Save the Children must stop using a font designed by a child molester who abused his young daughters.

The children’s forest fire charity is to discontinue use of the Gill Sans typeface created by Eric by Gill in 1928 and featured in the Save the Children logo, The temperature reported.

However, the organization said the decision was made last year and was unrelated to an incident this week in which one of Gill’s most important works, a statue outside the bbcit is Broadcasting House, was damaged by a protester who chipped it with a hammer.

Staff at the charity are said to have previously warned their managers of the link to a known child abuser, especially as one of Save the Children’s stated aims is to protect young people from abuse.

“I told them it was probably not a good idea,” a source said. The temperature.

Excerpts from Gill’s diaries, published by his biographer Fiona MacCarthy half a century after his death in 1940, revealed that he sexually abused his teenage daughters.

“His religious views and subject matter contrast with his sexual behavior, including his erotic art, and (as mentioned in his own diaries) his extramarital affairs and the sexual abuse of his daughters, sisters, and dog,” said a biography on the Tate Galleries website. .

The charity’s most recent branding guidelines, published in 2016, state that Gill Sans Infant Standard should be used in the majority of its documentation and online site. However, this will change in 2022. The charity said: “Following a global brand review last year, we are moving away from using the Gill Sans font. Our new font is rolling out this year.

The BBC also dropped Gill Sans last October after the public said it looked ‘dated’ and ‘outdated’, but the broadcaster resisted calls to remove Gill’s statue of Prospero and Ariel located on the side of Broadcasting House in Portland Place.

The Gill sculpture, depicting Prospero and Ariel from Shakespeare’s play Storm, was installed in 1933.

“Prospero, the master of Ariel, stands 10 feet tall and is depicted sending Ariel out into the world. Ariel, as the spirit of air, was seen as a fitting symbol for the new mystery of broadcasting,” says the BBC on its website.

Nearly 2,500 people have already signed a petition calling for the removal of the sculpture from the website of political activist group 38 Degrees.

The Independent approached Save the Children for comment.