Peter Bremner

Dr. David Peter Bremner (d. September 1939 - June 2019, age 79) was founder of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE's) East London local group, and a member of the Executive Committee, which he joined in 1977. He was born in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, the son of a Scottish engineer and his wife. He enjoyed a pleasant, untroubled childhood in the security of this stable middle class family. When the family returned to Britain he had a good education, first at Stockport Grammar School and then Edinburgh University.

Sometimes referred to in the press as David Bremner, or identified by his old activist pseudonym Roger Nash, he was known to his friends as Peter. While the British newspaper the Daily Express (1984) described Bremner as a "doctor of philosophy," he was in-fact a doctor of biochemistry. Having undertaken a biochemistry PhD at London University, Peter embarked on a career as a research biochemist. His career saw him working in London hospitals including the St Helier, at Rosehill, Sutton, and the Homerton Hospital, Hackney, which is where he passed away in 2019.

Bremner was a close friend and supporter of many veteran PIE members and associates, including PIE Chairperson Tom O'Carroll. Bremner succeeded O'Carroll as PIE's representative on the gay rights committee of the National Council for Civil Liberties, now known as Liberty. He appeared with the final Chair of PIE Steve Smith (later Steve Freeman), on the BBC's Newsnight TV programme. As recalled by O'Carroll,

He was not a confident or practised public speaker. But in 1983 he had the guts to go on Newsnight to talk straight to camera, without silhouetting or disguise, to challenge the most powerful taboo in modern society.

Peter was also deeply involved, in the 1980s, with producing the youth rights journal Minor Problems. He served on the journal's editorial collective, and was extremely generous in his support for the principal writer when they faced a time of personal need...

Bremner helped set up and operate a scheme for supporting prisoners by sending them books. Like its American counterpart NAMBLA, PIE's prisoner support scheme found correspondents for inmates, sought sponsors to cover the expenses of their membership, and mailed them recommended books and items from the press service. PIE Chairman Steve Smith (later Steve Freeman), wrote in 1984:

There had been several major stories on PIE since Tom O'Carroll was convicted, each of which had repercussions far beyond the immediate distress inflicted on the committee members named, and illustrate well the harm which the gutter press can cause.

The first of these stories (NOTW, March 22nd., 1981) was occasioned by PIE having to open a new post Office box, the sponsor of our previous box, David Grove, having died. The Post Office leaked the home address of our new sponsor, Peter Bremner, to the NOTW so fast that the reporters were at his door before the box had even been used, and before the Executive Committee itself, let alone our members, knew where the P.O. Box was located.

The Trial and End of PIE: Peter Bremner's Case

In 1984, at 45-years-old, Peter Brenmer stood trial at the Old Bailey alongside PIE member David Joy. They were charged with offences relating to the 6th Issue of the PIE magazine Contact, dated July 1982. Bremner was charged with sending an "indecent article" (i.e. piece of writing) to an undercover agent ("Mr. Oxley"), which he did not believe to be illegal under UK law.

On 17th May 1983, police officers interviewed Bremner. In a subsequent trial lasting 6 days, the unnamed article at issue is described as a piece that had been translated by Joy, and judged as having a "tendency [...] to corrupt" in court. It was accepted in court that "he [Bremner] did not know that obscenity would be contained in it." "He told Mr. Oxley that he wished the magazine to be within the law," but as Bremner ultimately "held the post office box number of P.I.E.," he "was therefore [judged as] certainly responsible for its in-coming mail, [as] he was also a member of the executive which were together responsible for for all that emanated from that organisation."

He was jailed for six months, for an infraction of the now defunct Post Office Act. He was acquitted of more serious charges. At the time, he had one previous court appearance - in 1978 - for three charges of indecent assault on three separate boys, for which he was given suspended sentences. He never appeared before a court again...

It has been claimed online that Bremner edited PIE magazine Minor Problems, which was stocked and sold in Ian Campbell Dunn's Edinburgh bookshop, Lavender Menace, but we are unable to verify the accuracy of these claims. Other than his attendance at Ipce meetings, and passion for Egyptology, little is known about Bremner's life after PIE disbanded and after he was released from prison, with Thomas O'Carroll relaying some details.

Later years and Death

O'Caroll wrote,

Not just likeable, but also admirable, was Peter’s openness and generosity towards those of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, dating back many decades to when this was far less fashionable among the white majority than it is now in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Britain. This might have owed something to the fact that his first culture was Latin American and the language of his first acquaintances was Spanish. At all events, he became a life-long internationalist and a socialist of the more peace-loving sort – as exemplified by his attendance, along with others here today, on the great march in 2003 against the Iraq war.

After what O'Carroll characterized as "outrageously vicious media attacks, hostility in prison and in his neighbourhood, and the loss of his career in clinical biochemistry," Peter succumbed to alcoholism for many years. This brought on cirrhosis of the liver, and in O'Carroll's words, "complicated his condition when he contracted cancer of the liver. It meant that an operation would not have helped." In later life, however, Peter "beat the demon drink" (O'Carroll). This marked the start of "a personal renaissance," with his final years being "remarkably happy and contented."

He began to take a lively interest in history, especially that of Ancient Egypt. He learned hieroglyphics, became a Friend of the British Museum and went on several tours of Egypt. As a serious student of Egyptology, he was even accorded the unusual privilege of being allowed into the innermost chambers deep inside the Great Pyramid of Giza.

He became well versed in the interpretation of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Peter was known as both highly intelligent and fiercely independent, "such that he was determined to struggle on at home, in his own flat, doing his own shopping and even gardening, until very near the end." "He thus entirely avoided being stuck in a care home," wrote O'Carroll, "and was even able to join a group of friends for an evening at the National Theatre as recently as April." On his personal blog, O'Carroll wrote,

I used to stay at his flat whenever I was in London and we spent many happy hours in agreeable conversation. He will be sorely missed, especially by me and other PIE veterans.

Peter Bremner died in June 2019 at the age of 79, after being ill for some years with cancer of the liver.