Paedophile Information Exchange
Understanding Paedophilia (front) and Magpie (behind, left), two magazines produced by the organisation.
|
|
| Formation | 1974 |
|---|---|
| Extinction | 1984 |
| Type | Disbanded |
| Purpose |
Pro-paedophile advocacy Age of consent reform |
| Headquarters | London |
| Location | |
The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was a British pro-paedophile activist group, founded in October 1974 and officially disbanded in 1984. It was described by the BBC in 2007 as "an international organisation of people who trade obscene material."
PIE was set up as a special interest group within the Scottish Minorities Group by founding member Michael Hanson, a gay student living in Edinburgh, who became the group's first chairman. Although Hansen did not identify as a paedophile, his sexual relationship with a 15-year-old (who he thought was 16) and the disparate age of consent laws for heterosexual and homosexual activity made Hansen sympathise with paedophile advocacy.
Since the majority of enquiries were from England, in 1975 PIE relocated to London, where 23-year-old Keith Hose became chairman. The group's stated aim was "to alleviate [the] suffering of many adults and children" by campaigning to abolish the age of consent thus legalising sex between adults and children. During the early days of its activism, Tom O'Carroll stated that only a small a small group of people were "in the know" about groups such as PIE, namely "readers of gay newspapers and magazines, and others in gay circles who had heard by word of mouth".
The Paedophile Action for Liberation (also known as Paedophile Awareness and Liberation) had developed as a breakaway group from South London Gay Liberation Front. PAL had its own magazine, Palaver, which published material sympathetic to paedophiles. One edition of this magazine carried an article saying that "If all paedophiles in community schools or private schools were to strike, how many would be forced to close, or at least alter their regimes?" However, PAL was later the subject of an article in the Sunday People, which dedicated its front page and centre-spread to the story, headlined "The vilest men in Britain." The result was intimidation of, and loss of employment for, some of those who were exposed. It later merged with PIE.
This exposé on PAL had an effect on PIE members' willingness for activism. In the PIE Chairperson's Annual Report for 1975–1976, Hose wrote that "The only way for PIE to survive, was to seek out as much publicity for the organization as possible.... If we got bad publicity we would not run into a corner but stand and fight. We felt that the only way to get more paedophiles joining PIE... was to seek out and try to get all kinds of publications to print our organization's name and address and to make paedophilia a real public issue."
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