Tom O'Carroll: Labour suspends convicted paedophile and pro-child sex campaigner who joined party

Tom O'Carroll is thought to have joined after Jeremy Corbyn became leader

Tom O'Carroll (60 Minutes / Channel 9 / YouTube)

A convicted paedophile and pro-child sex campaigner who joined the Labour Party has had his membership suspended.

Tom O’Carroll, the former chair of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), is believed to have joined the party in September after Jeremy Corbyn became leader.

As well as having campaigned for the age of consent to be abolished, Mr O’Carroll was jailed in 2006 for conspiring to distribute indecent photographs of children.

A Labour spokesperson said Mr O’Carroll had been suspended on the basis that he was a “safeguarding risk”.

The party Deputy Leader Tom Watson said Mr O’Carroll was not welcome in the party.

“Just picking up on the Tom O'Carroll story. Have to verify the facts but he is not welcome in the Labour Party and nor are his views,” Mr Watson tweeted.

John Woodcock, the MP whose local party Mr O’Carroll joined, had said he was “dismayed” at the man joining.

The episode comes the same day as former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said he would be willing to consider the chemical castration of paedophiles.

He told the London Assembly that such serious sex offenders should be given life sentences.

Mr O’Carroll, who is aged 70 years old, was a prominent campaigner to legalise sex with children in the 1970s and 80s.

In 1980 he wrote a book arguing that sex between adults and children should be tolerated as normal.