Peter Wilby, a senior newspaper editor and columnist convicted as a pedophile in August, worked to suppress and undermine investigations into child sexual abuse at care homes, according to an investigative reporter who worked under him.
Wilby, who was allowed to walk out of court a free man with a short suspended sentence despite being found guilty of collecting a trove of images of “real children being cruelly and sexually abused,” wrote numerous columns for the left-wing Guardian and New Statesman, claiming at the time that coverage of pedophiles was sensationalized. Wilby even argued against laws to allow parents to know if pedophiles were living near them.
The UK-based editor, 79, also used his editorial roles to try and kill major stories on pedophilia altogether, particularly those at care homes in Wales, exposed by investigative reporter Dean Nelson.
Wilby – lauded by his leftist colleagues as an “old-fashioned socialist” – “used his position as an editor and columnist to create… a ‘hostile environment’ for victims of abuse,” reported Nelson, ironically in a comment piece published by the same Guardian newspaper that housed and nurtured the pedophile for decades.
During his time at the Independent, Wilby tried to stop Nelson reporting on abuse at the Ty Mawr and Bryn Estyn children’s homes, in one case forcing the investigator to take the story elsewhere.
Both pieces of reporting were ultimately vindicated, resulting in government inquiries, but Wilby still worked to undermine them, publishing articles denigrating the victims as “damaged” and suggesting whistleblowers might be in the wrong.
“I hadn’t reckoned on Wilby’s secret agenda,” recalled Nelson. “More than 30 years after north Wales, Pindown, Leicester and so many other child-abuse scandals, the case for listening to children and taking abuse allegations seriously must still be made over and over again.”
