Mick Hartley

From the Times:

A Scottish charity that appointed a trustee who resigned after claims that he was a fantasist who had used a fake aristocratic title and embellished his CV has been cleared of wrongdoing.

LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS) told The Times that Timothy Westwood, who was appointed as its convener last year, had left his position in April.

The British Red Cross and the mental health charity Mind confirmed they had no records of any involvement with Westwood, 25, who claimed to have held senior leadership and advisory positions with them and with other prominent organisations.

It emerged that he had previously referred to himself as the “Rt Hon Lord Barony Timothy Guy Westwood” without any right to do so and had used a bizarre computer-manipulated profile picture on the LGBTYS website.

Westwood also claimed to be a lawyer, but there is no record of him practising law in Scotland, England or Wales.

But hey, nothing to see here.

This is the latest in a long line of scandals for LGBTYS, which has received more than £13 million from the Scottish government since 2015.

In 2024, the writer and broadcaster Rosie Millard resigned as chair of the BBC’s Children in Need charity after objecting to £466,000 being awarded to LGBTYS, which she accused of “institutional failure”.

James Rennie, the charity’s former chief executive, was unmasked as a member of a paedophile ring and convicted for child sex assaults in 2009.

Ah yes, that small matter. Janice Turner in the Times two years ago:

In 2009 eight men were convicted of running the most depraved child sex ring in Scottish history. Besides sharing the worst categories of dark web paedophile abuse, they fantasised about gaining access to a real child.

One of them, James Rennie, was trusted to babysit his godson, the child of university friends. So, starting when the boy was three months old, Rennie filmed himself sexually abusing the child then shared videos with the other men, even suggesting it would be “hotter” if they came along to join in.

Rennie, who was given a life sentence, was the head of LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS), joining the charity in 1997 and becoming chief executive in 2003. Rennie’s trial heard that he often accessed his special sex ring Hotmail account “kplover” (kiddy porn lover) at work.

You’d expect the Scottish Charity Regulator to launch an inquiry to ascertain whether Rennie had access to vulnerable young people, or how being led for years by a predatory paedophile had affected office culture and safeguarding. But it did not. Nor did the police forces that had exposed the sex ring investigate LGBTYS. Both accepted its internal investigation which concluded that everything was fine.

Even more extraordinary, seven months after Rennie was jailed, BBC Children in Need decided to award, for the first time, a grant of £24,000 to LGBTYS. The charity turns down 90 per cent of good causes that apply for funding, yet money raised by BBC viewers was given to a charity whose outgoing chief executive sexually abused a baby.

But even before these two recent scandals, LGBTYS raised numerous red flags. Its stated charitable purpose is to work with young people aged over 13, yet its “champions scheme” operates in 40 Scottish primary schools. Its 2017 schools guidance, funded by the Scottish government, stated that a child must be allowed to choose whichever changing room matched their gender identity. A girl upset at undressing with a male should wait until after the “trans young person is done”. Likewise on overnight trips, schools should permit a male pupil to sleep in female dorms, with no need to inform parents. This guidance, after opposition from women’s groups, was removed.

LGBTYS has also campaigned for the prescription of puberty blocking drugs (banned after the Cass review), advised girls online to bind their breasts, referred children to the trans charity Mermaids (which is now under investigation by the English Charity Commission) and demanded schools not inform parents if a child socially transitions. Extreme ideas that few Children in Need fundraisers would support.

Keeping secrets from parents, compromising children’s privacy, discussing sexuality with very young children, swerving official scrutiny even after being led by a child-rapist: LGBT charities have lately been granted a free pass on safeguarding protocols afforded to no other organisations.

This is Scotland, though. They do things differently there.