Some of you will be aware that two days ago, in the middle of a lengthy and serious Twitter discussion about safeguarding, John Bald posted a tweet to me stating, ‘do enjoy the picture of Jimmy Saville’. I had not provoked this in any way. I immediately asked John to … 1/6

… reconsider this but instead he blocked me. Over the next 30 hours I, and many others, politely asked him to delete the tweet. John is currently Vice President of the @ConsEduSoc and following their intervention he eventually did delete. There was, however, no apology … 2/6

… for the insult and potential damage to my professional reputation. Today I have received 11 e-mails from John (9 in 2 hours!) in which, in effect, he said he would only apologise if I agreed I had caused him to send the tweet. His final e-mail told me that as the idea … 3/6

… that ‘someone would enjoy looking at pictures of Jimmy Savile is too far-fetched’ he would clarify but not apologise. I can accept a mistake, we all make them, but this angry man cannot bring himself to apologise. Instead, in his final e-mail, he chose to threaten me … 4/6

… by stating ‘I suggest you think carefully before doing more’. I have worked in safeguarding for many years and as well as the obvious offence to me this may well have caused significant damage to my professional reputation. 5/6

Many apologies to all for this lengthy response; I felt it important to tell the complete sad story, over which I have wasted significant time attempting to defuse.

Many thanks to so many for their messages of support. 5/6