Stephen Ireland is charged with 37 child-sex offences
The founder of a British Pride charity has been arrested for multiple counts of child-sex abuse.
Stephen Ireland, who founded the LGBT charity Pride in Surrey, was arrested on 37 counts of child sex abuse, along with a volunteer for the charity, David Sutton.
The charges against the two men include conspiracy to sexually assault a child, conspiracy to kidnap a child, voyeurism and arranging the commission of a child sexual offence.
Ireland himself is charged with a further 22 charges, including the rape of a child under 13, the making of child pornography and the possession of child pornography.
Ireland is a vocal proponent of teaching LGBTQ ideology to children and worked as a patron of the charity Educate and Celebrate, which runs Pride workshops in schools. He was invited to speak to local law enforcement about LGBTQ history and also organised training sessions for police. Ireland was arrested by officers from the police force he had been training.
The arrest continues a long-running trend of LGBTQ activists being arrested for child-sex offences. Slade Sohmer, editor-in-chief of left-wing news site The Recount, was arrested last November for possessing and distributing child pornography. Sohmer was involved in a non-profit called Camp Power, as a camp councillor for children from grades 5 to 11. Other high-profile cases
In another high-profile case, a former Maryland mayor known for his LGBTQ activism was sentenced to prison, again in November of last year, for nearly 150 child porn offences. Patrick Wojahn, a mentee of Pete Buttigieg, was given 30 years in prison.
