Alan Rusbridger & convicted paedophile Tom O’Carroll

Below is the latest comment left on this blog by the source of Tom Watson’s PMQ about “a powerful political paedophile ring”. It raises many questions about why The Guardian are still not covering the national scandal of children procured from care homes being abused by rich and poweful paedophiles, while at the same time giving a platform to paedophile activist Tom O’Carroll. When reading this bear in mind that Tom O’Carroll has a conviction for possession of a collection of 50,000 images and films of children as young as 6 being raped and tortured. This was not mentioned in The Guardian’s coverage.

It has just been brought to my attention that Tom O’Carroll has launched a pathetic and infant like attack on the remarkable Liz Davies on his website.

I won’t waste time on responding to that utterly depraved and deluded individual other than to comment that it does say a great deal about our society, laws, judiciary, parliament and policing priorities that individuals like O’Carroll and Napier have spent less than 6 years in prison and Righton no time at all, despite being responsible either directly or indirectly between them for the sexual and emotional abuse of hundreds of children.

In O’Carroll’s case he has a conviction for ” corrupting public morals ” in the 80′s – he’s been doing it every day since so why isn’t he treated as a repeat offender and constantly returned to prison on that charge alone.

Many of your followers like me despair at the almost complete lack of coverage by the main stream media on events since last October. Why are the wonderful Nick Davies and his like so silent given their outspoken and expert views on the subject of organised child abuse in the past ?

With the exception of Exaro, Jon Snow and The Sunday People/Mirror the silence beggars belief.

I feel obliged to share with you my correspondence with Alan Rusbridger on the matter and let your followers come to their own conclusions

On January 3rd Jon Henley wrote an article in the Guardian entitled ” Paedophilia : bringing dark desires to light ”

I wrote to the Editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, the following :-

I was a Guardian reader for over 40 years until you made the decision to publish an article described by Tom O’Carroll on his website as ” the first I have ever seen in a mainstream media outlet giving significant coverage to research suggesting that paedophilia is not intrinsically harmful.That was superb, confirming my long held view that Alan Rusbridger is the best ever editor of the world’s greatest English – language newspaper. ”

O’Carroll goes in to great detail on his website about the actual process by which you and Jon Henley made contact with him – what a disgrace you are, allowing this man to view it as a great triumph for him because that is exactly how I viewed it despite your pathetic attempt to justify publishing the article and Henley’s response to Tom Watson MP. ( see Tom Watson’s blog )

Tom O’Carroll is a clever but very dangerous and evil man.

I am as qualified as anyone after 37 years working in child protection and specialising for many years in the investigation of child sexual abuse and the investigation of highly organised rings to know the full extent of the harm done to children and young people by predatory paedophiles like O’Carroll

I am the person who contacted Tom Watson which led to his PMQ on October 24th last year. Before Christmas I agreed to be interviewed by one of your most senior journalists – that now feels like a big mistake given your coverage of O’Carroll’s views and what came across to me as an attempt to find positives in what is one of the most heinious crimes in any society.

( I provided the Guardian with all the information I passed to Tom Watson but not one word of it has appeared in print by them to date )

You should be heading a campaign to close down sites like O’Carroll’s and I strongly believe he should be arrested for the content alone. The almost total lack of coverage by the British media of the events leading up to the setting up of Operation Fernbridge, despite the availability of numerous potential stories that are not sub judice linked to high level historic abuse, is exceptionally worrying.

Paedophiles like Savile, Peter Morrison, Cyril Smith, Sir Peter Hayman were so confident of establishment support they didn’t need to operate in secret they could be as indiscreet as they wished knowing that even if they came to the attention of the Police nothing would come of it and the full weight of the Attorney General and The Director of Public Prosecutions and their underlings would be brought in to play ” in the public interest ”

In what way was ” our ” collective national security protected by the security services when they covered up Cyril Smith’s systematic abuse of children ? ”

The vast majority of the population of this country know that national security when used in these circumstances has absolutely nothing to do with ” our ” collective security but everything to do with being a cover for sustaining the power of the wealthy and privileged.

Your newspaper and you and Jon Henley in particular have very badly let that vast majority down – after Savile we had the opportunity for this to be a watershed moment but the backlash started by the allegedly mistaken identity of a certain individual has gathered momentum and if I had been told that the Guardian would be in the vanguard of that backlash I would never have believed it ”

This is the reply I received from Alan Rusbridger :-

” Thanks for your letter.

I thought Jon Henley wrote an intelligent piece about the mixed academic and medical opinion on paedophilia.

I did not take it to be in any way a defence of child sexual abuse or paedophilia.

I think it desirable, not irresponsible, to write seriously about in-depth research into this disturbing area of life.

I was interested to read about how thinking had changed over time and to hear from a range of experts who deal with offenders

It was,to my mind, a calm and informative piece.

Tom O’Carroll’s speculation as to the genesis of the piece is wide of the mark. We did briefly meet at the Guardian’s readers’ week-end earlier last year. But this had no connection with Jon Henley’s piece.

You will be aware that the Guardian was responsible for exposing the case of mistaken identity to which you refer in your final paragraph. I don’t accept that the paper is in the ” vanguard” of any ” backlash ” after the unmasking of Savile. Our article about Lord McAlpine was of a peice with the intelligent approach that Henley showed in his own article.This is, I accept, a difficult subject and the Gurdian will continue to cover it thoroughly and calmly ”

I contacted Alan Rusbridger a week ago to advise him that I intended to post our respective views on your website

I have not received a response so must assume he has no objection