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Stopping the spread of vetting adults

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Dear all,

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill is soon to come before Parliament. Its measures will mean that a third of all adults will be subject to continuous criminal records check.

We should act in opposition to this bill. And that is exactly what a diverse group of people, including professionals that work with children, are doing. As they wrote in a letter in The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,59-2405362,00.html) on October 16th: “Such child protection procedures do little to protect children from the small number of individuals who would do them harm. Instead, they damage adult-child relations and undermine the capacity of adults to contribute to children’s welfare.”

Whether you feel instinctively sympathetic with this view or not, please take the time to read the full report ‘The Case Against Vetting’ (http://www.manifestoclub.com/files/THE%20CASE%20AGAINST%20VETTING.pdf) We’re after your support, so if you agree with us please get involved or at least take the time to sign the online petition opposing this legislation (http://www.petitiononline.com/MCVet/petition.html)

Thanks for your time.

Ben Walford

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Do you plan to contribute to any other thread, or are you only here to spam us with your agenda?
  • Teh_GerbilTeh_Gerbil Posts: 13,332 Born on Earth, Raised by The Mix
    Sp-sp-sp-spam.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Actually, spam as this may be, I was going to post about this having read a comment piece in the Times.

    I'll get on that later, as I don't really have time right now...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    As promised, I am back.

    Mary Ann Sieghart - The Bill that will kill the trust between the generations (times2 19/10/06)

    Not long ago, I tried to pay our newspaper bill at a village shop in the country. It was a Sunday morning, and the shop had just shut, but I knew that the owner was keen for me to settle up. I could see a child of 11 or so inside, so I knocked on the glass door and pointed to the chequebook in my hand.
    The boy ignored me, so I knocked again and tried to explain through the glass why I needed to come in. After several more appeals, the boy disappeared and returned with his father. Instead of being pleased that I had come to pay him, the shopowner berated me furiously for expecting his son to open the door to a stranger.

    Just how many “strangers” (for which read “customers”) want to harm an 11-year-old boy in a village shop on a Sunday morning? What are the chances that a 45-year-old woman smiling and waving a chequebook will turn out to be a violent paedophile, intent on abducting and attacking a child? Most of all, how will this child — and many others like him — grow up if he has been led to believe that all adults are dangerous?

    This mindset pervades Britain now, not just at the personal level but in public policy too. A virtually unnoticed piece of legislation is wending its way through Parliament right now. You might think you could not take issue with something called the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill. You might think that any legislation designed to promote child safety should be supported. You might be wrong.

    This new Bill will insist that every single person who could conceivably come into contact with a child, whether through work or volunteering, has to be subject to continuous criminal-record vetting.

    Josie Appleton, author of The Case Against Vetting, calculates that up to a third of the adult working population will be covered, from the plumber who comes to mend a school’s leaking radiator to a parent running a football team or a 16-year-old helping schoolchildren to read. It will be an offence, subject to a fine of up to £5,000, for an employer to hire someone to work with children without being vetted, except in the context of private family arrangements.

    Of course, those of us with nothing to hide will have nothing to lose. Except that the vetting is almost as bureaucratically onerous as getting a new passport. There are forms to be filled in, three pieces of identity to be proferred and, in some cases, cheques to be written. You then have to wait several weeks before you are cleared.

    One new headmaster last year could not enter his own school for the first couple of weeks of term because his check had not come through. Another man — a father of three and member of the Scottish Parliament — was not allowed to lead the “walking bus” to his son’s primary school because he had not been officially cleared. We grown-ups, however public-spirited, are all now assumed guilty until proved innocent.

    As a result, adults are being deterred from offering to help with children. The Girl Guides and Scouts are chronically short of volunteers: the Guides have a waiting list of 50,000, the Scouts 30,000, and some parents have resorted to signing their children up at birth. These checks will reveal not just convictions, but also offences of which people were accused but not convicted. This could wreck the lives of adults who have been falsely accused. And what about, for instance, Cherie Blair, who was investigated by the police for play-slapping a 17-year-old who made rabbit ears above her head while posing for a photograph? Will she now be banned from working with children? Or the vicar who kissed a girl on her forehead during a maths class?

    One of the nicer aspects of being a child used to be the random acts of kindness offered by adults outside the family: the friendly shopkeeper who ruffled your hair and gave you a sweet; the enthusiastic PE coach who gave up time after school to help with your gymnastics and was constantly — and wholly innocently — adjusting your body position to get the moves right. These adults were generous with their time and their affection. We knew who the pervs were and took pains to avoid them.

    Now all adults are deemed to be perverts unless they can prove that they are not. Most will now avoid contact with other people’s children and will refrain from touching them for fear of the action being misconstrued.

    So what this Bill threatens to do is to poison the relationships between generations. Just as the ultra-feminist slogan “All men are rapists” tainted the relationship between men and women for a decade, so the assumption that all adults are potential paedophiles will imbue children with fear, parents with paranoia and other adults with excessive caution.

    The new law was inspired by the Soham murders, in which Ian Huntley, a school caretaker, killed two young girls. Yet he did not even work at their school; it was his partner who did. In other words, the legislation may save no new lives. But what it will do is sour the trust between millions of children and millions of innocent adults. What a great shame.




    For my part, I was on a crowded train and two women with many small children were getting off, one child was anxious about leaving the train because of the step and the gap, the responsible adults were pre-occupied with pushchairs and other children so I take her by the arm and help her down (she's about 3 I'd imagine). Now I KNOW I didn't to anything wrong, in fact, I was uncalled-for helpful. But I had to look up at the women to check that they didn't think I was some perv and I wonder if the reason that no-one else helped because they were scared of what people would think.

    You can debate now, because I think this legistlation is shit.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well since Fiend has moved the issue forward I'll leave it up... and besides the campaigns backed by Johnny Ball, I can't bring myslef to delete something he's in support of.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I was thinking about this bill again. I played an indoor tournament this weekend, and someone brought along a junior team, which was great to see, but I wondered what this bill would mean for the future of junior ultimate, would the organisers of a tournament need vetting as well as the junior's responsible adult, or all team captains? or all teams? or would you just not be able to take juniors to a tournament that wasn't just a junior tournament. And on junior tournaments, the sports photographers, would they need vetting? The sports companies that have a stall in the corner, would they need vetting too?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    And does this vetting actually get us any real safety?

    Do ALL people who want to harm children have a special criminal record already?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Wow, this is insane. There seems to be an abundance of restrictive legislation going on nowadays to soothe the paranoid part of the population. And lo and behold, they only get more paranoid as a result and require more legislation to make them feel 'safe'.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So, no-one is interested in this? I'm a little surprised tbh, so thought I'd bump it and give things another go...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Fiend, its not that people arent interested, its just there are so many laws the government has put in place that either restrict our freedom or are so badly written they are a massive waste of time and money that its difficult to always get outraged.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yeah... It's just no-one ever gets outraged at my threads, they're always busy being outraged at something else... :(
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Put Israel in the title, that always gets people fired up.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I completely agree that this is starting to get ridiculous, but at the same time it is hard to argue against the view that its really a good idea to make sure the new girls gym teacher isn't a convicted rapist before putting him in charge of a load of 13-year-old girls.

    People who want to volunteer might be put off by the paperwork, but the fact that most people don't want to volunteer has nothing to do with the paperwork.

    It's a problem in society in general that everyone has become so scared of the bogeyman. It's still OK for women to be helpful around children, but men really cannot help other children, especially if that involves physical contact, without everyone staring to make sure that they aren't molesting the child. Heaven help the man who goes to help a child and accidentally touches their bottom or chest. It's a shame because it destroys communities, everyone being scared of everyone else and being so defensive of their children.

    The worst thing is that it is all utterly pointless- the person most likely to sexually abuse a young girl is her father.

    The problem with these laws is that they end up trying to cover all bases, and not always for honourable intentions. Where would this law stop? The bus driver? The tea lady in the station cafe? The teller at Maccy D's or Toys R Us? Anyone would think the intention was for us all to be vetted at all times.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote:
    Anyone would think the intention was for us all to be vetted at all times.

    That is precisely the point isnt it? Thats certainly the impression I get.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What are they actually looking for in this process? Just convictions of abuse towards children? Or is someone who once got convicted for using drugs or shoplifiting when they were 18 going to be prevented from working with children because of it? I'm really quite confused about all this.
    And I thought criminal records were generally suppost to be private?

    If it is just to search for child abuse convictions, why can't they just make that a very clear bit of information on someones record that automatically means they cannot work with children, though I thought there already was something like that.

    Yep, I'm confused, anyone care to clear it up for me?!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If its a normal disclosure then it just comes up with convictions, all of them.

    If its an enhanced one, then it trawls a bit deeper and pulls up other bits and bobs.

    So yes, if you were going to help out at a scout group for example they would know if you had a conviction for theft.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Normal disclosure brings up unspent convictions, enhanced disclosure brings up everything including unfounded suspicions that have been reported, investigated, found to be nothing, and then incorrectly recorded (not that I'm bitter or anything).

    Far too much is pinned on CRB forms, all a clear one means is that someones not been caught doing something in this country. Despite this many people think that because someone has a CRB form it means they are safe.

    The best thing for child protection (and adult protection which is what in reality this is) is encouraging good practise, healthy attitudes, make people feel safe to report suspicions and avoiding one to one contact.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Far too much is pinned on CRB forms, all a clear one means is that someones not been caught doing something in this country. Despite this many people think that because someone has a CRB form it means they are safe.

    And that's the biggest problem of all with this idea of vetting.

    When an estimated 6% of rapists are convicted of the offence, a CRB form saying that you haven't been convicted of rape is barely worth the paper its written on.
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