text: Tom O'Carroll, a leading member of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (above), has joined the supporters of the media pressure group Hacked Off . A leading member of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange, which campaigned to legalise child sex in the 1970s and 80s, has joined the supporters of the media pressure group Hacked Off. Tom O’Carroll, a former Open University information officer and formerly a key activist for PIE, attended a Hacked Off rally in the Houses of Parliament on February 25 to lobby MPs for state involvement in media regulation. The organisation, set up in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, is campaigning against what it sees as the ‘biased and unfair’ Independent Press Standards Organisation. It wants MPs to set up a statutory body to regulate the press, as recommended by the Leveson Inquiry. The news that O’Carroll is a backer of Hacked Off will be an embarrassment to the group. PIE was formed in 1974 to campaign for sex with children to be legalised and formed an alliance with the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL). The NCCL lobbied parliament for the age of sexual consent to be cut to ten as long as the child 'understood the nature of the act' and apparently consented. The group also wanted incest to be legalised. O'Carroll was on the NCCL's gay rights sub-committee. The 69-year-old was jailed in 1981 for ‘corrupting public morals’. He wrote a blog after the February meeting, chaired by comedian John Cleese, confirming his attendance. A Hacked Off spokesman said that the meeting was ‘open to and free for all members of the public to attend’. O'Carroll attended a Hacked Off rally in the Houses of Parliament on February 25 to lobby MPs for state involvement in media regulation, which John Cleese (left; right in Fawlty Towers) chaired .
target: Tom O’Carroll went to rally in Houses of Parliament on February 25 .
  69-year-old former key activist jailed in 1981 for 'corrupting public morals'
  PIE was formed in 1974 to campaign for sex with children to be legalised .
  His attendance at the meeting is likely to be an embarrassment for group .