Lord Justice Fulford ‘campaigned to support PIE paedophile group’

Mail on Sunday investigation claims the judge, now advisor to the Queen, defended PIE as means for paedophiles to ‘offer each other mutual support’

One of Britain’s most senior judges campaigned to provide legal support for a paedophile group which was trying to lower the age of consent to four, it has been claimed today.

According to reports in the Mail on Sunday, Lord Justice Fulford was praised by the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) for “coming to its defence” when he co-founded a campaign which defended its members from criminal charges.

The newspaper said Lord Justice Fulford was involved with the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), a group which has been criticised for its links with PIE during the 1970s and early 1980s.

In recent weeks the Labour deputy Leader Harriet Harman, her husband Jack Dromey and Patricia Hewitt, both also Labour MPs, have clashed with the newspaper over their involvement with the NCCL, which granted affiliate status to PIE in 1975.

Lord Justice Fulford, who was last year named as an advisor to the Queen, reportedly helped found a campaign to defend PIE against criminal charges, known as the Conspiracy Against Public Morals group, according to the Mail on Sunday.

The newspaper also claimed that he planned demonstrations outside courts where defendants were on trial, approached then-NCCL chairwoman Ms Hewitt for help with the campaign, wrote that PIE was just a way for paedophiles to “offer each other mutual support” and attended NCCL meetings where PIE chairman Tom O’Carroll was present.

Lord Justice Fulford told the BBC that he had “briefly” been involved with the NCCL and Campaign for Homosexual Equality, but that he had “no memory” of being involved in the campaign to support PIE and said child abuse was “wholly wrong”.

The judge said he attended several NCCL meetings where Mr O’Carroll – who was jailed in 2006 for offences relating to indecent images of children – was also present, but added that this had made him “extremely uncomfortable”.

“On reflection, the NCCL gay rights committee should never have allowed members of PIE to attend any of its meetings, and a clear and real separation should have been created between the two organisations,” he said.

“I am very sorry for what happened. I have never espoused or in any way supported the objectives of PIE - the abuse of children - which, I consider wholly wrong.”