Ian Campbell Dunn

Ian Campbell Dunn (1943-1998), homosexual, homosexual-rights activist, founder of both the UK Pedophile Information Exchange and the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) the influential pro-homosexual political lobbying group. Dunn's career demonstrates the close connections between homosexuality, pedophilia and the LGBT movement.

Career and Activism

Born in Glasgow, in a well-off family, Dunn went to Hillhead High School and later studied Town Planning at Heriot Watt University as a mature student. However, he was more interested in LGBT activism and was so busy organising an ILGA Conference in 1974 that he failed his degree. Nevertheless, he worked for many years as a planning officer with Edinburgh District Council until he took early retirement.

In 1969, he was a founder member of the Scottish Minorities Group (which became the Scottish Homosexual Rights Group and then OUTRIGHT Scotland), which obtained in 1980 the legalisation of homosexuality between men. He appeared on platforms with Peter Tatchell who wholeheartedly supported his agenda.

In 1974, Dunn co-founded the UK Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE) with Michael Hanson. It demanded the de-criminalization of pedophilia, and wanted the age of consent abolished or reduced to four (it has been sixteen in the UK for the past century). PIE used all the same arguments that the LGBT movement used, denying that pedophilia did any harm, and labeling moral objections "prejudice", "phobia" or "bigotry".

In the same year Dunn and Derek Ogg convened the first International Gay Rights Congress in Edinburgh. This led to the formation of the International Lesbian & Gay Association (ILGA). Now a global federation of 400 "gay rights" groups in 60 countries, ILGA has played a pivotal role in getting what Peter Tatchell called in his enthusiastic obituary of Dunn “gay equality.” It demanded more and more rights while accepting fewer and fewer moral or social duties.

Inside PIE, Dunn was involved with some of the most infamous pedophile criminals of the 20th century, including Tom O'Carroll, Peter Righton who ran a school specifically for the purpose of molesting boy pupils, his partner Richard Alston and their close associate Charles Napier.

Dunn wrote regularly for the PIE journal Minor Problems, edited by PIE member Peter Bremner, and stocked it in his Edinburgh bookshop, Lavender Menace. In 1982 he became for several years editor of the LGBT magazine Gay Scotland. A co-worker commented on his, "as long as you paid him what he considered to be due deference, he was a delight to be around. However, although many people's talents and efforts went to produce the magazine, it was Ian who took most of the credit and it was Ian who appeared in far too many of the photographs!"

Dunn was a Labour Party member, candidate in local elections and a Trade Union activist.

Criminal Offences

When in March 1984 the Sunday Mail, a Scottish newspaper, wrote that Dunn “allows his flat to be used as the main contact address for Britain and the whole of Europe for paedophiles”, Dunn sued for libel. But the contact address had appeared in the latest edition of Minor Problems, and undercover journalists had already caught him on tape bragging about molesting a fourteen-year-old boy. He had to abandon the libel action and was jailed for a year. All very reminiscent of Oscar Wilde.

Lothian police raided his bookshop and seized all the copies of Minor Problems. Dunn denied knowing Bremner, but was proved to be lying. Dunn and Bremner were charged and convicted for publishing obscene material and inciting adults to have sexual relations with minors.

Capital Gay reported that Dunn was suing the Sunday Mail for £20,000, and had launched ‘The Ian Dunn Defence Appeal’ to fund the libel action. But no money was raised and the appeal was abandoned. The article stated that Dunn had been a "a gay rights campaigner for 15 years."

Later career

When he left jail he continued to work as a prominent LGBT activist, leading a lobby group named Outright Scotland.

In 1997, he condemned police over a camera surveillance operation in public toilets in Stirling which led to several homosexual men being charged. The investigation unsurprisingly revealed that some of these men had deviant relations with a 13-year-old boy.

Dunn continued to write and publish Minor Problems and set up and assisted the LGBT magazine Rain Makers UK, a homosexual contact sheet that was a front for dealing in child pornography. Dunn was eventually prosecuted for importing hard-core "scat" pornography of which he was very fond. Friends reminisced about his pronounced taste for this sort of activity.

When Dunn died in 1998 other LGBT activists such as Peter Tatchell wrote glowing tributes. Obituaries in The Independent and Scots Gay hailed him as a pioneer of "gay liberation". The latter admitted that he had been a founder of PIE but claimed this was "not because he was a paedophile, but because he believed in the rights of sexual minorities to organise politically."

At Dunn's funeral in 1998, in the Mansfield Place Church, a young man claimed Dunn had raped him when he was fifteen. He said he was there "just to make sure".

From 1987-2007 there was an LGBT award in Scotland named after Ian Campbell Dunn.

See Also Pedophile Information Exchange, Peter Tatchell ,Peter Righton