Mental health charity allowed PIE a platform at sexuality conference

Paul Farmer, the chief executive of Mind, said: “We are horrified and sorry that, 40 years ago, Mind gave any sort of platform to such a despicable organisation as the Paedophile Information Exchange"
Paul Farmer, the chief executive of Mind, said: “We are horrified and sorry that, 40 years ago, Mind gave any sort of platform to such a despicable organisation as the Paedophile Information Exchange"
MARY TURNER/THE TIMES

Mind, the mental health charity, has apologised after an investigation by The Times found that it had allowed the chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange to lead a national event about sex with children in the 1970s.

Keith Hose talked to social workers, counsellors and mental health experts at the two-day event on sexual minorities, organised by Mind at a London polytechnic in 1975. Pro-paedophile literature was on sale.

Mind is to search its archives for evidence about PIE to assist the government’s inquiry into historical child abuse. Archive documents show that paedophiles used the charity event as an entry to respectable society.

As a result of the Mind appearance, PIE and other campaigners for child sex opened discussions with a government-funded trust about how