The former Labour MP for Hove, Ivor Caplin, was arrested today (Saturday 11 January) after a sting by paedophile hunters.
The sting was live-streamed on Facebook and further footage of the arrest was shared online.
Sussex Police said: “We are aware of footage circulating on social media showing a man in Brighton being detained on suspicion of engaging in online sexual communications with a child.
“Officers can confirm that a local 66-year-old man was arrested on Saturday January 11 and currently remains in custody.
“This is an ongoing and active investigation.”
A confrontation with Mr Caplin, a former defence minister, was livestreamed on Facebook, lasting 30 minutes and attracting more than 36,000 views and 3,000 comments.
It is understood to have taken place near Hove railway station and further footage of his arrest, at the same location, was similarly shared online.
Mr Caplin is understood to deny any wrongdoing.
That water in the bottle he was obsessing over seriously needs testing for substances which make people unconscious…
The sweets too!!
In these cases the police seize all computer devices belonging to the arrested person like phones and computers for analysis so we must hope they don’t find anything bad.
It will be brushed under the carpet if they find anything
That’s the truth.
Any particular carpet?
Well Starmer failed to prosecute Savile when Chief Prosecutor and head of the Crown Prosecution Service, and still somehow managed to get himself knighted, so he has form.
Dear Lord, that old trope again. Lol
This comment is so inane its amazing you can type and use a PC. If it was going to be “brushed under the carpet” don’t how would it ever get into the local rag? Think about it that kind of power would be used before you get to read about it. That is what would have happened if he had been an ex or present Tory MP. That has happened in the past and we only found out because some brave soul talked and then found out why most don’t.
“… we must hope they don’t find anything bad.”
Why?
Is he not part of the labour Jewish defence league?
I have a lot of jewish friends who would be disgusted by this. The issue is these people often get themselves into powerful positions. Think they are untouchable, this is a public interest issue now, there will be a lot of pressure to bring charges and a convictions and reign this behaviour in, i hope also due to his access to young people there must be an example set here and time spent in prison, being added to the sexual offenders register for the rest of his life. Victims of these horrific and life changing crimes need to know the authorities are taking the issue seriously and going down hard to stop these incidents. Keep our children safe, cant just be sting groups doing all the work, as great as they are.
Slightly premature as this person has not been found guilty in law of anything yet!
He’ll probably get a slap on the wrist. Starmer likes to release paedophles early to make way for lawful protestors.
Watch the whole video, there are a lot of admissions. Plus I was told about another incident only last year with a vulnerable homeless person in so called supported emergency accommodation so trends are starting to appear. Not to mention his twitter profile. I would say again as a historic victim myself as a child and someone with a lot of nieces and nephews including he took along sweets & involving another man called steven, there is enough here to prove. In other news outlets the leader of the sting group mentions months of prior work here. There is the action and the intention, it sounds like they have this. Lets go on that, the admission of sending nude pics to a believed 15 year old boy these surely warrant that…. But the fact is so many cases never see courts.
I am asking for an example to be set, this has become global news today. Surely in the public interest local judiciary must crack down hard..
Perhaps you would like to explain what his religion has to do with anything. Would you have even mention his religion if he wasn’t Jewish? People like you, who state that they have a lot of Jewish friends, usually have a problem with hewish people.
Perhaps you would like to explain what his religion has to do with anything. Would you have even mention his religion if he wasn’t Jewish? People like you, who state that they have a lot of Jewish friends, usually have a problem with jewish people.
His religion has nothing to do with this. His position as a Defence Minister, most likely known to the KGB/GRU/FSS is.
Perhaps you would like to explain what his religion has to do with anything. Would you have even mention his religion if he wasn’t Jewish? People like you, who state that they have a lot of Jewish friends, usually have a problem with jewish people.
What does that have to do with this matter? People like you make me sick.
What does that have to do with this report? Or is it just a random anti semitic comment?
He is indeed. But there will be hell to pay if anyone criticises him or mentions any affiliation with his many political positions promoting such organisations.
According to one of Andy Winter’s blogs current Kemptown MP used to work for Ivor Caplin but started distancing him some time ago. Andy’s blog post makes interesting reading with what we know now – he said back in Jene last year:
“Some feel that Chris hasn’t been straight with them. His original CV sent to members mentioned that he once worked for Ivor Caplin, but, interestingly, reference to working for Ivor has been removed since Ivor was suspended by the Labour Party (an extremely unusual occurrence for someone on the right of the party).
“As one party member said to me: “Whenever something odd happens in the Labour Party, all roads lead back to Ivor Caplin. Guess who helped select the Council candidates for 2023 – including two that allegedly didn’t live in Brighton?”
TBH, I thought this whole volcano would blow up when LRM was suspended and prevented from running for his seat as Kemptown MP in May 2024, and he knows where all the bodies are buried, so this has been a long time coming and from a different direction to the one expected.
Bella Sankey has some questions to answer about she knew about Caplin and when. This isn’t his first arrest for dodgy allegations. Ivor Caplin not only selected the Labour councillor candidates as mentioned by another – he picked Sankey as council leader and presented her as a single candidate for leader to the new labour council group.
No, he neither selected Labour candidates and nor did he select Cllr Belly Sankey as leader. This is utter nonsense.
Ok….so why did he corrall all the elected Labour Candidates in side room almost immediately after the last votes were counted, and they all came out of said room a matter of minutes later with Bella Sankey elected as Leader unopposed? You’re obviously in the know so maybe you can tell us?
Blimey!! What ever next!!! Lord Nolan would have been pleased
This story has now gone national and international and there is a call for any victims to come forward to the national media. Many who owe their careers to ‘the Capo’ are now nervously feeling their own collars. Some also think he needs to face election fixing charges for May 2023.
This house of cards is about to fall and hopefully with it, the pipe dream of devolution and an elected Mayor for Sussex.
The poor man looked terrified in the livestreamed video.
No actual child existed, only men cosplaying as children.
These ‘predator hunters’ simply found an easy excuse to bully and hunt people down as a sport.
Are you serious? Just because the child didn’t exist, it doesn’t make him any less guilty of grooming. People like.yiu who support people like him are clearly of a like mind.
I’m sure there are other people who think these ‘predator hunters’ are highly questionable. Some police forces have said as much. Unfortunately, most people don’t express their concerns because of retorts like yours.
Hell is as hot as hell and waiting for you with comments like that,
He intended to meet a 15 year old? Are you cut from the same cloth maybe? 🤷♂️🤮
I wonder if the new law being proposed to criminalise the failure to report child abuse will apply to historic events? That could be interesting.
I just want to say thank you to Brighton and Hove News for having the guts to report this story.
The Argus is looking increasingly ridiculous in ignoring the scandal – with video evidence – which went from local to global within hours and is now trending on X/Twitter.
A real journalist immediately recognises a real story and sees which way the wind is blowing, so the Argus have destroyed whatever little credibility they still had as a newspaper. And if there were any editorial friendships with this man to cause them to try and protect him and his activities, that is even worse.
I for one hope the whole rotten local Labour cabal implodes as a result, along with their fixer, as they have done the city zero favours since ‘elected’, bulldozing us with one horror after another as if democracy didn’t exist.
Doe’s the public want a investigation into sex sex abuse scandal politicians?,shame on the lot of you.
I look forward to seeing how ‘Benjamin’ is going to explain this all away. Presumably ‘academia’ demonstrates this behaviour is perfectly acceptable in his bubble world.
My late parents – staunch lifelong Labour supporters – would be turning in their graves.
Today’s Labour really does bear NO resemblence to the Labour they knew, loved and supported.
Thankfully some of us find it easier to break away from tribal voting and recognise that which no longer serves us.
I appreciate your interest in my views, Mike. If found guilty, I expect the full weight of the law to be applied to this person, who was in a position of trust.
Are these comments direct from Reform HQ? Only that nutty lot and Tory voters would turn this into Labour vs everyone else. I’m not a Labour voter but need to understand what his political or religious leanings have to do with this appalling incident.
That’s it. Have a bash at Reform voters. Easy prey for abuse. No mention of Reform in the comments or the article but you felt the need to mention them.
Nobody has associated his political views with the accusations here. You ask people to leave out his politics, yet here you are out of the blue calling Reform voters nutters because you disagree with the comments. Your hypocrisy is absolutely vile.
Does anyone know what happened to the ‘serious allegations’ which caused Caplin to be expelled from the Labour Party in May 2024 ? If he was found innocent in the intervening 8 months, how come Labour hasn’t reinstated him ?
Having parachuted a number of Labour Councillor candidates into Brighton and Hove including the two ladies from Leicester to ensure a majority Labour council, he selected Bella Sankey as Labour leader of this council and had her grandstand on behalf of disappeared youngsters in Hove hotels, presumably to boost her profile, shortly before the May 2023 local council elections.
Bella then spent her first day in office in Westminster with Keir Starmer, who was her best mate for several months – they even wrote an Argus article together about their plans for our city – until she embarrassed him over her public support of underage sex change kids.
So much going on here. It all seems very much the tip of the iceberg.
I’m reluctant to comment here because the allegations are awful, and because the case is now subject to further police investigation, and so a legal process is ongoing.
But the news today is that a second man was arrested in connection with these allegations, and he and Caplin have since been released on bail, with their next interviews being scheduled for April.
Neither of the men has been named by police, and you’ll find they are not named in the Argus or in the BBC report.
The second aspect to this grim story is that people are using it to smear local and national politicians.
Nigel Farage and Elon Musk were both quick to comment on the allegations – so quick you might think they’d been tipped off beforehand.
And if you watch the live-streamed ‘sting’ operation you find at the end the vigilante guys bring up all sorts of things about Caplin’s political past, which suggest different motivations.
In the comments here people are similarly making assumptions and jumping to conclusions which are complete nonsense. Trial by social media ia an ugly thing and, grim as the allegations are, we really need to establish some facts here.
Of course there is no proof he has committed an actual crime and people shouldn’t jump to conclusions. However, his x account is full of gay porn and photos of young men who appear to have lost their clothes. It is quite disturbing no one has picked him up on this and if he is happy to post that type of thing on a public forum what is he like behind closed doors?
Sarah, that is absolutely correct, although in an earlier news story about Caplin, his posting of those dodgy photos WAS raised.
(That news story relates to his suspension from the Labour Party, as was published here on June 11th. )
Those pictures are appalling – and we can only wonder what would be said if they were similar pictures of women. There has also been a suggestion that Caplin’s X account has been cloned, and the pictures posted by someone with malicious intent.
Either way, I’m surprised that those pictures have not been taken down by Twitter/X, not least because it’s a public forum that can be viewed by children.
STOP Stings did a live on Facebook last night giving further details. They are a well respected Hunting Team, who conduct their work with integrity. It’s well worth a watch.
Your comment reminds me of the sexually wild – advertising his preferred taste for military uniforms or something like that – website that Caplin used to quite brazenly have. The News of the World got hold of it and did a piece on a Sunday around the time Caplin mysteriously stepped down from being defence minister. 2003/4 maybe? I could not have been more shocked at the time and always wondered if leaving the important defence minister job And disappearing politically from high profile to zero profile were connected. His arrest is very sad stuff.
Whether or not you approve of Peadophile Hunter groups these are the facts as I have seen the messages exchanged between the un named 66 year old man and the person whom he believed to be a child and whom he arranged to meet at Hove Station and told him he would buy sweets for him and take him to see his partner whom he sent a photographs of the young man to on his telephone . His partner replied ” oh he’s a cutie ” The 66 year old man had also sent the person he believed to be a child a photograph of his penis and naked body and discussed having a cuddle. I do not know whether this 66 year old man will with all his connections will be found guilty .he is followed by David Lammy Angela Rayner Tony Blair and suprisingly The Crown Prosecution Service on his vile Twitter/ X account which was until recently full of gay porn .what is clear is that he intended to meet a child whom he had sent images of his penis to whom he had told he would buy him sweets and take him to see his partner whom he had sent his photograph to . Anybody who is involved in child safety /protection work will tell you that these are classic child grooming tactics and I am surprised that some folk above think differently . The fact that some of your readers are highlighting this 66 year old mans religion is unfortunate and distracts from the gravity of the extremely simple facts of this case . I can only surmise that people are doing this as in the past this 66 year old man has highlighted at every occasion his religion often smearing and accusing inaccurately others of being antisemetic bigots . The association with the Labour Party is inevitable as this 66 year old man had a meteoric career in the party until last year when being suspended from the Labour party under a cloud after accusations of highly inappropriate behaviour with a vulnerable resident at a hostel for the homeless an issue I believe to be ongoing as the suspension after a very long period has not been lifted . I honestly consider whether their methods possible political orientation or the general demeanour of these blunt macho anti grooming gangs are to your taste or not we ought to be grateful to this particular group for exposing this 66 year old man who believes there is nothing wrong with sending children photographs of his penis and arranging to meet them and promising to bring bags of sweets . When this 66 year old man was asked why he sent a child a photograph of his penis he replied “He asked me to ” As a parent I honestly believe these sick people are better exposed and of our streets receiving the professional physhiatric and Phsycological help that is available either in a secure hospital or prison . There is little doubt as any one who has seen the 30 minute video where this 66 year old man is challenged as to his intention to meet a child that he is undoubtedly unbalanced and not of sound mind. In conclusion its worth noting that Kier Starmer’s permanent private secretary local mp Chris Ward started his political career working for this 66 year old man when he was formally the MP for Hove so this 66 year old man is still pretty well connected and with all the current controversy over grooming with this 66 year old only a week ago appearing on tv talking about the evil of grooming one can only imagine his continued strange behaviour is the cause of local and national Labour Party accute embarrassment . I myself am a lifelong member of the Labour Party and I feel very disappointed in the performance of our new government.