A ROW has erupted over whether a Titanic exhibition, which has a convicted paedophile as its main contributor, should come to Southampton.

Paedophile Denis Cochrane, currently serving a seven-year prison sentence, is one of the contributors to the "largest Titanic exhibition ever to be staged in the UK".

Put together by Titanic Exhibitions Ltd, it has just finished a six-week run in Bristol and could open in Southampton in October.

But the issue has caused a huge split in the Titanic Society.

Now the Southampton-based co-founder of the Titanic Society has resigned in disgust over an exhibition that may well come to Southampton.

Brian Ticehurst is outraged that a convicted paedophile's collection should be part of the exhibition and has accused other members of the society of having "their heads in the clouds" over the issue.

Cochrane signed a deal to lease his Titanic collection to organisers before he stood trial in London earlier this year.

The 54-year-old, a music teacher at a top Catholic school, was jailed for molesting a vulnerable pupil over a four-year period.

He reportedly had a life-long obsession with the Titanic and the bedroom of his flat in West London was decked out like the inside of the luxury liner, complete with bunks and a porthole window.

Rare items from his collection were included in the Bristol exhibition, which attracted hundreds of visitors paying up to £7.50 to get in.

Southampton leisure bosses are now talking about bringing the exhibition to the old Magistrates Court at the city civic centre.

But a furious Mr Ticehurst, 67, says he would boycott the exhibition if it came to the city which saw the doomed ship set sail in 1912. "I will certainly not be going. I was invited to the Bristol opening and I turned it down flat."

He added: "I think this is despoiling the memory of the Titanic. 549 men with Southampton addresses and one woman died that night.

"There are many hundreds around the city - possibly thousands - who have relatives who died on the Titanic. We even still have a survivor left in this area.

"Knowing that all this memorabilia belongs to a paedophile who's in prison is despoiling the name of the Titanic. It's absolutely disgusting."

The Swaythling-based enthusiast even resigned from the society, which he co-founded in 1989, in protest.

"I resigned because of this and other things. This was one of the contributing factors. People had their heads in the clouds," he said.

A Southampton City Council spokesman said bosses were due to discuss the exhibition at a meeting in September.

He added: "No discussion has yet been taken on whether we will host this exhibition of Titanic artefacts. We are at preliminary planning stages to see if it could be accommodated in the city.

"However, we have received assurances from the exhibition organisers that apart from an initial fee paid to him before he was convicted, Denis Cochrane has received and will receive no subsequent financial benefit from the Bristol or any future exhibition."

Titanic Exhibitions Ltd say they had an "arms-length" relationship with Cochrane and his actions as an individual 15 years ago bore no impact on their current exhibition.

Boss Darryl Keys insisted the prisoner would receive no financial benefit from the exhibition.

Titanic Exhibitions Ltd statement . . .

Denis Cochrane is one of many collectors or suppliers with whom the company has a licence to exhibit collectively thousands of artefacts. He has never been a director of the company, never been a paid consultant to the company and never been an employee of the company. He has also had no day to day involvement in the company, in the same way as any other collector who has supplied artefacts to the company for possible exhibiting at our exhibition. The only sums paid to Mr Cochrane were upon the signature of our licence agreement back in 2002 and many months before the company learned of any charge or conviction. In fact, due to the arms-length relationship, the first the company knew of any charge or conviction was the day after he had been imprisoned.

Like any company operating with a vast number of licensors or suppliers, the company has no control over the personal actions of any of the same and cannot be held responsible for such actions, which are clearly the responsibility of only the individual concerned.

Even though his conviction is of no direct consequence to the exhibition of rare Titanic artefacts made available to us by many individuals, the company has, since learning of his conviction, lessened the concentration of the Cochrane artefacts in the exhibition by sourcing from a wider number of collectors, which is increasing month by month. This policy will continue, and indeed licence agreements have been established with over half a dozen new collectors over the past month alone.

The company has also received the full support of both Steve Rigby and Geoff Whitfield, who, fully aware of the facts, have given their time and advice to the company in their capacity as Joint Hon Secretaries of the British Titanic Society. We are also fully supported by Phillip Gowan, a leading US-based Titanic expert. All of these have worked with the company and supported our exhibitions in an official capacity, and continue to do so.

In particular it is important to stress that Mr Cochrane will derive no financial benefit from the inclusion of artefacts owned by him. However, it will be appreciated that there are a number of highly significant and very rare artefacts owned by him and the company takes the view that given their significance to the memory of the Titanic and the respect that our exhibition pays to those that died, the public should not be denied the opportunity of seeing these artefacts alongside those of the many other collectors supplying the exhibition.

- Originally published August 2003.