My ex-husband started as a scout leader during our divorce proceedings after his solicitor told him it would make him look more agreeable/sympathetic. He became leader of our daughters scout group and started using it as a tool of emotional abuse. She stopped wanting to go to scouts and he seemed to take this as a personal rejection and started terrorising her. He sent text after vile text about what a terrible daughter she was and texts and voice messages to me screaming and berating me for not “being more supportive”. Police got involved, and I contacted scouts safeguarding who made a LADO referral after looking at the evidence. I feel scouts safeguarding mostly handled the matter well, but it is concerning how my ex saw scout leadership as an easy, low barrier path to being a pillar of the community and a cloak of plausible deniability. Scouts has a recruiting shortage, and they are too quick to recruit people who a simple safeguarding check would show were unsuitable.