UK: A prominent LGBT activist has been arrested on 37 total charges related to rape and sexual abuse of children under the age of 13.
A court has heard that a prominent LGBT activist from Surrey, UK, raped a 12 year old boy after inviting him over to smoke marijuana. Stephen Ireland, who founded Pride in Surrey in 2018,
is currently facing a lengthy list of criminal charges related to the sexual abuse of children.
Stephen Ireland, founder of Pride in Surrey, previously spoke at an LGBT event hosted by police.
Ireland has been charged alongside his housemate, David Sutton, who also volunteered with his LGBT activist group.
The two men are jointly charged with 15 offenses relating to the sexual abuse of children, including four counts of arranging the commission of a child sex offense, six counts of conspiracy to sexually assault a child, and one count of conspiracy to kidnap a child.
Sutton is also facing five additional counts on charges involving the production of indecent photographs of children. Ireland is facing an additional 20 counts, including raping a child and causing a child to engage in sexual activity. Prosecutors say the offenses occurred between August 2022 and July 2024. Almost all of the children in question were male.
This week, Guildford Crown Court heard that the pair deliberately targeted children “for their sexual proclivities,” an allegation both of them are set to tell jurors was completely “ill-founded” and “untrue.”
During proceedings, it was revealed that in April of 2024, Ireland contacted the 12-year-old victim through gay dating app Grindr. Ireland then met with the child, and took him back to his flat to sexually assault him. According to a police interview conducted with the victim at a later date, pornography had been playing at Ireland’s residence on a laptop.
Following the assault, Ireland began to refer to the child as his “secret underage boy” in an encrypted Telegram chat, saying it was “naughty and kinky” that the victim was just 12 years old. Ireland also reportedly asked the boy if he would have a threesome with him and Sutton; Sutton allegedly received a message from Ireland about the boy later.
As previously reported by Reduxx, prior to his charges, Ireland was an influential and respected figure within the LGBT community. As the founder of a Pride group in Surrey, he was responsible for organizing the annual local Pride festival. His work put him in close contact with regional police, who repeatedly recommended that people follow his group from their official social media accounts.
Ireland was invited to speak by the police multiple times, including at a training day for their LGBT task force.