The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been caught repeatedly doctoring a report about a man convicted for attempting to have sex with a 14-year-old boy, scrubbing it of references to the fact the suspect is a Pride organizer and drag queen.
Sixty-one-year-old Andrew Way of Clwyd Wen in Wrexham, Wales, was described as an “ex-drag queen” in the original post from the publicly-funded broadcaster. The National Pulse confirmed, however, that when readers clicked through to the article, the headline changed from ‘Ex-drag queen caught in paedophile hunters’ sting operation’ to ‘Man caught in paedophile hunters’ sting operation’.
The text of the article also no longer contained any reference to Way being a drag queen, although it did confirm the pedophile “had also been organising the first-ever gay Pride event for Welshpool, Powys.” Hours later, The National Pulse observed that this, too, had been “stealth-edited” out of the article, with no editor’s notes informing readers of the changes.
The BBC press office has been asked who ordered the article to be doctored to remove these details, and why, but had issued no response as of the time of publication.
Like many suspected pedophiles in the United Kingdom, Way was arrested following a sting by citizen investigators rather than the police. The group in this case is called The Guardian Angels. The BBC did not credit them by name, instead referring to them as “vigilante paedophile hunters”.
Way’s sentencing judge noted he had been previously been handed a sexual harm prevention order in 2007 but had treated it with “utter disregard” and had repeated unsupervised contact with a two-year-old. He was only given a 34-month sentence, however, much of which will be served out of prison on licence.
