Harman 'Did Not Act' Over Paedophile Group

The former head of a paedophile group said Harriet Harman "didn't even try" to stop his organisation's involvement with the civil liberties council she worked for.

Tom O'Carroll, who was chairman of the now defunct Paedophile Information Exchange, said neither Ms Harman or her Labour colleagues wanted to "rock the boat" for fear it might damage their careers.

O'Carroll said neither Ms Harman, Patricia Hewitt nor Labour MP Jack Dromey supported the group's affiliation with the National Council for Civil Liberties for which they worked.

However, he said there was a strong level of support within the organisation, now known as Liberty, and they couldn't "just kick PIE out".

Ms Harman has fiercely denied claims in the Daily Mail that she was an "apologist for paedophilia" and in interviews on Tuesday said PIE's affiliation with NCCL did not affect her work there.

She has consistently refused to apologise, saying there is no reason for her to do so, but did use her interview to "express regret" PIE ever existed and that there had been a link with the NCCL.

O'Carroll, who has been convicted of paedophilia offences, sat on an NCCL gay rights sub-committee in 1979 after the group achieved "affiliate" status in 1975.

Ms Harman was the NCCL legal officer from 1978 to 1982, her husband, the Labour MP, Jack Dromey, was on the group's executive committee from 1970 to 1979.

The former health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, was the NCCL's general secretary from 1974 to 1983.

Ms Harman insisted on Tuesday the group had been drummed out by 1976 and said the NCCL was not the type of organisation that ran stringent background checks on groups which paid for affiliation.

However, documents seen by Sky News show there was a vetting process and that other groups had been banned from affiliation.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, O'Carroll said: "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.

"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."

He recounted how he met Ms Hewitt briefly at a conference in Sheffield in 1978. He said: "I spoke to her when we were just going up a floor or two in a lift and she was somewhat frosty.

"I said something to her, I think as a pleasantry, and she didn't take it that way. She said that I'd been rude to her afterwards, which I hadn't been.

"My impression was that she simply had great distaste for being in the same lift as me."

Mr Dromey said in a statement: "It is no surprise that a convicted paedophile, the like of whom I took action against during my time in the NCCL, should choose to smear me.

"The record is clear. I took on PIE and, when I was elected chairman, defeated by a massive majority at the 1976 NCCL annual conference a loathsome motion calling on the NCCL to support the so-called rights of paedophiles.”

Labour MP Tom Watson has called for an investigation into PIE after concerns that it could have been funded by the taxpayer.

He told the Daily Mail that he had been contacted by a former civil servant in the Home Office who said he had seen documents suggesting the group had been publicly funded under Margaret Thatcher’s Government.

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