Betrayal of Youth
Peter Tatchell and the Paedophiles, part 3
Edited by Tim Curtis (@Tpcurtistim)
Ordinarily the acknowledgments for a book aren’t very exciting, but when it comes to Betrayal of Youth, we will make an exception. After all, this is where we will find a list of those who helped Middleton write and compile this piece of work.
In the acknowledgments, the very first name that comes up is that of Dr Kenneth Plummer, of Essex University. I’d never heard of Plummer before, but a quick Google search finds a self-admitted membership in the Paedophile Information Exchange, as well as the following quotes from the good professor, which explain why someone like Warren Middleton would ask for his help with a project like this:
“By applying sociology to the field of paedophilia we may partially relativize it, humanise it, normalise it, and politicise it.”
“…there is the stereotype that the child is “innocent”, “uninvolved” and “non-participating”: this can be so (notably in rape cases) but this is usually not the case with paedophilia.”
“A sixth stereotype suggests that the consequences to the child of paedophilia are devastating. They can be, but frequently they are not. This is a complex issue and three crucial distinctions must be made here; the first requires distinguishing between experiences that are consensual (paedophilia) and those that are not (child rape)…”
The next name mentioned is that of Dr Brian Taylor, of Sussex University. Dr Taylor was a sociologist and member of the PIE who published often on the subject of paedophilia, and spent a great deal of effort in the 70s and 80s to normalise child sexual abuse.
Articles by Dr Taylor have titles like “Motives For a Guilt-Free Pederasty,” and he also edited and wrote the introduction for “Perspectives on Paedophilia,” a purportedly academic study of paedophilia from 1982 with at least four contributors who were members of the PIE (Taylor included). The other 3 PIE contributors were: Dr. Morris Fraser (previously and subsequently convicted of child sexual abuse), Peter Righton (later convicted of CSA) and our friend Dr Kenneth Plummer.
Taylor was a very active member of the PIE; he was its “research director” under the alias of Humphrey Barton, and contributed to the PIE’s first magazine, “Understanding Paedophilia”. He then edited the PIE’s flagship publication “The Magpie”, which published sexualised pictures of minors and ran advertisements for men who wanted to meet children and abuse them.
After Taylor’s death in November 2016, the Guardian published a laudatory obituary. None of the above information regarding Taylor’s connections to the PIE or “Perspectives on Paedophilia” was mentioned in the obituary, which was taken down without comment in February of 2017.
The next few names have no digital footprint that I can absolutely confirm, so we pick up the trail again with an acknowledgment from Middleton of the help he received from “Steven Smith and other members of the now-defunct PIE Executive Committee”, followed by a list of names.
As we’ve already gone over Smith to some extent - he’s the one we’ll continue with the next name, that of Dr Jeffrey Weeks, of South Bank University. Weeks, a sociologist, seems to have written extensively about paedophilia, and to have had much the same attitude as the other men we have discussed. The following quote is typical of his writings on the subject:
“There is strong evidence that the trauma of public exposure and of parental and police involvement is often greater than the trauma of the sex itself. Moreover, many adult-child relations are initiated by the young person himself…Force seems to be very rare in such relations, and there is little evidence amongst self-declared paedophiles or ‘boy lovers’ of conscious exploitation of young people.”
-Jeffrey Weeks, “Sexuality and its Discontents: Meanings, Myths, & Modern Sexualities”
Once again we see the false insistence, commonly made by paedophiles and made by Peter Tatchell, that there is a difference between “real abuse” and grooming children until they consent. Once again we see the untrue claim - again, commonly made by paedophiles, and also by Peter Tatchell - that the latter is not harmful, and that the “real” trauma stems from the responses of those who uncover the abuse. If Weeks is not himself a paedophile, he certainly shares many of their beliefs.
The next person whom Middleton chose to thank was Nettie Pollard, a member of the PIE and former chair of the gay rights subcommittee of the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL). Pollard is a left-wing activist with a long history of supporting paedophilia and paedophiles. She’s yet another Tatchell-adjacent person who differentiates, as Tatchell does, between child rape and child rape after grooming the victims until they “consent.” She sees no problem with the latter.
Here is a direct quote from Ms Pollard:
“Far from being 'innocent' and becoming sexual at puberty, as was once the common belief, it is now indisputable that everyone is sexual, even before birth.”
The next name is that of Frank Torey, also known as Francis Duffield Shelden. Shelden was a wealthy paedophile from the United States. He’s best known for running Brother Paul’s Children’s Mission, a “boys’ camp” and charity that was actually a front for a child sex abuse material distribution ring.
Shelden and his accomplices would fly young boys in Shelden’s private plane to a camp on North Fox Island, a private island (Epstein vibes, anyone?) about 20 miles off-shore in Lake Michigan, where they would abuse the victims and film it for later distribution to members of the paedophile ring Shelden ran.
When caught in 1977, Shelden chose to flee the country instead of surrendering to the authorities, changing his name to Frank Torey in the process. He fled to France, where he married a woman to obtain citizenship, then moved to Amsterdam and continued to abuse underage boys.
He died in Amsterdam in July of 1996 of unknown causes, still wanted by US authorities.
The next set of names are those of contributors whose work was solicited, but not used in Betrayal of Youth. It is reasonable to assume that these people held the same views as the rest of Middleton’s contributors, whom he claimed were in favour of child sexual abuse.
These names include Peter Coell/Harry Peter Coen, a former director of Gay News; David Joy, a convicted paedophile and member of the PIE’s executive committee; Anthony Zelewski, the same; Tim Brown, a member of the PIE and the Fallen Angels collective who had been working to legalize child rape since at least 1979; Mike Williams and Dr Peter Brenner, both former PIE executive committee members; and Keith Spence, a PIE member and contributor to their magazine, The Magpie.
In one article for Magpie, Spence wrote about his (thankfully frustrated) attempts to molest “heart-breakingly beautiful” children at a pool in Sweden.
Middleton also thanks Tom O’Carroll, former chairman of the PIE, former member of the International Paedophile and Child Emancipation, and convicted sex offender, for “help with some source material”. Carrol is also the author of Paedophilia: The Radical Case, and multiple publications for the PIE.
Finally, he gives credit to Richard Green, a sexologist and colleague of the infamous John Money, “for his invaluable help with final preparations”.
Most disturbingly, Middleton concludes his acknowledgments with thanks to “children and young people themselves; for it was they who inspired the present study”.
The number of predators mentioned in the Acknowledgments alone is staggering. In the next post, we’ll get to the people who actually contributed to Betrayal of Youth.
