This weekend, I bought a ticket to attend the controversial Pride in Surrey (PiS) event, held in Guildford. My interest in the event was heightened because I am currently recording a podcast about PiS’s co-founder Stephen Ireland, who in June was sentenced to 24 years in prison for raping an ‘extremely vulnerable’ 12-year-old boy. He was jailed alongside his former partner David Sutton, who was sentenced to four-and-a-half years for making indecent photographs of children.
Ireland co-founded PiS in 2018 and used it as a cloak to earn respectability in the community. This predatory child abuser enjoyed free reign for years until his arrest in April 2024 for several offences. Ireland was listed as a director for PiS until June 2024, while Sutton was a former volunteer for the organisation.
Appointing himself director and head of safeguarding, over the years Ireland was subject to scrutiny and suspicion by women in Surrey, some of whom were also involved with Pride. There were red flags everywhere. For instance, Ireland was once photographed smirking while holding a leather lead, at the end of which was a girl thought to be just 17 years old in a pup mask who was crouched on all fours.
But none of the whistleblowers were taken seriously and it took the bravery of the 12-year-old boy to start the chain of events that saw Ireland and Sutton arrested. The day after the rape, the boy told his teacher what had happened.
Ireland and Sutton, from Addlestone, Surrey, were also sentenced for perverting the course of justice after disposing of a phone owned by Surrey Pride which was supposedly for Pride business only. On a separate device, police found a text message from Ireland to Sutton telling him to wipe all the images and messages off the Pride handset. That device has never been found.
With these two men in prison, surely the 2025 event was not going to go ahead? There would have to be a full and independent safeguarding review, and some thorough scrutiny of how Ireland had ended up so friendly with local police – including being driven around in a rainbow-adorned squad car. Surely the public would need to be reassured that if they were to bring children to such an event, that their kids would be safe?
Despite relentless campaigning by the group Women in Surrey, as well as lesbians and gay men nationally, PiS still went ahead this year.
While at the event this weekend, my producer and I interviewed several attendees and Pride supporters for our podcast. However, we were eventually thrown out of the VIP section. During our interview with Guildford’s Lib Dem MP Zöe Franklin, she became increasingly reticent in her responses to our questions about what safeguarding policies had been put in place for this year’s event. A couple of minutes later, we were told to leave PiS, or we would be forcibly ejected. (A spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats said any accusations that Zoe Franklin asked me to be removed from the event are ‘entirely false’. PiS said: ‘Pride in Surrey can confirm that Julie Bindel was lawfully asked to leave a private Pride in Surrey event by our professional security team. Under UK law, as organisers of a private event, we reserve the right to deny entry or remove any individual whose presence, behaviour, or actions are deemed to compromise the safety, enjoyment, or wellbeing of other attendees… For clarity, any suggestion that Zöe Franklin was involved in this decision is entirely false.)
What is particularly shocking is how little most public officials in Surrey seem to know about any safeguarding measures that have been put in place to ensure that the Stephen Ireland scandal can’t happen again. For example, PiS posted a statement on its website claiming that Surrey police had ‘made it explicitly clear that there are no concerns’ about its safeguarding policies. On X, Police and Crime Commissioner Lisa Townsend wrote:
‘I don’t speak on behalf of the Force (my job is to hold them to account), but I would make the purely factual point that Surrey Police have not “made it explicitly clear that there are no concerns with [PiS] organisation, structure, safeguarding…”’
During my visit, I found it shocking that absolutely nobody linked to PiS was concerned that there had been no independent, external review of safeguarding policies prior to this year’s event, especially given that PiS is now being run by former close associates of Ireland.
Allowing PiS to go ahead as if nothing has happened shows staggering disrespect to the victims of Ireland and Sutton. Surrey County Council are fully aware of how explosive this issue is, having also distanced itself from the event in recent weeks.
But there is little that suggests anyone linked to PiS has learned any lessons after these awful crimes. Without a full root and branch review, and total transparency, it should be closed down for good.
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