Jester

I've been sitting on the evidence for this Girlguiding story since March. Even then, it took months to persuade a mainstream publication to cover this aspect of the investigation. For an independent journalist, pursuing a story like this without the backing of a national newspaper's legal team carries obvious risks. But I persisted because I believe there is a strong public interest in asking whether organisations entrusted with the care of girls are putting safeguarding first. This investigation involved months of conversations, verification and painstaking work. Unsurprisingly, some people have suggested that concerns about these issues are exaggerated. That is why I'm sharing some of the publicly available material I found online. To be absolutely clear, there is no suggestion that this individual has done anything wrong. Indeed one could argue he has also been failed by a system that affirmed and accepted him as a Girlguiding leader and later appointed him to a 16-person advisory committee - apparently without sufficient scrutiny of his suitability for the role. The greater failure, however, was towards the girls and women who should never have been expected to accept males in a single-sex organisation. I hope this story helps explain why many women believe this debate has never simply been about being "kind". It is about safeguarding, boundaries and whose interests are prioritised. I'm grateful to everyone who helped bring this story to light, including women who spoke to me privately and helped with research. And @Glinner who reminded me how important it was to tell this story. And I do think we should ask why it was so difficult to secure national coverage of a story that many people would regard as being firmly in the public interest.