This is the view of so-called paedophile rights campaigners such as the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), active from 1974 until its disbandment in 1984. Its stated aim was “to alleviate [the] suffering of many adults and children” by campaigning to abolish the age of consent, which would legalise sex between adults and children. PIE gained a certain amount of credibility by allying itself with other sexual minorities that were engaged in effective liberation struggles, such as the gay rights movement. Homosexual acts had only recently been decriminalised in 1967, so any movement with the word “liberation” in its title was viewed by many as a force for good. In 1975, PIE representatives were invited to address a gay liberation conference in Sheffield. A headline in the Guardian read: “Child-lovers win fight for role in Gay Lib.”

In 1977, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) passed a resolution at its conference, supported by the vast majority of delegates, condemning “the harassment of the Paedophile Information Exchange by the press”. The scandalous fact that PIE was affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) from the late 1970s to the early 1980s has been well documented. NCCL officer Nettie Pollard, who worked in the organisation until the late 1990s and played a leading role in CHE, voted to support PIE at its 1975 conference. In 1983, at the CHE conference, Pollard reissued her defence of PIE’s “right to speak and organise freely”.

When it comes to the subject of child sexual abuse, there is no clear Left/Right divide. The sexual revolution of the 1960s led some left-wing liberals to believe that all sex was good sex, provided that both parties were consenting. But what of the argument that the age of consent to sex, currently 16 years old, is unnecessary, and that it is restricting the rights of children to seek sexual fulfilment?

The current climate — set by the Savile scandal and the torrent of child grooming cases in Rochdale, Rotherham and elsewhere — is one of concern and disgust at the scarcely believable prevalence of the sexual abuse of vulnerable children that had been allowed to happen. However, there still exists a group of academics, scientists and campaigners who appear to not only sympathise with the original aims of PIE but who are actively promoting them.

In 2013, a conference on sexuality was held by the University of Cambridge. One speaker, Professor Philip Tromovitch of Doshisha University in Japan, claimed in his presentation on “The Prevalence of Paedophilia” that “paedophilic interest is normal and natural in human males”. Also at the conference was a man not often invited to respectable events, at least not since his high-profile convictions and subsequent imprisonment for the possession of child abuse images. Tom O’Carroll, who gained notoriety in the 1970s as chair of PIE, is a campaigner for the rights of paedophiles.

Following the Cambridge conference, O’Carroll wrote on his blog that he felt “relatively popular” during his attendance. Aware of the publicity this conference gained, I contacted him to request an interview. I wanted to try to understand how his viewpoint — that paedophiles are an oppressed sexual minority, rather than a danger to children — could possibly hold water in the context of recent widespread revelations concerning child sexual abuse. O’Carroll has previously enjoyed support from so-called progressives for his views and aims.