Walter Ballantyne was a stallholder at Dalston Market during his time with the notorious paedophile ring, “the dirty dozen”. He was also one of the ringleaders of the network – In 1987 he was convicted and jailed for 6 years 3 months for his part in the gang.

August 2000

The evil pied piper paedophile

YOUNG boys gather round in delight as the chatty, cuddly older man entertains them with his harmonica… It looks like an innocent family scene at a riverside leisure park.

But we can reveal that the harmonica player is a convicted paedophile who was once a member of Britain’s worst child-sex gang dubbed The Dirty Dozen.

Pot-bellied pervert Walter Ballantyne, 60, booked into the leisure park under a false name.

And like an evil pied piper, he used his harmonica and magic tricks to entrap youngsters for sex abuse.

Mums and children at the picnic benches were blissfully unaware the harmless-looking “entertainer” has a long history of molesting young boys and is a deadly accomplice of Britain’s most hated men, child-sex killers Sidney Cooke, Lennie Smith and Robert Oliver.

Ballantyne’s perverted gaze lingered for hours over the half-naked boys at Roydon Mill leisure park and camp site in Hertfordshire.

But the slimeball was unaware that HE was being watched – by Sunday People investigators.

He openly admitted to us at the campsite that he was there to hunt child victims, and told us how he’d changed his name to evade police.

He also sickenly boasted of getting away with abusing a string of young children over the last 10 years.

But while the rest of Britain agonised over what to do about the paedophile threat, this newspaper took firm action to halt Ballantyne’s disgusting behaviour.