The meeting did continue, minus a few of the heavies. Collett meanwhile had decided that the fire escape in mid-December was not a place to hang out for too long and slipped back into the room. All credit to the young man, he had found some confidence from somewhere, though of course others would have described it as stupidity. He called a reluctant Dave Hannam up to the front of the room and to Dave’s horror he announced: “Me and Dave are not paedophiles.” I wanted to burst out laughing, though fortunately there were plenty of others to do that for me. “We had gone out with a big group of lads and these two beautiful women cracked on to us,” he continued. “We didn’t know that they were only 15.” If he was thinking that this chummy explanation for events in Blackpool last year would turn the crowd in his favour he was mistaken.
