It had to happen!

[laserblazer]

And I guess if it protects one kid, then it's worth it.

 

Parents who ferry children must have anti-paedophile checks - Telegraph

[K.C.Leblanc]

Looks like someone is trying to increase the size of their department.

[elsiegee40]

I heard John Humphrys making mincemeat of someone on Radio 4 this morning over this... it will hit schools badly. All those parents rotas that get drawn up by the school office to get children to matches, etc Edited September 11, 2009 by elsiegee40
Gatt spotted the typo! :D

[tmcd35]

If we are just vetting organised car pools - as in orginised by the shool/charity/club involved - then I can understand this.

 

I saw this on Sky News this morning and they made it sond like - If I volunteer to take my sisters kids to school in the morning then I get a £5000 fine if I'm not registered! WTF?

 

This is too far along the lines of a police state for my likings. What happens next? You want to buy a house within a 5km radius of a school and you have to be vetted? What then you have to register at the police station if you want to have children?

 

You're pregnant and not registered - ut oh, automatic abortion.

 

No wait better Idea. We mandatory vet everyone - that way we know exactly who the pedos are. But then what if you commit an offence after being vetted? Oh well mandatory vetting for everyone every year. too long - kids are still not safe, make it three months!

 

But hold on we have the pedo register? Why don't we just publish that in the Sunday Times everyweek and forget about the hastle of vetting?

 

Nobody heard of "Civil Liberties"?

 

What makes this whole thing worse is it cost £65 to register. Is that £65 for life or per year? £65 per year to drive my sisters kids to school?

Edited September 11, 2009 by tmcd35
spelling/grammer

[elsiegee40]

Trouble is you only register once... so if you then go out and commit an offence they're going to check the register and tell everyone who's enquired about you? Yeah, right!

[srochford]

I saw this on Sky News this morning and they made it sound like - If I volunteer to take my sisters kids to school in the morning then I get a £5000 fine if I'm not registered! WTF?

 

Sadly, that's probably just the inaccuracy of Sky News showing through - it's not intended to cover situations like that (but the whole idea seems over the top)

 

I'm not sure if @lazerblazer was being sarcastic with the initial comment but if not, then that's why we end up with systems like this - people think that "we must do EVERYTHING to protect one kid". That's never going to be possible and it's almost certainly not sensible to even try!

[chrbb]

TBH if I still had to ferry kids round to sports, school etc I would use the lack of CRB certificate as an excuse not to take other people's kids in my car because they simply can't be bothered to put themselves out for their own children. The amount of times we rushed home from work, no tea, straight out to evening cricket matches taking other kids only to call to pick them up and walk pass 3 cars on their drive to ring the door bell.

[laserblazer]

I'm not sure if @lazerblazer was being sarcastic with the initial comment but if not, then that's why we end up with systems like this - people think that "we must do EVERYTHING to protect one kid". That's never going to be possible and it's almost certainly not sensible to even try!

 

It was tongue in cheek.

 

Looking more carefully, it does say that informal arrangements by parents are not included, so if you are running your sister's kids to school with her consent, then you are ok (as long as you are a parent and not getting paid to do it).

[srochford]

Do we have any statistics on how many kids have been abused by people ferrying them about in cars?

 

Or is it just another nail in Labour's coffin because of the constant cotton wool they want to wrap us up in?

 

Answer to the first question is "almost none, and most of the abusers will be relatives" - so called "stranger danger" is incredibly rare.

 

Answer to the second is a bit more difficult; this is has all happened because of the Soham murders about 7 years ago when "people" said "something must be done". If the government did nothing then they'd be criticised for failing to act. If they do something then they get criticised for over-reacting. Life's tough when you're a politician :-)

[localzuk]

I don't get it. The number of abuse cases is very low in comparison to a huge number of other crimes, yet this amount of effort and money is being put into it.

 

I can understand a certain amount of vetting, but this seems like using a 10 tonne weight to crack a nut. Put that money into something else, like more police on the street.

 

Same with CCTV - less CCTV, more police officers.

[Theblacksheep]

Or is it just another nail in Labour's coffin because of the constant cotton wool they want to wrap us up in?

 

This wont be restricted restricted to Labour. Same civil servants applying long term governmental policies. I'm mean look how privitazation came to a standstill and PFI took its place.

[AyatollahPies]

What are they going to do when someone that has passed the CRB check assaults a child?

[pete]

What are they going to do when someone that has passed the CRB check assaults a child?

 

I'll bet you at least £50 that it's already happened. It's a point-in-time snapshot, with the associated value implied.

 

And the government response will be along the lines of handy-wavey cack that essentially amounts to: "what we're requiring people to do has no real effect on the level of child abuse prevention or detection because it's predominantly family members that are abusing kids, but we're doing it because appearing to do something is better than nothing".

 

Government-promoted moral panics need stamping on hard and it's not happening often enough. The government should fear the people, not the other way around.

 

*gets off soapbox and goes to have a pint*

[Gatt]

.... making micemeat of someone......

Is that legal?

[elsiegee40]

Is that legal?

 

 

Edited! Although some politicians probably wish that John Humphrys had done something illegal, so they didn't have to be interrogated by him!

[grumpy_git]

As I understand it, the £65 fee is waived if you're a volunteer, but if you're an employee it needs paid either by your employer or yourself. I can imagine which one it will be!

 

(But here's an interesting one; outwith school I'm on a local committee for which I'll need to have it, so I suppose I could do that and then use that within school).