In the 1970s, a group advocating for pedophilia pushed to lower the age of consent to four years old, all while their leaders committed horrifying acts of child abuse.

They published a magazine, had meetings with MPs and were even given TV airtime.

But, as their name suggests, the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) had rather vile aims.

PIE’s leader, active from 1974 for a decade, aimed to lower the age of consent to an alarming four years old, as highlighted in a BBC Radio 4 documentary series today.

The presenter, Alex Renton, who himself fell victim to abuse by a paedophile teacher during his time as a student at the renowned prep school Ashdown House in the 1970s, decided to create this program. The initiative stemmed from an unexpected email he received from an anonymous sender, which contained a confidential roster with over 300 PIE members.

The Metropolitan Police had the list of 316 names for 20 years from the late 1970s, the BBC’s podcast team was told. 

Former PIE chairman Tom O’Carroll and the group’s treasurer, Charles Napier, were both named on the list. 

In 2006, O’Carroll was imprisoned for circulating child pornography materials, while Napier received a 13-year jail sentence in 2014 for his heinous acts of molesting 23 boys between the years 1967 and 1983.

Another paedophile whose name also featured on the list was founding PIE member Peter Righton, who advised the Home Office in his status as a child care expert. 

Righton, who died in 2007, was later exposed as a notorious paedophile.

According to the BBC, some of the former PIE members who are still alive may be in contact with or even have care of children through paid work or volunteering. 

In 2014, the Daily Mail revealed the depth of the links between the respected National Council for Civil Liberties and PIE, which was given ‘affiliate’ status by the body.

From 1978 until 1982, future Labour grandee Harriet Harman was the legal officer for the NCCL, the predecessor to campaign group Liberty. 

Ms Harman, who served in senior Cabinet roles and as Labour’s deputy leader under Gordon Brown, said she ‘very much regrets’ that PIE, which she described as ‘vile’ ever had links with the NCCL.

A spokesman added that any suggestion she was in any way supportive of PIE or its aims was untrue and misleading.  

Her Labour colleague Patricia Hewitt was the general secretary of the NCCL between 1974 and 1983 and Ms Harman’s late husband Jack Dromey was on its executive committee for more than a decade.  

Mr Renton’s BBC programme, In Dark Corners, also hears from fellow abuse victim Francis Wheen, the former deputy editor of Private Eye Magazine.

Mr Wheen was sexually assaulted by Napier when the abuser taught at his prep school. 

He says Napier ‘plunged his hand down my gym shorts’ and then branded him a ‘baby’ when he recoiled and said: ‘No thank you, what are you doing?’

After beginning his career as a journalist, Mr Wheen interviewed O’Carroll, who admitted that his group was campaigning to lower the age of consent to just four.

In Dark Corners reveals a 1983 Newsnight interview with PIE activist Steven Smith.

He said: ‘Our political objectives include developing a society where children are given a much higher status than today, and this includes recognising their right to certain sexual freedoms.’  

The activist added: ‘I don’t accept this concept of maturity at all. Adults for instance aren’t necessarily mature. It’s a long process.’ 

Mr Renton says in the programme: ‘The group’s leaders were very upfront. 

‘They had meetings with Members of Parliament, interviews with columnists at The Guardian, always pushing their message that psychology and their own experience showed that adults and children could actually benefit from sexual relationships.’ 

He tells how PIE members had regular meetings at a pub in Islington and published a magazine, Magpie, featuring suggestive images of children.

The group’s activities attracted hostile opposition, including from furious parents.  

Mr Renton says he believed the notion that a PIE membership list existed was an ‘urban legend’, until he got an email last April containing the ream of names.

The list, which Mr Renton says appeared to have notes made by police on it – suggesting it was once in officers’ hands –  included O’Carroll’s and Napier’s.

In an interview posted on Youtube, O’Carroll argued that a sexual relationship between an adult and child is as natural as a mother’s relationship with her baby.

He was given a two-year jail term for child pornography offences in 2006. 

The paedophile joined the Labour Party in 2015 but was expelled a year later for being a ‘safeguarding risk’.

He has also campaigned to legalise sex with children on his WordPress blog.

Mr Wheen met Napier at the age of 11, when he was a pupil at Copthorne Prep School, where the paedophile was a teacher.

‘Most of the masters there were quite old and quite odd in most cases,’ he says.

‘Some of them odd in a good way, the sort who makes an inspiring teacher, and it was all very educational.

‘On the other hand, Napier, he seemed much more on our level because he was in his 20s. And he talked to us almost as equals and we really liked him for that.’

Mr Wheen says Napier started to encourage some boys to join him at the gym, which he had started to use as his ‘preserve’.

After exercise sessions in the gym, Napier and the pupils moved to a side room.

Having taken a deep breath, Mr Wheen continues: ‘Then one day after a few weeks of this grooming, as I supposed you would now call it, though it didn’t occur to me at the time, he suddenly plunged his hand down my gym shorts while we were all standing around in this little room off the gym.

‘And I grabbed his wrist and removed his hand from my gym shorts, and said, ‘no thank you, what are you doing?’

‘And he then started sneering at me, and said, “oh, you’re so immature, you’re such a baby. 

“Don’t be such a baby. You’re obviously not grown up enough for these sorts of things.”

Mr Wheen adds: ‘I rather dropped out of his group after that, after I had rebuffed him. I was no longer invited to his little room off the gym and given beer and cigarettes.’ 

The journalist waived his right to anonymity in 2014, when Napier was jailed after admitting 30 indecent assault charges and offence of indecency towards a child. 

All of the teacher’s victims were under the age of 16. 

After receiving the email containing the membership list, Mr Renton says he met with a separate source who gave him a trove of documents, including a hard copy of the list.

The names of both Renton and his long-term partner, fellow abuser Richard Alston, were also on the list.

In the trove of documents were letters written to Alston by children. One sickening note sent by a groomed child whose age is not revealed reads: ‘You are a very, very nice man aren’t you, and your help is much appreciated.

‘As I have said, thanks for all your help, you know you’re the best sugar daddy anyone could ask for. I can’t think of more to say so I will end, see you soon lots of love.’

Mr Renton says: ‘PIE is an information exchange. Did the police ever investigate what information those PIE members were exchanging?

‘In the right hands, you would think the list would be a tool to save huge numbers of children from sexual abuse.

‘Did anyone try? And if not, why not?’ 

The Metropolitan Police’s Detective Superintendent Nicola Franklin said the force was ‘committed to tackling’ paedophilia.

She added: ‘If anyone has information that should be shared with police we would urge them to do so.

‘Despite the passage of time, we will still investigate provided sufficient evidence exists to do so and the perpetrator is still alive.’ 

Listen to In Dark Corners, Wednesdays at 9.30am on BBC Radio 4 and available now on BBC Sounds.