Brighton

The Standard, 25th August 1983

CONFESSIONS OF THE ‘CHILD SEX’ MEN (The Standard, 25th August 1983)
Two leaders of the child molester group PIE spoke for the first time today about their organisation and the issue of sex with children.
Tony Zalewski and David Joy, speaking in London, admitted they had been interviewed by police in the past during investigations into the Paedophile Information Exchange on which they are executive committee members and decision makers.
Mr Zalewski, 29, said: “When something like this Brighton business happens it’s the worst possible thing for paedophiles.
“Paedophiles want loving relationships with children—this sort of attack is revolting. We are not child molesters.”
Mr Joy, 42, said he had been driven out of his home in Leicester after revelations in a local paper about his sexual interests in young girls.
He said: “We are always advocating that sex with children be by consent only. When these violent attacks happen they rebound on us through the public reaction.”
Mr Zalewski, who is unemployed and devotes much of his time to PIE, said: “For paedophiles the issue is quite clear. The child is asked: ‘Do you want sex?’. If the answer is no, that’s the end of it. Paedophiles are not child rapists.”
Slim, bearded Mr Joy said: “We only have a very small membership in Britain. I don’t believe any of our members are personally responsible for this attack on the boy, but it’s possible.
“But there are probably 200 times as many paedophiles in Britain as the members we have. This makes it a 200-1 chance against it being one of our people but it’s a possibility.
“It’s a much greater possibility that one of our members may know something about the people involved and that’s what we’re trying to find out.
“We want to catch these men in Brighton as much as anyone else and if, through their special contacts, our members can help I’m sure they will.”
Mr Zalewski went on: “I have known my own tastes in this area since I first became sexually aware at about 15 years old.
“I used to get incredible guilt feelings and I even attempted suicide with an overdose.
“But since I joined PIE over the last three or four years I have met other paedophiles and I’ve come to understand the feeling that we have.
“But I do not believe children should be forced into sex. It really is a simple matter—like asking them if they want to go to the cinema—or watch TV.
“If you talk to a child on the street, or if it is a child you know, and the subject comes up and the child is not interested in sex, then that has to be the finish.
“I have been spurned by children and although it’s hurtful I’ve left it at that.
“Children know what they want and even if it’s just making friends or a kiss and a cuddle they can say no just like adults.”
Mr Joy said it was not generally known that children were sexually aware to the point where they could and would seduce adults.
Both men said that in their organisation there were teachers, scout masters, and youth workers.
“You find that people who are attracted to children are also attracted to jobs which involve working with them,” Mr Joy said.
A document titled “An introduction to PIE” is circulated to potential new member. The cover design is an octagon showing eight figures, naked, comprising an adult man, an adult woman and linking hands with six children of apparently various ages.
Inside the document explains that PIE is a “campaigning self-help group.” It says: “Paedophiles are men and women who are sexually attracted to young people… not ‘child molesters, rapists or murderers.”
PIE claims an international membership through more than 20 countries, both homosexuals and heterosexual or bi-sexual members.
Denying it is a secret society the organisation does, however, require that new members sign a declaration that they are not working for the Press or police.
More than 50[?] per cent of the membership is said to be outside the UK. It includes the North American Man Boy Love Association.
A headmaster who infiltrated PIE criticised Home Office inaction.
Mr Charles Oxley, 61, from Rainhill, Merseyside, said he has asked Mr William Whitelaw, when he was Home Secretary, what he would do if 150 rapists got together and formed an association to campaign to make rape legal.
Mr Oxley said Mr Whitelaw, now Lord Whitelaw, “didn’t answer me and tried to maintain it wasn’t a parallel case with PIE. I believe it is.
“The organisation should be proscribed. The whole object is to incite sex with children.”
Mr Oxley went on: “I can understand the Home Office being concerned about freedom of speech and changes in certain laws. But adult sexual relations with children is not merely a breach of the law and a crime, it is a sin.
“It is an evil in society which cannot possibly be tolerated.”
Mr Oxley, who has three grown-up children, said the Home Office was “more concerned to protect the rights of perverts than it was with the safety of young children and their freedom to play safety in parks and playgrounds.

The Paedophile Information Exchange: Timeline of press cuttings 1975-2014

Was there an investigation into the 9 years that a child sex offender worked at a Brighton children’s hospital?

By murunbuch

November 20, 2014

Brighton, NHS / Department of Health

Graeme Gordon, aged 36, was a senior children’s nurse working for 9 years, at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton in the Emergency Department. He lived in Brighton but his home town was Reading. He worked with the most vulnerable children, some of whom would have been seriously ill and even unconscious. In October he was convicted of three offences relating to sexual activity with a child under 16, grooming of a child for the purposes of sexual activity and possession of indecent images relating to children. He was sentenced at Reading Crown Court to 38 months imprisonment and 6 months for possession of abusive images of children.

He was sacked by the Hospital Trust and the professional body (NMC) struck him off their register so that he is very unlikely to be able to work with children or vulnerable adults again.

The police found absolutely no evidence that his offending behaviour included his place of work or that the safety of children in the care of the Brighton hospital had been placed at risk.

I have not been able to locate the police investigation report. I am sure that all relevant agencies would have contributed to a Section 47 enquiry (Children Act 1989) which requires enquiries to be made when there is reasonable cause to suspect actual or likely significant harm to a child or children in the locality. The outcome of this investigation would then be considered at the Local Safeguarding Children Board because of possible risk to numbers of children who had been nursed by Gordon in a 9 year period. This review, or a publically available version in an executive summary, would usually be available on the Local Safeguarding Children Board website but I could not find reference to it. It is good practice for such a process to be conducted independently and local agencies commonly select an independent chair and panel to conduct such a review in order to ensure a rigorous and transparent process.

Of course, it is not acceptable for the statutory authorities to go trawling for evidence where it is not thought to exist and no-one would want to cause any unnecessary distress to the parents and families of the children who were patients of the hospital during that time. However, the crimes Gordon committed in Reading were serious and Gordon’s access to particularly vulnerable children in Brighton had been substantial over 9 years. It is possible for a sensitive multi-agency investigation process to inform parents and also hospital staff of the known facts, to provide a helpline number and to have a multi-agency team to respond to concerns and to any suspicion or knowledge of criminal activity or breach of professional codes of practice.

I would be interested to know more about how the authorities and relevant agencies in Brighton responded to this case.

Dr Liz Davies

Reader in Child Protection

London Metropolitan University

l.davies@londonmet.ac.uk

Nurse struck off after being jailed for grooming girl (The Argus, 18 July 2014)

Brighton children’s hospital nurse jailed and struck off for having under-age sex (Brighton & Hove News, 21 July 2014)

Nurse at top children’s hospital jailed for three years for abusing 14-year-old girl he met on the internet (Daily Mail, 21 July 2014)