Time People Said No to the Nannying Ninnies of the Child Protection Industry

Three articles that seem to have some form of convergence to me. The Times on family courts and the Telegraph on child overprotection and the CRB fiasco in the making.

If the appearance of these three articles does not signify the inexorable slide into a police state that we are witnessing I am hard pushed to say what is. Beginning with the dreadful news that innocent people have been wrongly identified as having criminal tendencies by that quango the Criminal Records Bureau. Their response to this is as follows.

"The CRB is acknowledged as an improvement on previous checking arrangement, although checks which do not correctly reveal a persons true criminal record are still clearly regrettable - even if they do represent a tiny proportion of all CRB checks."

Regrettable! Of all the mealy mouthed responses. In our vengeance soaked current culture; shit has a tendency to stick, and I can only hope that those people who find themselves falsely identified can get redress quickly. This I doubt will happen, but when it does, large amounts of compensation should be paid for their troubles, and I mean large. It is not regrettable to those it happens to, I imagine it is devastating and this is not the first time it has happened. Over 3000 people caught in errors by bureaucrats. They should be ashamed.

This checking garbage has evolved into a money making scam, long past its original intention and now a divisive and dangerous virus that attacks social cohesion. The Telegraph readers observations of the paranoia of overprotection that we seem so singularly gripped by, highlights well the current mood in regards to this issue. Read the comments and you will see, hopefully with some surprise, that they too are fed up with it all.

The article continues:

"Ministers are planning a massive increase in the number of criminal records checks carried out on members of the public. The number of checks processed annually by CRB has risen from 1.5 million in 2002-04 to almost three million over the past year.

Under future plans, more than 11 million adults - one in four of the adult population in England - will have to be vetted and registered on the authority's database."

Has the UK fallen asleep, nodded off or gone to meet the choir invisible? The Home Office estimate that a quarter of the male population have a criminal record of one kind or another. That figure was for 2001 and goodness knows how many there are now with all the legislation that has been passed and the erosion of justice we have seen. Certainly more, and certainly for less.

The checks reveal all, not just convictions, but suspicions and so called soft intelligence that are gathered by the police, social workers et al. This culture of suspicion has reached epidemic proportions and needs to be stopped. Paranoia and policy do not good bedfellows make and I suspect that a lot of people will simply refuse to work with children or the vulnerable.

The Telegraphs article reveals a horrifying situation in the family courts that must be addressed. The secrecy is strangling justice. Many cases have highlighted to me the failings in this division of our justice system, unfortunately they are all anecdotal and supplied by the likes of PAFAA and FASO who struggle valiantly against the over zealousness of some police and social services employees.

The convergence is in the common thread of suspicion and myth that allies the overprotective nature of the child abuse industry and the family courts. As Camilla Cavendish states in her excellent article:

Bill Bache, the indefatigable solicitor who acted for Sally Clark, explained it to me this way. “Court proceedings are initiated within a day or two. The local authority knows the ropes. Most parents, including the brightest and most articulate, are often too distressed and shocked to think straight. They may well turn up unrepresented. The local authority makes its case, often in lurid terms, stressing that the children are in acute danger and they are requesting an immediate interim care order. There is no time sensibly to evaluate the evidence, therefore, no doubt wishing to be safe rather than sorry, the court grants the order. Suddenly the children are gone.”

Here we have the classic storytelling scenario, make it lurid, dirty and damn the outcome for those involved. When it comes to the perceived safety of children it is again and again seen to be the cause of devastation and miscarriages of justice. For this to occur in secret is a double damnation for the innocent caught in the claws of the child protection industry.

The slightest touch, inappropriate look or utterance could well have you branded as a danger to children and that suspicion could well grow to be so much more. As we have seen in the criminal courts the paranoia we have in regards to children and the vulnerable has led to miscarriages of justice through the undermining of rules of law that have stood us in good stead for years.

This appears to be happening in the family courts also, but when the government, the NSPCC and other players in this industry fail to recognise, even with the cases in the public spotlight for all to see, that a witch hunt is occurring, it will take years to change anything. In the family courts that change may never occur at all.

So a suspicion that you are unsuitable as an individual to work with the young/vulnerable, can see you arrested, detained and charged on the word of one person. Or as a parent/carer in general that suspicion will drag you into the Kafkaesque nightmare that the family courts are detailed to be.

That suspicion could be raised by anyone, anonymously if needs be, and for a variety of reasons from malice to an error in judgement of what was seen or believed to have been seen. Once tainted, never cleaned. Any CRB that follows will when requested exhibit this suspicion, and you are probably totally innocent.

So what exactly is my beef? Well, first off this idea of vulnerable people is simply too wide in its definition. According to the Law Commission:

The Law Commission have suggested a broad definition of a vulnerable person, as someone of 16 years or over who:

is or may be in need of community care services by reason of mental or other disability, age or illness; and

who is or may be unable to take care of him or herself, or unable to protect him or herself against significant harm or exploitation.

It is the last bit that does it, a charter for interference by any do gooder with a fanatical need to justify their own existence through aiding others.

Secondly the definition of a child is as follows

The Children Act 1989 states the legal definition of a child is ‘a person under the age of 18’. ‘Young person’ is not a legal term, for the purposes of the policy and procedures, a young person is someone who might not perceive themselves as a child, but who is still in the age range of the legal definition, and therefore fall within the term ‘child’.

Which is utter tosh of course. people over 16 are not by any stretch of the imagination children. They may behave childishly but that is a different matter. Requiring anyone who works with 16-18 year olds to be criminally record checked is a waste of time. Currently teachers, lecturers and others are criminalised for having sex with people in this age group whilst the rest of the population is not. So much for equal application of the rule of law.

We should call for an immediate change in the law so that people over 16 are no longer categorised as children, but adults. Then we can forget having to check anyone who comes into contact with them and save lots of cash all round. Now we can remove the passage from the vulnerable adults statement above. So far so good, or is it?

Next we must exclude irrelevant offences from the checks and only allow convictions to be reported. Not arrests, acquittals, successfully appealed cases and certainly not soft intelligence or mere accusations. In fact, lets make a criminal record part of an individuals right to a private life, so that they never have to disclose it unless the conviction has a direct correlation with the activity they are undertaking. You wouldn't be able to conceal a fraud conviction if applying to work in a bank for example.

That would allow focus on those who wish to make a life for themselves after conviction and would help ensure limiting re-offending by opening up possibilities for employment or learning.

Then we will have a purge of the records so that only verdicts of guilty remain on file in regards to CRB activities. I have no problem with the police keeping information, they obviously have to, they just cannot tell anyone about it.

We need to open up the family courts, and that's easy enough to do, the press can report the case detail without using names and perhaps with a little thought that is how all cases should be reported until conviction. Stop feeding prurient interests I say. Where required a judge could order the case an open one, protecting not only the public interest but those of the defendant.

Next, a full and frank investigation into the working of the NSPCC and other child advocate organisations who seem to be totally out of control and living in a world that is populated by Demons.

Finally, I look to you dear reader, it is time to say no to the nannying ninnies of the child protection industry, I do, have joined the Manifesto Clubs Campaign against vetting and would urge you to do the same.

Say no, next time you are asked to get a CRB when you are not directly involved with under 16's or vulnerable people for a significant amount of time.

Encourage other to say no, lets spread the word. You never know, we may be able to turn back the clock to times when we trusted each other, nurtured those in need instead of stifling them in cotton wool and actively encouraging suspicion and distrust.

We leave a legacy of fractured intergenerational relationships to our children and grandchildren if we do not, and avoiding that should be our goal.