Richmond Avenue Toilets: Concerns for Children (11.06.82)

Tales of toilet used for homosexual meetings prompts council action

Islington Gazette, 11 June 1982

“Complaints about the misuse of a public toilet may have the spin-off of helping gay groups in the borough.”

Islington Gazette, 11 June 1982

A few weeks after the election in May 1982 with Margaret Hodge newly appointed as Council leader, complaints her neighbours and fellow residents of Richmond Avenue had made to her about cottaging activity at their nearby public toilet, had been referred to the police.  

In June the Public Services Committee discussed closing Richmond Avenue public toilets. 

Borough Cleansing Officer, Tom Bartlett, said there were worries “concerning the safety of children and for that matter, other persons using the toilets for legitimate purposes.”

Islington Gazette, 11 June 1982, Public Services Committee

New Labour councillor, Bob Crossman, “Called on the council to fulfil its duty to the 17,000 gay people in Islington” and “help them to live full lives as citizens of the borough.”

He added: “One reason why gay men go into lavatories and wave their penises at each other is that it is the only way some people in the population have of meeting the people and making friends.”

Islington Gazette, 11 June 1982, Public Services Committee

Vice-Chair David Aitchison objected strongly to Bartlett’s statement, considering it a conflation of issues between gay adult men cottaging to meet one another with gay child abusers seeking to molest boys in toilets. He did not appear to consider that the toilet, being close to a gay pub and a children’s playground, could attract both groups of men seeking sexual activity or that showing concern for the safety of children and a wish to see more local social and support options for gay male residents did not have to be mutually exclusive.

Instead the discussion of how to deal with the persistent problems at the Richmond Avenue public toilets was closed down with an accusation of bigotry.

Aitchison said there was no connection between homosexuals and the safety of children and added: “This is another slight minority group of people who have suffered enough under the last administration.”

“Councillor Crossman’s recommendation that the toilet should remain open and that positive action should be taken to help gay groups was easily passed.”

Islington Gazette, 11 June 1982, Public Services Committee

Islington’s pro-paedophile activists’ network: Roger Moody and Sandy Marks

“Bunking off is not the crime” Letter from Roger Moody, Islington Gazette, 23 May 1991 p.8

In March 1991 Roger Moody, pro-paedophile rights campaigner and paedophile political activist, wrote to the Islington Gazette (address given as Liverpool Road, N1), identifying himself “as a youth worker who until recently worked in a school-based youth project”.

Was Roger Moody employed in Islington as a youth worker based within a school? Which school was he working within? Was Islington Council his employer?

Within 18 months of Moody losing his job, the Evening Standard exposed the extent to which Islington’s children’s homes had been infiltrated by paedophiles, pornographers and pimps.

More on Roger Moody’s pro-paedophile activism and prolific writings and his links with politicians alluded to his in book ‘Indecent Assault’

The third meeting of the Conspiracy Against Public Morals committee (PIE’s legal defence publicists, strategists and fundraisers) gathered on 11 September 1979.

Six months’ previously in April 1979 Moody had been acquitted of 4 counts of indecent assault and 1 count of attempted buggery on a 10 year old boy — with the help of a character witness statement from an MP read out in court for his defence.

CAPM attendees included NCCL’s former and future Gay Rights Officers, Nettie (PIE Member No 70) Pollard and Barry Prothero, PIE Chairman and defendant Tom O’Carroll, Fallen Angels Tim Brown and Sandy Marks (future Islington councillor and Chair of Social Services Committee) and Adrian Fulford (now Lord Justice Adrian Fulford — Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales).

Was Roger Moody the Roger in attendance at the CAPM committee alongside Sandy Marks? If so, was Sandy Marks aware Roger Moody, as an out and proud self-proclaimed paedophile worked with children in Islington and continued to do so until at least 1991? If aware of Moody’s views on the positive benefits paedophiles bring to the social welfare of children when working in child-care roles, did Sandy Marks take any steps once serving on the Social Services Committee from 1982 to ensure Roger Moody’s ability to work with children was curtailed?

Roger Moody c. 1970-71, youth worker for Bemerton Adventure Playground, Copenhagen Street, Barnsbury

James Goudie QC and Holly Stout’s recent report for Islington Council recommends further independent investigation into Sandy Marks and her role in the 1995 White Report, and states that evidence should be examined as to “the nature, extent and duration of Sandy Marks’ involvement in Fallen Angels, and any other pro-paedophile groups;”

Two other pro-paedophile groups with links to Islington were Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) and Paedophile Action for Liberation (PAL), both of which Roger Moody contributed to meetings and newsletters of, hoping to shape their thinking along more radical socialist revolutionary lines.

The extent to which all of these pro-paedophile lobbying groups, including Fallen Angels, were able to gain influence and traction in a council which its own Chief Executive declared “vulnerable to lobbying groups”(1) is the wider context in which to examine Sandy Marks’ conduct, associations and actions, influencers and influence. Therefore Goudie QC’s inclusionary language is to be welcomed. Whether Islington Council listens remains to be seen.

 

(1) Leisha Fullick’s 1998 report ‘ Modernising Islington’

 

I’m no threat to kids any more (18.2.2000)

I’M NO THREAT TO KIDS ANY MORE

February 18, 2000, Friday, The Mirror, Paul Byrne

 

 

A CONVICTED sex offender named by the inquiry told The Mirror last night he is no longer a threat to children.

Michael Taylor said: “I don’t work with children and I have no intention of doing anything like that.” In an emotional interview he added: “I am not working with children and I have not been for many years.”

Taylor, 58 – No2 in charge at Bersham Hall home in Wrexham, Clwyd – was convicted by the town’s magistrates in 1980 of two indecent assaults and given two years’ probation. In 1993 he was cautioned for six more indecent assaults.

He is one of 28 “missing” people named in the report as potential dangers to young people.

The list was circulated to agencies across the UK amid fears that many could still be working with children.

But Taylor, a cabbie in Nantwich, Cheshire, till he retired after a heart attack last month, said he has lived openly at the same house for 20 years.

He had no idea what his neighbours’ reaction would be to revelation of his sex crimes. “I just want to be left alone.”

Headmaster jailed for beating pupils (27.11.86)

West Sussex Gazette, 27 November 1986, p.9

In November 1986, Derek Slade was convicted of brutal physical assaults on boys aged 8 and 11, causing serious bodily harm. His victims were pupils at Dalesdowne School at Dial Post, Horsham, West Sussex, a private school he was the Headmaster of. Slade was jailed for 3 months. The sentence was reduced to a conditional discharge on appeal.

At his trial Slade’s defence barrister, Simon Coltart, called on Slade’s old schoolfriend to testify as to Slade’s character:

“Islington councillor Derek Sawyer, a friend of school days, said Slade was a well-liked teacher. He believed corporal punishment was an effective aid to discipline.

Judge Peter Crocker said photos of the 11 year old boy’s bruised buttocks were sickening to look at.”

 

https://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/category/derek-slade-st-georges-school/

 

£500,000 children’s home “is left to rot” (27.06.91)

Rampage at council kids home (19.04.91)

19 April 1991 Islington Gazette

Northampton Park, Canonbury

Chiefs probe saga of cops & the sexy sauna girls (06.02.92)

6 February 1992 p.5 Islington Gazette

Police appeal to gays in hunt for killer (18.01.92)

18 January 1992 p2 Islington Gazette

 

Tuesday 7 January 1992, Malcolm Raywood, was living at an ex-offenders hostel in Southgate Road, Islington and working as a car park attendant who worked in St John’s Square. Police believed he was stabbed to death by someone known to him on New Year’s Eve or Day. Detective Sergeant Steve Gough gave a quote to the Islington Gazette – an incident room was opened in Upper Street police station.

Raywood had been a defendant (address in Earlsfield) alongside Charles Hornby at the third Playland trial of Piccadilly Circus in 1975.

Council cuts ‘will put kids at risk’ (18.01.92)

18 January 1992 p1

Police think many women make up rapes – report (25.08.93)

25 August 1993 p.6