When Pride becomes megalomania:

When Marion Harding contacted the chief executive of Surrey County Council in 2021 to raise safeguarding concerns about her local Pride organisation, she expected a speedy response.

After all, the council itself had given Pride in Surrey tens of thousands of pounds in funding, and her concerns were about the protection of potentially vulnerable young people who came into contact with the LGBTQ organisation, which was set up in 2018 by local activist, Stephen Ireland.

Harding, 62, and her wife, Cathy, 59, had volunteered for Pride in Surrey, but both had a number of worries about Ireland’s conduct, not least that he had appointed himself head of safeguarding – a role that, according to guidance for voluntary bodies, should “not be the most senior person in the organisation”.

Why not? Oh I bet we can guess – because if the most senior person is, say, a pedophile, then the most senior person is not going to do a brilliant job of safeguarding and will not let anyone else do a brilliant job either.

The council appears to have done little or nothing in response to Harding’s concerns.

In March this year, Stephen Ireland, 41, was convicted at Guildford Crown Court of raping a 12-year-old boy, along with additional counts of causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, sexual assault and making indecent images.

His partner David Sutton, 27, a volunteer at Pride in Surrey, was convicted of offences including making indecent photographs and possessing extreme pornographic images.

Both were also found guilty of voyeurism and perverting the course of justice by deleting phone data after becoming aware of the investigation. Ireland pleaded guilty to possessing 274 prohibited images of children and possessing an extreme pornographic image, while Sutton pleaded guilty to distributing a category A indecent photograph of a child, distributing three category B indecent photographs of a child, and possessing 64 prohibited images of children. On Monday, Ireland was sentenced to 30 years in prison and Sutton received a minimum 54-month sentence.

…

The Pride in Surrey case has sparked questions about what safeguarding concerns the local councils were aware of before the pair were arrested in April 2024. It wasn’t just local councils that had formal ties to Surrey Pride. Until earlier this year, Surrey Police listed the organisation on its website as a “partner agency” that “can also offer information, advice, and support” on LGBTQ issues, in addition to the force’s LGBTQ liaison officers.

Of course they did. The cops are way too busy sniffing out gender-critical feminists to do anything about pedophiles running Pride groups.

The Telegraph has spoken to several Surrey residents who reported safeguarding concerns as long as six years ago with Surrey council, Guildford Borough Council and Woking Borough Council, which also had ties with Surrey Pride.

But no action appears to have been taken. Surrey County Council has, according to a Freedom of Information request, funded Pride in Surrey to the tune of more than £140,000 for various events and projects since 2020, including £24,275 for the year 2024-2025. Earlier this month, weeks after Ireland’s conviction, Guildford Borough Council announced that “Surrey Pride will be returning to Guildford” for a parade in September – the sixth annual Pride event in Surrey, and the second time it has taken place in Guildford. It included a hyperlink to the website of Pride in Surrey.

The decision astonished those who had been trying to raise the alarm.

Raising the alarm is tranzfobick.

H/t Mostly Cloudy