Laurence Westgaph is under investigation by National Museums Liverpool. Why is he still touring at the Walker Art Gallery?

Dear readers — For today’s story, we’re following up on our investigation into Laurence Westgaph being appointed and maintained as National Museums Liverpool’s (NML) historian in residence, despite allegations made against him of sexual harassment, assault, and domestic violence.

As pressure continues to build on NML and the public figures who enabled him, The Post has uncovered internal emails pertaining to Westgaph’s initial hiring as well as NML’s ongoing investigation into how they’ve handled the allegations. We’ve also spoken with current and former NML staff members who are disappointed and outraged that their employer has seemingly prioritised their former historian in residence’s wellbeing over concerns for staff or visitor safeguarding.

Perhaps most incredibly, Westgaph has returned to one of NML’s institutions to give one of his signature tours – despite being under internal investigation by the very same institution. All that and more below.

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This past Sunday, word quickly spread among National Museums Liverpool (NML) staff: Laurence Westgaph was back. He’d waltzed right into the Walker Art Gallery for one of his signature slavery tours – despite the fact that NML has just launched an internal investigation (to be conducted by an independent external body, they said in their statement) into allegations that he’d sexually harassed female staff members, first reported here at The Post. “I was shocked he had the balls to do that,” one employee says.

Even more shocking to the NML workers we’ve spoken with since — all on the condition of anonymity so as not to endanger their jobs — is that the next day, a senior member of management called a meeting to let the team know that if Westgaph shows up in one of their venues again, “Don’t panic.” Westgaph had been the institution’s historian in residence from 2020 until mid-2024, when his contract ended, and now he was to be treated “like a member of the public”.

For one employee, this meeting was the last straw. “What message does this send to victims of sexual violence? What if his victims are working right now?”

According to internal communications, NML made clear to staff that they wouldn’t be associating with Westgaph during the course of their internal investigation. What isn’t clear, however, is whether or not NML told Westgaph to stay away from the museums entirely during this time – and if, in showing up out of the blue, he was flagrantly defying their request. When we reached out to NML, a spokesperson said “it would not be appropriate to comment any further on the matter at this time” given their internal investigation is still open and ongoing. A lawyer representing Westgaph, meanwhile, said that their “strong advice to our client is that we should not be engaging at all with the Liverpool Post which […] appears to have an agenda against him”.

One employee guesses that the institution might be trying to avoid causing a scene or putting a staff made up primarily of women in the uncomfortable position of trying to eject Westgaph from a public venue. “He did this purposefully to say [Fuck you] to NML and to staff,” she speculates. “It’s a gross show of power because he knows we can’t do anything.”

Other employees question whether the institution should be doing more. “I get you can't punish someone for unproven accusations,” one says, “but my understanding of safeguarding procedure is that you remove that person until the end of the formal investigation.” He pointed out that it’s half term, meaning lots of children and young people will be visiting NML’s various venues this week. (Regarding Westgaph’s time at the Walker, as a spokesperson for NML said: “National Museums Liverpool’s venues are public spaces, and we always take the safeguarding of our visitors and colleagues very seriously.”)

Some staff members at NML tell The Post they felt intimidated by Westgaph showing up at the Walker. When we asked his lawyers if he worried about upsetting his former colleagues, we were told: “The Post cannot be trusted with information provided to it. As such, we will not be answering your queries.”

As Westgaph prepares to host another tour starting at the Maritime Museum this upcoming Sunday, NML staff say they feel let down by an institution that talks a big game about social justice and safeguarding. And a number of them place the blame for their disappointment squarely at the feet of NML director Laura Pye. “I think she needs to resign,” one tells The Post. “This is a massive fuckup.”

‘It feels indefensible’

For some of the staff we’ve spoken with, NML’s response to this latest turn of events has echoes of 2020, when the institution’s hiring of Westgaph as their historian in residence (a position he held until mid-2024) prompted a wave of backlash on social media, given that Westgaph had been convicted for the statutory rape of a 15-year-old in 2000 and for assault causing grievous bodily harm in 2008.

“The facts are complex, but facts none-the-less,” NML director Laura Pye wrote in an email to staff in July 2020 that’s been shared with The Post. Pye wrote that “as both a contractor to NML and therefore not an employee, and due to the fact that his role will be collection-based and not people-focused or public-facing, [Westgaph] was not required either to disclose this information or have an enhanced DBS check”. Even if he had had an enhanced DBS check, Pye added, the convictions would have been irrelevant as they’re “spent”.

Pye did make clear in that email that she knew the public backlash had been “very upsetting” – not necessarily for her employees who were worried about working side-by-side with a man convicted of a violent crime, but for Westgaph himself and those who “know Laurence personally”. She explained that NML would continue working with Westgaph, and that she and other senior management would be “supporting him through this”.

Employees recall that when they raised their concerns in the days and weeks that followed – with some explicitly telling their direct managers they’d be uncomfortable working with Westgaph – the general company line seemed to be the same that Pye had outlined in her email: his role was not going to be public-facing, so colleagues wouldn’t have to worry about sharing space with him.

But Westgaph quickly parlayed his prestigious role as NML historian in residence to one of public influence, giving talks and tours all over town – including at NML itself, where he sat with former mayor Joanne Anderson for a conversation at the International Slavery Museum in 2021. “His initial contract might have been research-focused and back-of-house,” a staff member says, but the role “subsequently placed him not only working with the public, but with children.”

During his tenure, Westgaph had interactions with a variety of different community groups, including the Mersey & Dee Young Archaeologists (YAC) program based at the Museum of Liverpool for 8-to-16-year-olds. Curiously, in the time since we sent NML questions about Westgaph’s involvement with YAC, his name and a photo of him touring the teenagers around the docks appears to have been removed from YAC’s website, but you can still view an archived version of the site where his name and photo appears here. (A spokesperson for NML told us that Westgaph’s position as historian in residence never “involved or required any alleged unsupervised work with children or young people”.)

When The Post published the first part of our investigation on 8 February into allegations against Westgaph – not only of sexual harassment but also sexual assault, abuse, coercion and domestic violence – and how NML had heard about some of these allegations but chose to look the other way, public-facing staff members were told that if any visitors asked them questions about it, they were to essentially “shut it down”. “We were quite shocked at that,” one employee said. “We all had very strong feelings about it. None of us want to defend the company with this because it feels indefensible. Whether the new allegations are criminally proven or not, I want to believe women and I don’t want to defend that man or associate with him.”

Multiple employees credited their line managers with supporting them through their disappointment and discomfort. Some of them, they said, were “clearly upset, but they have to say the party line”.

We’ve previously reported that female employees of NML say Westgaph made them uncomfortable, with one woman saying he “made excuses to touch” her, including putting his arm around her, brushing up against her and asking her for hugs. She also witnessed him sit unnecessarily close to female staff, touching their thighs. We’ve now spoken with more sources close to NML, including a former staff member who recalls Westgaph being “aggressive verbally” as well as dismissive and demeaning of female colleagues in the past. She says she and her colleagues raised concerns with managers multiple times. “It’s not like no one knew,” she adds. A current male staffer corroborates this, saying that Westgaph would “continually humiliate, demean and belittle women”. While director Laura Pye and other senior management have maintained in internal and external communications following our initial investigation that they never received any “formal” complaints or reports about Westgaph’s behaviour during his tenure as historian in residence or in the time since, they haven’t made clear to us what definition of “formal” they’re using – and in any case, Westgaph’s inappropriateness, staff say, was an “open secret”.

‘They’re here for themselves and their accolades’

Westgaph’s name being back in the news after our investigation prompted some people on Facebook and Reddit to wonder what had happened to their money after they donated to one of Westgaph’s crowdfunding campaigns back in 2020. He had raised over £53,000 to establish a memorial to enslaved people who lived and died in Liverpool during the transatlantic slave trade, but the company Westgaph seemingly set up to follow through with the completion of the memorial remains dormant. With at least one donor asking for receipts in a private Facebook group, Westgaph posted a screenshot to his public Liverpool and Slavery page on Wednesday of a Co-Op bank account in his name containing a balance of £53,326.64, alongside the latest plans for the memorial’s completion.

When we asked Liverpool City Council about this memorial, they told us Westgaph had sent them an email last week, which was their “first time formally hearing” about it, and Westgaph had just sent a general query rather than a full planning application. One of Westgaph’s lawyers told us: “The funds raised have been ring fenced in their own segregated account and are not commingled with our client’s own personal funds. The money raised to date does not cover the building costs of a memorial. Rather than erect a substandard memorial, our client is continuing fundraising efforts. It can take upwards of ten years to raise enough money to erect a memorial.” As for keeping donors updated, they said: “A database of contact details for donors does not exist.”

Westgaph and the Liverpool Black History Research Group (LBHRG) he founded had previously been commissioned by the council to advise on their plans to erect slavery heritage plaques on streets around the city. At least 22 streets were originally envisioned to be a part of the project, but five years later, only a handful have been completed so far. (A spokesperson for the council told us that the pandemic and staff turnover had disrupted the plaque planning process, but they’re now being revived by a new heritage officer.)

Westgaph’s research group has also worked with National Museums Liverpool as part of their multi-million pound Liverpool Waterfront Transformation Project – which just secured a lucrative £10 million grant in additional government funding. Whether Westgaph will continue to be involved in these projects, however, while also trying to get his long-awaited slavery memorial off the ground, remains to be seen. (A representative for the Black History Research Group told The Post that its members had not been aware of any allegations against Westgaph, and when asked whether they’d continue to work with him at the helm in light of these allegations, they responded, “This final question does not make sense.”)

“NML are quietly confident that like all the other scandals they’ve had, they can just weather it out with the strength of their name,” one current NML staff member says. He thinks the institution has also had success at pointing the blame for public scandals at employees who’ve since departed, like former senior executive Janet Dugdale, someone multiple staffers referred to as “the fall guy” and “an easy target”.

“I think the problem with this institution is their arrogance,” a former staff member says. “They think they can get away with things and colleagues won’t have the agency to speak up because the systems in place aren’t there to protect us – they’re there to protect people who, quite frankly, don't deserve it. The leadership is not here for us. They’re here for themselves and their accolades – let me get my OBE and whatever.”

Another former staff member says he was disappointed to leave NML in a state of disillusionment, because “I think as assets to the city, the museums are amazing. If I didn’t know anything about their inner workings I'd think they’re incredible.” He wonders if that’s why some people associated with NML might be hesitant to criticise it – they don’t want to tarnish what should be the institution’s glowing reputation.

When I asked a current employee whether he feels similarly, however, he paused to think. “That would have been true for me a few years ago,” he said. “I would have been reluctant to criticise this institution because I believed it was doing good. But like many staff, I don’t necessarily believe that anymore.”