he said.
It is an ideology that now seems chilling. But Pie achieved the support of some professional organizations and progressive groups. He received student unions invitations, obtained favorable media coverage and found academics willing to spread his message.
But it is a mistake to say that the organization was tolerated in the 70s, says the newspaper of the newspaper Theimenta Matthew Parris. “I remember a lot of outrage about it. (Foot) was considered scandalous.”
Group’s visits to universities were often the object of opposition. In 1977, the president of Pie, Tom O’Carll, was expelled from a conference on “Love and Attraction” at the University College of Swansea, after the teachers “threatened not to deliver their presentations if O’Car development remained” , the Times.
Magpie’s May 1978 number, the internal newspaper standing, collects how O’Car development had been invited to go to the students of the universities of Liverpool and Oxford, but that the visits were canceled after the local opposition.
DECEÑIOUS TACTICS
One of the main feet tactics to gain support was to try to confuse its cause with the rights of homosexuals and, at least twice, the conference of the campaign for homosexual equality approved motions in favor.
Homosexuality was not decriminalized in the United Kingdom until 1967. At that time there were still prejudices and inequalities: while the age of consent was 16 years for heterosexuals, for homosexuals it was 21.
Most homosexuals were horrified by any confusion between homosexuality and sexual interest in children, Parris said. But foot used the idea of sexual liberation to gain the most radical elements.
“If there was anything with the word ‘liberation’ in the name, you were automatically in favor of it if you were young and great in the 1970s. It seemed that foot had sneaked into the network.”
Image source, Getty images
Declared pedophilia
Wolmar says he had first -hand contact with foot.
In 1976, he had started working with an agency that helped people with legal and drug addiction problems, who shared his foot address. No one knew a lot about them, but they had the stereotypical appearance of the dubious -looking men, Wolmar recalls.
After the journalist gave the alarm, his agency decided to call a meeting on foot.
His colleagues pressed the man standing on the age of consent.
Image source, Getty images
Wolmar says that the man said there should be no age. Shocked with the idea that a group defended sexual relations with a baby, he and his colleagues unanimously decided to throw them away.
The carelessness was scandalous. Keith Hose, one of the standing leaders during the 1970 imprudent to say it. “
Boom and fall
A reading of the newspapers of the time reveals a palpable anxiety for the success of standing.
An article from the newspaper The Guardian of 1977 he pointed out with dismay how the group was growing. On its second anniversary, in October 1976, it had 200 members. There was a group in London, another was planning in Middlesex and regional branches would follow.
The article talks about the hope of expanding the number of members to include heterosexual women and men.
The author of the article speaks of her “disgust, aversion and anger” towards the group, but adds that he had “the feeling that in about five years her goals would end up joining the general liberal creed and we would all consider them acceptable.”
However, during the 1980s, foot fell apart. His notoriety grew in 1982 with the judgment of Geoffrey Prime, which was both spy of the KGB and foot member. He was imprisoned for 32 years, for spending secrets of his work in the Government Communications Headquarters to the Soviet Union, and for a series of sexual attacks on young girls.
Image source, Getty images
A brief newspaper article Daily Mail June 1983 collects the resignation of a Castle Bromwich Scout Chief, a town on the outskirts of Birmingham, after being discovered as a member of the foot.
In August 1983, a Scottish school director, Charles Oxley, delivered a dossier on foot to Scotland Yard (the London Metropolinatan Police) after infiltrating the group, wrote the newspaper Glasgow Herald. There, he said that Pie had about 1,000 members.
The authorities discussed ways to close foot. O’Carll was sentenced to two years in prison for “conspiracy for corrupting public morals and the foot was finally dissolved in 1984.
It is difficult to believe now that the group existed for more than a decade. “Even then the pedophile word was quite taboo,” Wolmar said. “It seems amazing that they were able to use that name.”
*With BBC podcast team “In Dark Corners” (Alex Renton, Caitlin Smith, Gillian Wheelan, Gail Champion), Tom de Castella & Tom Heyden.
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