We Must Stop This Paedomania
Few things make me really fucking angry. This is one of them:
Local authorities around the country are setting up databases to hold records of accusations made about anyone from teachers and doctors to Scout leaders and private tutors.
They are employing staff just to look into the claims - which can be made anonymously - who are required to contact police, social services or the adult’s employer and then keep track of the case.
Details of the allegation will be kept on the accused’s personnel file until they retire so they can be seen by potential employers, and in a reversal of the basic tenet of English law they will only be deemed innocent if they can prove it. (The Telegraph)
You WHAT?!
Let me make sure I’ve got this straight:
- Allegations can be made anonymously
- They will be kept until that person retires
- They can be accessed by potential employers
- And - most disgustingly of all - the accused will only be deemed innocent if they can prove it
Fucking hell.
I am utterly, utterly appalled.
Yes, I know that children are “vulnerable” and need to be “protected”, but this is just disgusting. It is unacceptable that unsubstantiated anonymous allegations will be held in this way.
I give up hours of my time as a Scout Leader, where I help look after a Troop of nearly 30 young people. We have child protection training and procedures, and no adult is ever left alone with any child. Yet just that this “Allegation Management System” exists could mean that my - or any other volunteer or professionals - career could be blighted by an anonymous allegation made by an angry child. This gives children waaaay too much power over adults. I can certainly see circumstances of “give me/let me do what I want or I’ll claim you abused me” arising under this reprehensible system.
We must stop this paedomania.
It damages the ability of any adult to effectively discipline a child if such a claim can be made and held on their records without a scrap of proof, who in their right minds would work - let alone volunteer - with children?
We must stop this “think of the childdrreeeennnn” mentality and actually use common sense for a change.
Allegations should be investigated, but if there is no evidence, the claim must be regarded as false and the allegation removed from record.
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This was truly disgraceful. Completely innocent people labelled as potential child abusers for their entire careers.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
It could also go by the name of Paedophobia.
I’m seriously considering abandoning my various voluntary things next time the Disclosure is due, if not before.
[...] current examples are extreme CCTV surveillance and the creation of a database of allegations that will be kept for the rest of your life using a “guilty until proven innocent” [...]