In the good old days of English law one could always count on the fundamental premise that one was innocent, until proven guilty.That was of course the good old days, before Nanny and her child centric policy (that has done much to breed a nation of self centred, spoilt, immature, illiterates) came along, and decreed that the risk of children being attacked was so great that the basic rule of law must be overturned.
Nanny's local authorities, who once were only meant to keep the streets clean and provide basic local services, have now taken it upon themselves to act as Nanny's storm troopers. They are setting up databases to hold records of accusations made about anyone from teachers and doctors to Scout leaders, priests and private tutors.
The accusations can be made anonymously, in the best traditions of a dictatorship, and will be looked into be specially employed staff (not the police). The staff will also inform the police police, social services or the adult's employer and keep a track of the case.
The specially recruited staff are called Local Authority Designated Officers (LADO's), whose job it is to record and monitor allegations of abuse.
The details of the allegation will be kept on the accused's personnel file until they retire, so that they can be seen by potential employers.
The only way that the adult can redeem himself/herself is to PROVE that they are innocent.
This of course is contrary to the fundamental principle of English law.
A culture of anonymous tip offs will foster an environment whereby the system will be used by people to settle old scores, and to conduct personal vendettas. It will become the modern day version of witch burning.
Professor Frank Furedi, a sociologist at the University of Kent, said:
"Those who are accused may become the lifetime victims of these allegations.
It then creates an incentive to make those sorts of accusations by people who know it can affect someone's career.
This will play into the hands of those who believe there is no smoke without fire."
Nanny doesn't care, a spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said:
"It is quite right that records of all allegations are kept on file for an appropriate time.
This saves the need for unnecessary reinvestigations, and provides concrete evidence relating to an allegation rather than rumour or hearsay.
If similar allegations arise in the future it might be possible to make the case that a pattern of behaviour is emerging, and that action might then be taken."
Who defines an "appropriate time"?
This is wrong, and will be used by those with less than honourable intentions to further their own agendas and careers.
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This is not the first time that Nanny has turned the "normal" pillar of English Justice on its head.....If some one makes an accusation of racism or homophobia, it is accepted as being such and it is up to the "perpetrator" to prove their innocence.
ReplyDeleteAs an accountant you must also be aware that, if HMRC(spits on the floor) says you owe an amount of money to them, it is up to you to prove you don’t…It is never up to them to prove their figures.
As a country, we have become afraid of kids, and under Nanny rightly so….Few adults will ask kids to go and play quietly or elsewhere if they are being harassed by them….Few adult males will approach a lost child that is crying in case allegations are made….Teachers are in an even worse situation, a vindictive pupil can ruin a teacher’s career and these new rules and regulations will not help…..On the continent, Great Britain is known as Monkey Island because of the out of control feral youth that roam our streets and terrorise our population without any fear of the consequences…Anarchy will be the next stage and then all our new civil enforcement officers and Nanny will come into their own as they take even more of our freedoms away…All for our own good and protection of course!!
It is just as well I don't live in England any more. I loathe the company of small children and studiously avoid the larger ones. This would clearly put me beyond the pale or worse still in the dock.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes wonder what it must be like for parents to start from a cute wittle bayyybee and end up with a spotty, arrogant, demanding, hormone ridden appetite on legs otherwise known as an teenager. Maybe the shock is what drives parents to believe that in addition to ensuring, as all adults should, that children to not come to harm we are all in some way actively responsible for them. Nope that is the job of parents. Now the state has joined in this conspiracy of universal parenthood with all and any who dare to impose discipline or strive for the right to live an unhampered adult life facing social disapprobation or a criminal record. Can the state no longer distinguish between active harm, an actual crime and the failure to conform, a personal choice. What a hole the UK has sunk into. How sad.
"It is quite right that records of all allegations are kept on file for an appropriate time.
ReplyDeleteThis saves the need for unnecessary reinvestigations, and provides concrete evidence relating to an allegation rather than rumour or hearsay."
That is double-speak. If the allegation is not investigated in the first place it provides no "concrete evidence" of anything - except than an allegation was made. If it was not investigated but is instead used to corroborate a subsequent allegation then that is an injustice. The fact that the allegations are anonymous makes it even worse. How is the veracity of the allegation going to be tested? Answer: it won't be.
We are going the East German route here, where secret files will determine a person's standing and fate in society. Is that what British people really want?
I'm not sure who or what consigns these half-wits with the necessary expertise or experience to even talk about investigations, let alone conduct them but these sort of developments are certainly ruining our justice system.
Like much of this female and wimp inspired twaddle, good intentions lead to unintended consequences, the negative results of which usually outweigh the benefits. The obsession with child protection is becoming stage managed hysteria and I wonder just how many innocent people are going to suffer as a consequence. You can guarantee that the majority of them will be men.
Figures for the number of teachers sacked or suspended have risen dramatically recently and one of the reasons given by their union is the increase in false allegations by children. The old saying is that if you throw shit up against a wall some of it will always stick.
When these anonymous government mouthpieces attempt to justify their ridiculous impositions who is challenging them? It is highlighted and commented upon in blogs like this one but where is the political force countering this nonsense? I'll tell you - too frightened to utter a word because of the suffocating repression of Political Correctness. Any political figure going up against these morons would be tarnished throughout the media as standing up for paedophiles.
It is ironic that at the same time as the government-initiated debate about the public intervening to stop anti-social behaviour, disorder and crime, Nanny is introducing schemes like this one, guaranteed to make every law-abiding person think twice about standing up to be counted. It is doubly ironic that over the last 11 years Nanny has done more to restrict the public responsibility for hue and cry and the right to self-defence than at any time in the last 1,000 years.
"The accusations can be made anonymously, in the best traditions of a dictatorship,...."
ReplyDeleteJust what happened at times during the Roman Empire. Under the worst emperors not only did professional
informers flourish, but also those with an ax to grind against their neighbours, or who thought they would gain financially or politically by revealing the said neighbours' 'indiscretions' (real or trumped up).
"It is quite right that records of all allegations are kept on file for an appropriate time...."
No it is not: an allegation is NOT proof. As you say, Ken, what happened to 'innocent until provemn guilty'? The onus MUST be on the accuser to prove guilt, not on the accused person to prove his or her innocence. I should have thought that treating innocent people in this manner contravened the various conventions on human rights to which this country is a signatory, not to mention nu Labour's Human Rights Act, or do these only apply to criminals?
Dixon of Dock green said:
ReplyDelete"I wonder just how many innocent people are going to suffer as a consequence. You can guarantee that the majority of them will be men."
I fully agree with what you say, except this part of your post should not read 'are going to suffer', but 'have suffered'.
If Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin were alive today they would be really proud of the political
'achievements' of recent times!
How would any man feel if they found out their girlfriend had asked for a police check on them?
ReplyDeleteLord of Atlantis you are absolutely right. The 17th Century witchhunts usually targeted single older women living living alone but I fear that Nanny's 21st Century witchhunts will target single older men living alone.
ReplyDeleteI understand that there are already some councils which have banned single people from entering public parks without "a reasonable excuse" in case they are paedophiles. Presumably the desire for some fresh air or to sit in the sun is not enough.
Paranoid hysteria is replacing reason. Pilot schemes for the so-called "Sarah's Law" have been trumpeted by Jacqui Smith but the mother of murdered Sarah Young says that it does not go far enough. What will satisfy her? When those suspected of being paedophiles as a result of anonymous allegations are rounded up and imprisoned indefinitely, or executed without a trial? Why not extend that to all single older men just to make sure? When it comes to this type of fanatical crusade it seems that the end is to be justified by any means. It is a sledgehammer to crack a nut and it destroys goodwill, innocence and human compassion.
Personal grief ought never to be an imperative for legislation. One reason that the statue of justice is blindfolded for impartiality and holding scales to balance the evidence. But Nanny has made it her stock in trade to base a whole raft of liberty-eroding laws on the tabloid headlines of worst case scenarios. Protection at any price. Nanny is chucking out every concept of justice in her desire to protect us. She wants the presumption of guilt to take precedence over the presumption of innocent until proven guilty which has been the cornerstone of British justice for centuries. I mean we don't need to waste time on a trial for people who we know are guilty do we?
These people are absolutely barking mad. Their grief and zealotry have deranged them. It has been translated into shrill, strident hysteria by an ex-domestic science teacher of the most incredibly vacuous stupidity.
"... and provides concrete evidence relating to an allegation rather than rumour or hearsay."
ReplyDeleteSince when did writing down hearsay make the same hearsay 'concrete evidence'?
Lets hope anyone making an allegation has it recorded on their personal file too... some how I doubt that will happen, anonymity and all that!
I'm disgusted with the whole flippin' lot of them.
If Nanny's childcentric policies are creating a generation of spoilt, selfish illiterates - and I agree that they are - then we can expect those people to satisfy a perceived sense of grievance at being refused their own way and the state's endorsement of accusations made with impunity provides the very means. I simply can't understand how the people who think up these ideas can't see the blinding flaws, which other posters on this thread have highlighted. Have these people worked in the culture of the public sector for so long that their reasoning is dictated by considerations peculiar to it? Is the public sector now so bloated that they actually don't have jobs that are necessary and so have to create jobs for themselves? Is something more sinister afoot and this part of a strategy to accustom the population to an increasingly totalitarian regime?
ReplyDeleteThe presumption of guilt is happening, it seems, in many areas of our lives from the 42 days detention to, for example, in my line of work, the demand of ID from completely harmless people in order to comply with the Money Laundering Act. Another poster asked what can be done about it other than blogging. My only suggestion is to start lobbying political parties ahead of the next election. If enough people registered their disquiet, no party would disregard such a vote winner.
Going back to the allegations which will be held on file and open to potential employers, one can only hope that they have the sense to realise that they're not worth the paper they're written on. Sadly, however, most of any size probably are now subjected to regulatory procedures which demand that the precautionary principle should apply.
Jay
What happens if someone in social services or local authorities is accused under this scheme? Will the accusation be taken seriously and registered in one of their databases? Or will it be ignored as being "malicious rumour"?
ReplyDeleteThis insidious culture of anonymous accusation, fuelled by the hysteria over ‘paedophilia’, has been flourishing for years now – see Richard Webster’s books “The Great Children’s Home Panic” and “The Secret of Bryn Estyn: the Making of a Modern Witch Hunt”:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.richardwebster.net/
I myself have been told of former inmates being offered rewards by the police for information about alleged abuse going back years.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense would do best to steer well clear of having anything to do with other people’s children. As Ken says, adults are no longer respected or trusted, and we are creating a generation of ignorant, arrogant, and ungovernable kids. I tremble to think what sort of parents they are going to be.
When I was growing up, I learned a great deal from adults – some of them total strangers. Once, when absorbed in a book in a public library, I was pushed aside by an indignant old lady wanting to get at the shelves who demanded “Do you think the world was made for you alone?” I have pondered this question ever since. I think my final answer is “No, but it should have been!” Doubtless today that old lady would find herself on the Sex Offenders Register for having quite rightly ticked me off. I wouldn’t venture to do the same thing now. So Kids Rule OK?
In the real world (or as real the world as social workers get) a good friend of mine is a senior social worker. When the going gets tough and they are working to remove kids from abusive chav scum,said scum (via their paid for lawyers) always reach for the kiddie kard. They scream that the social worker/workers are "abusing my kids boo hoo" Net result halting of the court procedure, investigation of the people actually attempting to remove kids for beatings/sexual abuse, rape, kiddie prostitution, you name the depravity while the chavs sit back smirking and hopefully counting their payout for the 'emotional stress' caused.
ReplyDeleteThey all know this trick works, so now imagine someone who is pissed off with you at work/school/business deal with access to a nice little anon phone line to stick the knife into your back.
Could someone explain to me how publishing details of unfounded accusations is not libelous?
ReplyDeleteThis will cause the endangered species of the male primary teacher to finally become extinct.
ReplyDeleteI am a single, 39 year old male that teaches at primary level and this causes me great concern, we are being told, on the one hand, that more male teachers are needed to offer role models (yuck) to boys, yet of the 12 men that graduated 10 years ago from the teaching course, I know of only 3 of us left, and by this time next year there will only be 2.
This is partly because certain members of society cannot belive that a male can be around children without sexual desire taking over his weak perverted mind.
Here is an example of what could happen.
A colleague of mine a number of years ago had a falling out with a student's parents over his disruptive behaviour in class. Long story short the father punched him (great role model hey?), and of course got done for assault, however now all that spiteful little shit would have to do is tell little Johnny to say, Mr whoever had "touched him". No evidence needed.
Career over and probably a proper kicking from from concerned news of the world "readers".
We have already been told that in our school male teachers are not allowed to ever touch a child (think slap on the back for good marks, picking up a fallen, crying child etc) and under NO circumstances should we ever be alone with a student. Is this to protect the child from us Paedo-teachers?
Nope its to protect us from false accusations as proove is not needed anymore and its would seem its going to get alot worse.
And the really sad think is this attitude has been pushed onto the new teachers coming up through the ranks, many of my younger female colleauges question what a single man is doing teaching primary.
Your kids will suffer in the end when the only teachers they have are sandle wearing, alfalfa sprout crunching grauates of nu-labours nanny state, who belive any man in a mile of a child is a sexual predetor.
No wonder the kids today are shite at English.
ReplyDeleteDixon of Dock Green said,"I understand that there are already some councils which have banned single people from entering public parks without "a reasonable excuse" in case they are paedophiles."
ReplyDeleteTelford and Wrekinn council being one of them. Even the Home Office has suggested that the council is overstepping its powers.
It is a fact that not all single men are paedophiles by a long way and, indeed, all paedophiles are not single. Many cases of this kind of abuse involve married men, often family members of the victim, so banning single men from parks will not make children any safer, quite the opposite in fact.
Anon said: proove is not needed anymore and its would seem its going to get alot worse.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like things are pretty bad already!
In the 1980s, America underwent a wave of hysteria about sexual abuse at day care centers, resulting in a number of completely innocent people, male and female, being imprisoned on these charges. I hardly have to add that conviction on such charges makes one a target for attack from other inmates in a prison. In other words, a true nightmare.
ReplyDeleteInvestigators, or perhaps I should say inquisitors, would give an anatomically correct doll to a pre-school child and ask, "Show me where your teacher touched you."
The child would indicate, perhaps, his arm. "Where else?" The child would indicate the top of his head. "Where else?" The child would say, "He didn't touch me."
"But you already told us that he touched you. Where else did he touch you?" This would go on until, eventually, the child pointed to the gentital region. This farce would then be recorded for legal purposes as "The victim was presented with an anatomically correct doll which he used to indicate that he had been touched in the genital region." And that was how the evidence was presented to juries.
There was a family-run day care center in California which had long enjoyed a good reputation. Neverthless, once the investigations started, the kids were presented with an endless stream of leading questions, until they eventually spun a series of absurb fantasies about satanic rituals being performed in caves beneath the school, children being sacrificed, monsters and witches. Any idiot could see that this stuff couldn't possibly have happened, but the case went to trial, and the owner-operators, including I believe, a grandmother, were shipped off to prison.
As it so happens, last night my three year old was babbling quite enthusiastically about sharks and crocodiles eating Jesus. She acted out the animal's carnivourous chomping motions, as well as Jesus' eventual demise. It was quite a pageant, from a father's point of view, but what would you make of someone who treated this nonsense as legal evidence?