He was formerly chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange group

A paedophile campaigner who called for sex with children to be legalised was today suspended from Labour but party rules mean he cannot be immediately expelled.

Tom O'Carroll, 70, former chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), is said to have joined the party after Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader last September.

The news has horrified party members who are calling for Mr O'Carroll to be 'immediately thrown out', on the basis he was jailed in 2006 for distributing indecent images of children.

A Labour spokeswoman today said: 'Tom O'Carroll has been suspended from the Labour Party.'

Tom O'Carroll, 70, pictured today right and left, former chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), is said to have joined the Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader in September last year

John Mann, a Labour MP for Bassetlaw, told The Times: 'He is totally unfit to be a Labour party member.

'He should be immediately thrown out. We don't want him or anyone like him near the Labour Party.'

John Woodcock, Labour MP for Barrow & Furness, also expressed his anger about Mr O’Carroll joining the party.

He wrote on Twitter: ‘Dismayed Mr O'Carroll joined party in Barrow. I've written to Labour general secretary demanding he barred for life.’

Speaking from his home via intercom yesterday, Mr O'Carroll told The Times: 'I don't really think I have any comment on this.'

The former Open University information officer was a key activist for PIE – which was set up in 1974 to campaign for a change in the law – and was once described as 'one of the most infamous perverts on Earth'.

He was jailed in 1981 for 'corrupting public morals' and again more than two decades later for child sex offences.

He received a two-and-a-half year jail-term at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court in December 2006 for two counts of distributing indecent images of children.

Pressure is now expected to be placed on Iain McNicol, general secretary of the Labour Party, in a bid to oust Mr O'Carroll – with many MPs raising concerns about how he was allowed to join.

It is understood a Labour member can be suspended if he poses a 'safeguarding risk'. A party spokesman said: 'We do not comment on individual membership.'

Mr O'Carroll came to blows with Harriet Harman, former deputy leader of Labour, in 2014 after claiming she 'didn't even try' to stop PIE working with the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), where she was a legal officer in the late 1970s and where he sat on the gay rights sub-committee.

In the eight years PIE was given affiliate status, Mr O'Carroll said he spoke at the NCCL's 1977 Spring conference, two years after he helped lead a campaign to cut the age of consent to as low as ten.

John Mann (left), Labour MP for Bassetlaw, said Mr O'Carroll is 'totally unfit to be a Labour party member'. Mr O'Carroll came to blows with Harriet Harman (right), former deputy leader of Labour, in 2014 after claiming she 'didn't even try' to stop PIE working with the National Council for Civil Liberties in a bid to protect her career

John Woodcock, Labour MP for Barrow & Furness, expressed his anger about Mr O’Carroll joining the party

He later said that Ms Harman, then general secretary of the NCCL, 'didn't even try' to remove him or other members because they 'didn't want to rock the boat' to protect their own careers.

'Really they didn't do much to oppose PIE's presence in my view because there were these other liberal forces, or radical forces, within NCCL,' he told the BBC in 2014.

'The support didn't come from Harman and co but it was there. The gay liberation front was very radical and at that time Harman and Patricia Hewitt couldn't just kick out PIE, well they could both try but they didn't even try and the reason they didn't try is they didn't want to rock the boat because their careers within NCCL depended on them not rocking the boat too much.'

His comments were rubbished by people including, Jack Dromey, who said the convicted paedophile has no credibility.