This Dan Wootton story continues to be unofficially embargoed in almost all of the British media outlets. Byline Times has just published their eighth exclusive exposé, and as of this moment, only the Guardian is doing any kind of follow-up reporting. Last week, we did hear that the Mail has suspended Wootton following what sounds like an ass-covering internal investigation. The Sun is also conducting an investigation, only they hired a neutral third-party to look into the claims raised by Byline. Wootton still appears on GB News and he’s still trying to influence Britain’s right-wing political system. Meanwhile, Byline’s reporting just gets worse and worse:

Dan Wootton met young male reality TV stars through his work as a prominent showbusiness journalist and then privately propositioned them to do photo shoots at his home for “underwear brands” in an “abhorrent abuse of power”, Byline Times can reveal.

Among those Wootton targeted over an eight-year period between 2011 and 2019 – during which he was working for The Sun, ITV and the Daily Mail – were The Only Way is Essex star Kirk Norcoss, Big Brother contestant JJ Bird, and an X Factor singer who was just out of his teens. Each had first encountered Wootton – today a star presenter on GB News – as a result of their involvement in the television industry, on which it was his highly-paid job to report and through which he enjoyed a powerful media influence.

Wootton was on his first day as a columnist and feature writer for the Daily Mail in December 2011 when he approached Big Brother series 11 contestant JJ Bird, then 25, and who is today a boxing trainer having also been a pro-fighter. Mr Bird, who refused Wootton’s offers, is among the first group of people in the public eye to discuss their interactions with Wootton.

He told Byline Times: “Dan told me he was an amateur photographer and was ‘working with underwear brands’. He invited me to a test shoot at his flat with a fee attached. At that time, I was trying to fund my boxing career and develop my career in entertainment. Dan was a big name in the world of showbiz journalism who had the power to do that – plus anything where I was going to receive payment would obviously have been very useful. Looking back now, it was a complete abuse of his power and position and he should not have been offering to do that kind of thing.”

[From Byline Times]

I don’t want to delve too deep into Wootton’s sexual pathology, but it’s clear that Britain’s media culture has an unsettling “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to powerful men preying on boys and much younger men. The fact that no one said anything and Wootton operated like this for years, while simultaneously running dozens of kompromat, blackmail and catfishing schemes – it’s just so shocking.

Photos courtesy of GB News and AvalonRed.