The BBC’s Children in Need charity has axed funding for a controversial gay and transgender rights group for teenagers which is bankrolled by the SNP Government.

LGBT Youth Scotland is at the centre of a row over a ‘coming out guide’ for pupils which was co-authored by a convicted paedophile – while its former boss was exposed as a paedophile who sexually assaulted a baby boy.

Children in Need revealed it had stopped funding the charity, which received £1.4million of funding last year from a variety of sources including the SNP Government, after a ‘thorough review’.

The move has piled pressure on public bodies to sever their links with the gay rights group – which has been criticised for ‘brainwashing’ children with a major LGBT drive in schools.

It comes as the Mail publishes a damning investigation of LGBT Youth Scotland, whose former chief executive James Rennie – previously an SNP Government adviser – was jailed for horrific child sex assaults after he was unmasked as a member of one of Britain’s worst-ever paedophile rings.

Last night Scottish Tory MSP Meghan Gallacher said: ‘Children in Need’s decision to cut funding should be a wake-up call to LGBT Youth Scotland to get its house in order.

‘If one of the UK’s most prominent charities is unwilling to support this controversial organisation, wider conversations should be had on how Police Scotland and the Scottish Government can justify continuing to do so.’

LGBT Youth Scotland was plunged into fresh controversy earlier this week when it emerged paedophile Andrew Easton, 39, had co-written a guide on ‘coming out’ as transgender for children as young as 13.

Easton was snared by cybercrime officers over internet chats with someone he believed to be a vulnerable 13-year-old he called ‘baby boy’.

Children in Need supports disadvantaged children and young people in the UK and has raised more than £1billion since 1980.

A spokesman for the charity told the Mail that it had axed funding after Easton’s conviction.

She said that initially it had ‘immediately suspended [its] grant and conducted a thorough review in response to the concern’, and had then ‘permanently withdrawn’ the grant.

The spokesman said: ‘All of our grant applications are subject to rigorous assessment on the basis of need, the ability of the organisation to deliver its promises, and the difference that they will make to the lives of children and young people.

‘As a responsible funder, we monitor every grant we make to ensure that this money is being spent effectively.

‘The decision to withdraw the funding was not taken lightly.’

She added: ‘The final decision in no way reflects negatively on the difference the work of LGBT Youth Scotland has made to young people.

‘The nature of our concerns are such that the reputational risk to the charity and the young people that we support was considered too great to continue the relationship with LGBT Youth Scotland.’

Easton, who was convicted at Aberdeen Sheriff Court last month, contributed to an early version of the ‘coming out’ guidance.

Schools, local authorities, the Care Inspectorate, and government-run health and social care authorities have been given an updated version.

But LGBT Youth Scotland admits the original guide, co-written by Easton, may still be in use.

Easton of Kennethmont, near Huntly, Aberdeenshire, distributed 32 video files featuring children aged between four and eight years old, to other paedophiles.

He was handed a Community Payback Order with supervision for three years and ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work, and will remain on the Sex Offenders Register for three years.

LGBT Youth Scotland declined to comment on Children in Need axing its funding.

It said Easton had never been ‘at any point an employee or volunteer’ with the charity, adding: ‘We condemn anyone that exploits or harms young people’.

Earlier this year, the Mail revealed that pupils were being encouraged to sign LGBT rainbow flags.

LGBT Youth Scotland said it was promoting the idea to help raise awareness of LGBT ‘identities’, with children also asked to ‘celebrate the rainbow’ through the way they dress, and by decorating their schools.

But Chris McGovern of the Campaign for Real Education said: ‘Brainwashing such as this has no place in the classroom.’

Earlier this month, senior officers were criticised for signing up for a workplace diversity scheme run by LGBT Youth Scotland.

Remarkably, Police Scotland is continuing to work with the charity – which has been signed up to train its call-handling staff – despite withdrawing from a separate diversity scheme run by Stonewall, another gay rights organisation, which has been criticised for its stance on trans issues.

Staff at Police Scotland’s service centres will undergo training as part of the programme run by LGBT Youth Scotland.

Asked if it would reconsider funding in light of Children in Need’s decision, a Police Scotland spokesman said: ‘We are working towards creating an inclusive and fair working environment, free from discrimination, which responds to the needs of a diverse and multi-generational workforce while ensuring we deliver for our communities.

‘We continue to work with LGBT Youth Scotland, as well as other agencies and partners, to keep equality and inclusion at the heart of everything we do.’

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: ‘The Coming Out Guide, published in 2010, is not a Scottish Government publication and we understand it is no longer distributed.

‘It would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to comment on individual criminal cases.’