Paedophile Information Exchange - Legal Action Against Members

Legal Action Against Members

In the summer of 1978, the homes of several PIE committee members were raided by the police as part of a full-scale inquiry into PIE's activities; as a result of this inquiry, a substantial report was submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the prosecution of PIE activists followed.

In particular, five activists were charged with printing contact advertisements in Magpie which were calculated to promote indecent acts between adults and children.

Others were offered lesser charges of sending indecent material through the mail if they testified against the five. These charges related to letters that the accused exchanged detailing various sexual fantasies. It eventually became clear that one person had corresponded with most of the accused but had not been tried. After the trial, it emerged that there had been a cover-up: Mr "Henderson" had worked for MI6 and been a high commissioner in Canada. Mr "Henderson" was later revealed via Private Eye to be Sir Peter Hayman. In 1981, Geoffrey Dickens MP asked the Attorney-General "if he will prosecute Sir Peter Hayman under the Post Office Acts for sending and receiving pornographic material through the Royal Mail". The Attorney-General, Michael Havers (Baron Havers of St Edmundsbury, who represented the Crown in the trial and appeal of the Guildford Four and also of the Maguire family (known as the Maguire Seven), all of whom were wrongfully convicted) replied, "I am in agreement with the Director of Public Prosecutions' (Sir Thomas Chalmers Hetherington QC) advice not to prosecute Sir Peter Hayman and the other persons with whom he had carried on an obscene correspondence." Dickens asked, "How did such a potential blackmail risk come to hold highliy sensitive posts at the MOD and NATO?" He also asked the Leader of the House (of Commons) to investigate the security implications of diaries found in the diplomat's London flat which contained accounts of sexual exploits" There was much debate and condemnation in the World's press of these events.

Steven Adrian Smith was Chairperson of PIE from 1979 to 1985. He was one of the PIE executive committee members charged in connection with the contact advertisements; he fled to Holland before the trial.

In 1981 the former PIE Chairperson, Tom O'Carroll, was convicted on the conspiracy charge and sentenced to two years in prison. O'Carroll had been working on Paedophilia: The Radical Case in the period between the initial police raid and the trial. While the charges did not relate in any way to the publication of the book, the fact that he had written it was listed by the judge as a factor in determining the length of his sentence.

In 1984 The Times reported that two former executive committee members of PIE had been convicted on child pornography charges but acquitted on charges of incitement to commit unlawful sexual acts with children and that the group's leader had fled the country while on bail. It was announced that the group was closing down in the PIE Bulletin as of July 1984.

One-time treasurer of PIE Charles Napier is alleged to have sexually assaulted boys whilst a gym master at Copthorne School. He became an English Language Trainer at the British Council and was convicted of sexual assault against minors in London in 1995 and investigated as an alleged member of a paedophile network operating in British schools in 1996. He set up his own school in Turkey and resumed English Language Training with the British Council after serving his sentence.