A 75-year-old man who was a member of a notorious group that campaigned for the legalisation of paedophilia has been jailed for 24 years for abusing young boys.
Douglas Slade, from Bristol, was brought back to the UK and put on trial after spending years living in the Philippines, where he was accused of sex offences.
At the sentencing at Bristol crown court, a man sitting in the public gallery held up a sign reading: “The Filipino children you abused for years have no voice. I have no voice for the harm you did to me. Rot in jail Slade.”
Outside court, the man said he had been a victim of Slade. He said: “The judge has taken into consideration the evil nature of what he did. Justice has caught up with him. The harm it has done to people like me – it has taken me many years. It has destroyed my life.”
Slade was a member of two organisations, the Paedophile Action for Liberation and the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), which operated in the 1970s and 1980s, before he left the UK in 1985.
During his trial, one of his victims told how Slade operated a helpline for men who wanted to have sex with children.
Slade was found guilty of 13 charges of abusing five children, the youngest only 10, between the 1960s and 1980s.
The sentencing judge, Euan Ambrose, told Slade: “Your interest in young boys was well established. It led you to become involved in two notorious organisations, Paedophile Action for Liberation and the Paedophile Information Exchange.
“I am satisfied that you were involved in both organisations. I cannot determine the precise role that you played. You liked to boast about having been involved in setting them up, whether that was in fact true or not.
“It reflected your interest in sex with young boys and your wish to see sex between adults and young boys decriminalised.”
Victim impact statements provided to the court showed the “extremely deep and long-lasting” effect of the abuse on the boys’ lives, the judge said.
Those targeted had chaotic home lives and Slade provided them with access to parties, alcohol and cigarettes. “The dreadful truth was that behind all that lay the objection of persuading these boys to have sex with you,” the judge said.
One victim said: “My life has been affected in numerous ways. I viewed people in authority, specifically men, as predators and rebelled against the way in which they tried to get me to be.”
The investigation into Slade began in 2010 when one victim came forward to report being abused by him and several others in the 1970s.
A second victim was identified and three men were convicted of sexual offences, but charges initially could not be brought against Slade as he was living in Angeles City in the Philippines.
Avon and Somerset police worked with the National Crime Agency to identify further victims, and when Slade was expelled from the Philippines in 2015 he was brought to the UK and charged. “What has happened is your past has caught up with you – a past about which you appear wholly unrepentant,” the judge told him.
Slade was arrested but not charged by Filipino police on suspicion of sex offences against children. He allegedly lured youngsters into his home, paying them to pose for lurid photos, and was nicknamed the “pork-pie paedophile” because he set up a company selling food to western emigrants.
Following the sentencing, DS Paul Melton, of Avon and Somerset police, said: “Slade was part of a network of men whose sole aim was to find vulnerable children to abuse.
“He’s shown absolutely no remorse for his sickening crimes or for the lasting emotional and psychological damage he’s caused. No child will ever be safe in his company.”
A spokesman for the children’s charity the NSPCC said: “The indefensible Paedophile Information Exchange has once again been exposed by this case – an organisation predominantly consisting of men who posed a very serious danger to vulnerable children.
“Slade, in particular, provided information and support to fellow child abusers so they in turn could carry out their own abuse.”
Lawyer Peter Garsden, who is head of the abuse team at Abney Garsden lawyers, said: “This tragic case illustrates the naivety of society in the 1970s when Slade and others were able to campaign through the PIE for a lowering of the age of consent.
“Slade, like others involved in PIE, disguised their predilection for paedophilia behind a facade of respectable lobbying for changes in the law of sex offenders to recognise the increasing development of sexual liberalisation in society.”
A second man, Christopher Skeaping, 72, formerly of Hounslow in London, will be sentenced for one count of indecent assault against one of Slade’s victims at a date to be fixed.
