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PRIDE AND PREDATOR EPISODE THREE

PRIDE AND PREDATOR EPISODE THREE

Update: 2025-12-20
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In this episode, I go to Guildford to see what happens after Stephen Ireland and David Sutton have been convicted of serious child sexual offences.

The question is simple: once the facts are established in court, do the institutions involved stop, reflect, and account for what went wrong?

What I find instead is continuity. Pride in Surrey goes ahead. Public bodies continue to lend support. Safeguarding questions are deflected. Reviews are promised but not produced. And those asking for clarity are treated as the problem.

Episode Three brings together courtroom testimony, first-hand observation, and interviews with whistleblowers, journalists, councillors, and campaigners who raised concerns long before Ireland’s arrest, and who are still waiting for answers.

You’ll hear from women who sat through the sentencing and describe both relief and anger: relief that justice was finally done, and anger that earlier warnings were not acted on. We revisit what Ireland was convicted of and examine whether those convictions prompted meaningful institutional change.

This episode also documents what happened when we attended Pride in Surrey in person. We asked straightforward questions about safeguarding and governance at a publicly funded event. Within hours, we were removed from the site. No reasoned allegations were made about our conduct. We were told just that our asking presence made people “uncomfortable”.

Episode Three examines:

  • What happened in court, and why the convictions matter

  • Whether warnings raised before the offences were properly investigated

  • How councils and public figures responded after the verdicts

  • Claims made about safeguarding reviews - and what evidence exists

  • The treatment of journalists and campaigners seeking accountability

  • The wider question of trust, transparency, and governance within Pride organisations

This is not an argument about sexuality or identity. It is an examination of power, accountability, and child safeguarding and what happens when institutions close ranks instead of asking hard questions.

Content warning:

This episode includes discussion of child sexual abuse, rape, safeguarding failures, and institutional responses to criminal convictions.

Further documents, updates, and any published reviews will be linked on my Substack as they become available.

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PRIDE AND PREDATOR EPISODE THREE

PRIDE AND PREDATOR EPISODE THREE

Julie Bindel