Critic Author Admits Sex Offences, Another Denies Charges – Some Notes

This one has received a lot of commentary online already – from the Daily Mail, 13 October: An Oxford University lecturer who was in a relationship with Tory peer Michael Gove is facing trial on child abuse image charges. Dr Lola Salem… was charged by Thames Valley Police in May this year along with Henry Hopwood-Phillips, a historian and geopolitical analyst. They both wrote for the The Critic magazine as freelance contributors. Hopwood-Phillips, 39, founded a Singapore-based political consultancy that specialises in analysing China’s geopolitics. In June he admitted two counts of taking an indecent photograph and two counts of distributing indecent photographs of a child at High Wycombe Magistrates’ Court. According to the article, Salem says that she was sent four images (Categories B and C) unsolicited, and that she reported them to the police. However, the backlog means that her defence will not be heard inside a courtroom until March 2028 – a concerning delay of 18 months that…