Paedophile Hunters, Guardians of the North, had planned to visit the Isle of Wight this coming Saturday to hold a public information meeting explaining how they work and recruit Islanders willing to be decoys.
Aspire: Doesn’t “reflect the values of our organisation”
The meeting was due to be held at Aspire in Ryde. This morning a spokesperson from the community venture on Dover Street explained,
“Aspire Ryde are pleased to confirm that, since it does not reflect the values of our organisation, the provisional booking received from ‘Guardians of the North’ will not take place at Aspire Ryde.
“We feel that working with experts in child protection and the police, to highlight best practice in child protection, is the best way forward for our organisation, and for our community.
“We take safeguarding very seriously, and we are working with Isle of Wight safeguarding board to hold a course for parents called ‘Keeping children safe online’ based at Aspire on 15th January 2018. Further details and bookings for this free course can be made at: www.iowscb.org.uk.
“We have also invited Sara Jackson Superintendent for police on the Isle of Wight to make use of our facilities to interact further with the community.”
Update:
The person who booked the room for the meeting told OnTheWight, this statement was the first they’d learnt about the meeting not being allowed to be held at Aspire.
Guardians postpone meeting
On Tuesday morning, a message from Guardians of the North posted a comment to Facebook explaining the meeting had been postponed, due to something unavoidable coming up.
They said,
On behalf of the team we would like to apologise to the people of the #IsleOfWight as unfortunately we won’t be able to make our trip over to you’s this weekend, we are currently planning to reschedule our trip as something has came up which is unavoidable and we need to be there, we will be returning back to the Isle of Wight in the near future and we will be in contact with you’s, we will arrange another venue, time and date and write a post to keep you’s in the loop and we look forward to seeing you guys again!..Guardians of the North
Article edits
10.40am Headline amended to remove the word ‘different’. Excerpt amended slightly. Additional notes about person who booked the room added.
