A transgender politician campaigning to be deputy leader of the Green Party hired her father as her election agent – despite knowing he was facing trial for the rape and torture of a child.
Aimee Challenor, 20, named her father, David, as her agent when she ran for Parliament in last year’s General Election and in council elections in May.
By then she knew the 50-year-old had been charged with abusing a ten-year-old girl held captive and forced to perform sex acts in the attic of the family home he shared with the aspiring politician.
Aimee Challenor, 20, (pictured) named her father as her agent when she ran for Parliament in last year’s General Election and in council elections in May
Last week, Challenor – a former member of the Green Party – was jailed for 22 years after a jury at Warwick Crown Court found him guilty of the ‘depraved’ crimes, which included dressing up as a baby and tying the girl to a beam, before whipping her and administering electric shocks. The judge told him the harm caused to his victim could not be ‘over-estimated’.
Yesterday Miss Challenor, who transitioned at 16, condemned her married father’s ‘abhorrent’ crimes. She said she was stepping aside from the deputy leadership race and taking a ‘break’ from her roles in the party.
Miss Challenor stood as the Green Party candidate for Coventry South at the General Election last year but polled just 604 votes. She stood unsuccessfully in St Michael’s ward, Coventry, at the local elections.
On both occasions she appointed her father as her election agent, legally responsible for running her campaign, even though by then he had been either accused of or charged with the crimes, which were reported to police in late 2015.
According to The Sunday Times, Miss Challenor’s campaign leaflets, which are required by law to include the name of the agent or promoter, did not show her father’s proper name and instead referred to ‘Baloo Challenor’.
Baloo, the bear character in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, is a nickname regularly adopted by Scout leaders and is understood to have been used by Miss Challenor’s father in his work as an assistant Scout leader and volunteer with children’s gymnastics.
Miss Challenor said: ‘In light of the revelations about my father’s despicable behaviour, and because of the impact my role has on my family and the survivors of my father’s criminal behaviour, I have decided to step aside in the Green Party deputy leadership race. I did not know about the full details of the crimes my father has been found guilty of until very recently.’
Miss Challenor knew by then that her 50-year-old father David (pictured) had been charged with abusing a ten-year-old girl that he held captive in the attic of the family home
Chilling images have been released of the torture den where David Challenor kept a ten-year-old girl captive in the attic of the family home. Challenor was jailed for 22 years at Warwick Crown Court
A party spokesman said Challenor’s membership was ‘removed’ once his crimes came to light, adding: ‘We are shocked and horrified by these offences and condemn them in the strongest terms.’
Last night the Green Party said an investigation had been launched and it was ‘urgently reviewing’ its safeguarding policies after admitting they had no idea of the charges against Challenor when he worked as his daughter’s agent.
A spokeswoman described Challenor’s crimes as ‘some of the gravest human rights violations that face women and girls across the world,’ but it is understood Miss Challenor has not been sacked or suspended. Instead she volunteered to step down from her party roles.
The spokeswoman added: ‘No disclosure was made of Mr Challenor’s arrest or any of the charges against him as part of formal nomination or selection processes.
‘The party is urgently reviewing its disclosure and safeguarding policies and procedures and will learn from any lessons that process reveals.’