The Mayor of Hackney, London, was suspended by the Labour Party and subsequently resigned following the emergence of photos showing him socializing with a pedophile ex-town councilor. Philip Glanville, a strong proponent of gender ideology policies, was responsible for raising the first “progress flag” at Hackney Town Hall.
In the disturbing photo, Glanville is seen posing with disgraced ex-councilor Tom Dewey at a Eurovision watch party. Just weeks prior to the photo, on April 29, 2022, Dewey had been arrested for possession of child sexual abuse material. Dewey admitted to three counts of possessing indecent images of children.
Despite having been arrested for pedophilic crimes, Dewey was elected a councilor in Hackney.
After the photo was made public, Glanville claimed he had not known of the “full extent” of the allegations against Dewey. This is despite the fact he shared a house with the other man, one which was raided by the National Crime Agency after receiving “four cyber tipline reports identifying the user of an online Google account who had uploaded indecent prohibited images of children to his online storage.”
From the home, officers seized two laptops, two tablets and a hard drive. After a digital forensic examination, 249 indecent images of children were found on the devices, dating from January 2008 to April 2022.
Dewey was charged in June of 2023 and sentenced in August at Wood Green Crown Court after pleading guilty to three counts of possessing indecent images of children. At least five of the images Dewey had on his devices were classified in the most serious category.
A source within the Labour Party told the BBC that the photo was “a clear contradiction of information that was previously given by Philip Glanville to us and the media.” Glanville, who shared a house with Dewey at the time of the arrest, told a council meeting he “was not made aware of the police investigation until after the May [of] 2022 elections, when I was told by the council.”
As a result of the photo’s circulation, Glanville was suspended from the Labour Party. Due to the fact he was elected to the post as Mayor of Hackney, he was not initially removed, but he announced his resignation shortly after on September 15.
“As I previously made clear I had my trust betrayed, but in turn I made an error of judgement and was not as transparent as I should have been. For that I accept full responsibility,” Glanville said in the statement announcing his resignation, which he uploaded to X (formerly Twitter.)
He continued, “It’s also for this error of personal judgement that I reiterate my apology to the people of Hackney, the Council and my colleagues.”
During his tenure, Glanville prided himself on his efforts to make Hackney more inclusive.
In February of 2023, in observance of LGBT History month, Glanville erected the first progress pride flag ever raised at Town Hall. A pride event was also hosted on the public grounds which featured a drag show.
At the time, Glanville stated that the pride flag ceremony “adds vital visibility to our borough’s commitment to equality, especially when trans rights are under attack and we need to reiterate that all LGBTQI+ Black Lives Matter.”
Glanville criticised the UK government’s decision to block Scotland’s Gender Reform Bill in January of 2023. The bill would have allowed anyone to self identify their legal gender and was criticised by various women’s rights groups. Despite the pushback, the bill was passed but was blocked by the UK government in an unprecedented move.
“This is a human rights & devolution issue where yet again trans rights are being used in an endless reductive culture war,” Glanville wrote on X.