Darren Sewell/Moore

8 years ago
Posted in:Bestiality, Child Sexual Abuse, Rape / Sexual Assault, Sexual Offences, SOPO/SHPO breaches
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Author: Thomas Gradgrind
Tags: Aged <20, Aged 20-29, Animal cruelty, Animal victim, BBC, Brighton, British Airways, Cardiff, Changed name to conceal record, Child victim, Convicted 1999, Cornwall, Cross dresser, Crystal Couture, Darren Sewell, Drag queen, Male victim, Offended 1999, Offended 2011, Pride, South Wales Police, Wales

Darren Sewell (aka Crystal Couture/CC Quin/Darren Moore/Darren Meah-Moore) a violent male drag queen, was convicted in 1999 of four counts of rape of a boy under 16 and was sentenced to three years in a young offenders’ institution. On his release, he was banned from having contact with children.

In 2011, at the age of 27, Sewell was found guilty of breaching that order by working as a gymnastics and dance tutor with children as young as nine in Cardiff. For breaching the order, Sewell avoided jail and was instead sentenced to a three-year sex offender’s treatment programme, a 24-month supervision order, 300 hours unpaid work and a six-month curfew on electronic tag.

In 2018, a popular Cardiff bar defended its decision to allow Darren Sewell as a convicted sex offender to perform as a drag act during Pride weekend in Cardiff. One person who was in the audience at the WOW bar told Wales Online that he complained to staff and that several people walked out in disgust at Sewell’s act, which included jokes about prolific child sex offender Jimmy Savile who is believed to have sexually abused over 500 children and vulnerable adults at hospitals, schools and at the BBC.

See also Robert Clothier, another violent male drag act convicted of serious child sex offences. He, too, made jokes about being a paedophile at a Pride event in Brighton. In common with Sewell, the violent male transvestite and Green Party activist David Challenor worked with a children’s gymnastics group, later being convicted of the rape and torture of a ten year old girl in 2018. Both David Challenor and Aimee Challenor were involved with Coventry Pride.

It later emerged that British Airways had also unknowingly hired the convicted sex offender Sewell to represent the national airline at the Pride Festival held in Brighton in 2018, as had a bar in Cornwall. Neither were aware of Sewell’s sex offender status as he had changed his name.

*Update January 2023*

Media reports indicate that Sewell, 39 – now known by his married name of Darren Moore – was found dead on a Cardiff street on Sunday 22 January 2023. South Wales Police said a local man, 50, had been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and was subsequently bailed while inquiries continue – initial investigations have so far not revealed or confirmed any obvious cause of death. Detectives are keen to speak to anyone who saw Sewell/Moore after he left a city centre gay club in the early hours.

Imagine being Sewell’s victim and seeing the below BBC tweet and article describing Sewell only in glowing terms. In addition to the BBC, many other media outlets including ITV, Sky News and The Guardian published detailed articles – containing multiple tributes – that made no mention at all of Sewell’s conviction for repeatedly raping a child.

Darren Moore was described as a loving husband, son, brother, uncle and friend by his familyhttps://t.co/LqBzrJ5fXO
— BBC Wales News (@BBCWalesNews) January 24, 2023

*Update July 2023*

The BBC reported that the 50-year-old man arrested on suspicion of killing Sewell has been released without charge. The case has been handed to the coroner so an inquest can be held. In contrast with previous coverage, the article included the fact that Sewell had been convicted of sex offences against a child.

*Update February 2026*

Sewell/Moore’s inquest revealed the disturbing details of his death. It turned out that in the early hours of the morning Sewell/Moore had met a man in his 50s who was walking his dog. The pair went to an alleyway together with the dog. The man said he and Moore had sex, before Moore ‘encouraged’ the dog to ‘join in’ with the coroner finding that ‘at some stage between 5.52am and 6.38am, the man’s dog penetrated Darren’ and noting that it would have been ‘almost impossible’ for the dog to have performed the act without ‘guidance and encouragement’ from a human.

Whether it was Sewell (who had a known allergy to dogs, hence why dog semen was detailed as appearing on the toxicology report) or the other man cannot be ascertained. Moore apparently later fell asleep in the alleyway where he was found dead the next morning. The coroner said: “I don’t accept that Darren was covered in cardboard by the man to keep him warm. On the evidence, he placed two sheets over him, and couldn’t reasonably have expected this to provide any warmth, however I am unable to determine that Darren was covered for any nefarious reason.” An open verdict was recorded at the inquest.

As Jo Bartosch, writing in Spiked points out, the BBC had inexplicably appeared to deify a man who was a convicted sex offender (and therefore wholly unsuitable for public accolades) who ultimately met a sordid, untimely end. They ran multiple articles on the investigation and even covered a vigil held at Windsor Place, Cardiff but have not covered the inquest findings among the perplexingly high number of news stories about drag queens (almost 300 at the time of writing) on its website. On the day of the funeral, Cardiff Council and the local police went so far as to close roads across the city to accommodate a horse–drawn cortège.

See here for examples of trans-identified individuals who have been convicted of offences involving animal cruelty.

A drag queen who calls himself Aida H Dee (real name Sab Samuel) raised money for his child sex offender friend’s funeral. Sab Samuel is founder of Drag Queen Story Hour UK and is likewise repeatedly lauded by the BBC as ‘changing lives’. He was shortlisted for a Positive Role Model Award by the National Diversity Awards in 2024.

Yes, I have multiple receipts proving @AidaHDeeDrag (who likes reading stories to children) helped fundraise money for his child sex offender “friend” who also interfered with a dog. pic.twitter.com/JH6aUNSJnj
— Gender Receipts (@GenderReceipts) February 7, 2026