Yeah I saw on the news aboiut not being able to video school play. I do understand what they are saying but how often is it put on the internet? I wouldn't have thought very often at all and its somethnig you'll want so your chilod can see later in life and maybe show thgeir kids and stuff, so I do think that is way over the top.

Its so hard to say is it getting OTT , on one hand you have the extreme examples such have been given above, on the other hand if it saves just one childs life then it has to be a good thing.

What saddens me is the fact that if you see a child lost in a shop or in the town you tend to feel slightly apprehensive about approaching the child and trying to help and comfort them for fear of it being taken the wrong way.

Personally I feel the more checks that are done the more our children will be safe, but it's never going to be certain as has been shown in recent cases of child murder

I think the media doesn't help with this. I'm not a parent, but I do think that the safety of children should be a fundamental, rather than an after thought.

However, the majority of children are abused by people in their family or friends of their family - but you tend not to hear about those cases. The ones where people in authority positions are arrested etc for child abuse are the ones reported on most (it seems).

I think people who work with children day to day need to be checked, for obvious reasons. At my work we have parent helpers in school. Many refuse to be checked because they have one thing or another on their record (nothing to do with child abuse) but they are still ashamed. We have elected to allow unchecked parent helpers into school under strict supervision. Its a shame, but I suppose thats the way it ought to be.

It worries me that by saying this, I'm 'accepting' that child abuse is a fact of life - and I really hate that.

There was a reason, I think, that Brass Eye was so vitirolically demonised by the tabloids: it had them totally sussed.

Yes, safeguards need to be in place: but some of the extremes we're going to - such as banning filming of children's nativities - in response to mostly-imagined phantoms aren't going to help anyone. Are they seriously going to stop paedophiles accessing pornography? No, but they will contribute to an ever-increasing climate of hysteria and fear.

The figure given at the end of Brian Tybalt's exceptional comic on the issue, The Tale Of One Bad Rat, is that 90 per cent of abuse happens within the family. It was written in 1995, and exactly the same figure was given during the media furore over the Holly and Jesica murders (not in the tabloids of course).

This shows what is never reported in the more sensationalistic sections of the media, that child-abuse and abduction rates have been stable for years, and the much feared abuse by strangers remains very low. Most abusers have also been abused themselves, the ultimate vicious cycle. None of the draconian measures the reactionaries call for would make one iota of difference to abuse within families, but the voice of sanity is drowned out under the din of the media-instigated witchhunts and parinoia.

Nothing exposed the stomach-churning hyporcicy and exploitation more than the issue of a Sunday tabloid that called for "Sarah's Law" on one page, then opposite commented on the (then 15-year-old) Charlotte Church's clevage.

I think it's a very, very sad indictment of our society that sections of us are willing to exploit even something as fundamentally abhorent and terrible as child abuse for our own cynical and selfish ends.

(Edited by Byron 17/12/2002 23:03)

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by Byron
Nothing exposed the stomach-churning hyporcicy and exploitation more than the issue of a Sunday tabloid that called for "Sarah's Law" on one page, then opposite commented on the (then 15-year-old) Charlotte Church's clevage.

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For reference, I think the headline i question was "Who's a big girl now?"

One of the many reasons I do't read that paper.

I work in a day nursery in the college holidays, my mother is the manager of it so i know how much she has to go thru before she can employ somone. Every staff member over the age of 18 has to be police checked and no staff under the age of 18 can be left with children on their own unless a close family member to a high staff member.

Unpolice checked people can't take children to the toilet or change nappies unless they are being watched.

If paren'ts have not told the staff that their child is being picked up by someone else the staff aren't allowed to release the child.

And when opening the door, unless the staff member knows the person they aren't allowed into the building.

If theres outside access to the garden then there has to be a bolt thats locked all the time.

Some people might say thats all a little obsessive but id rather people be obsessive than not caring because atleast that way the children are safer.

I know it can seem like too much but i have to echo what people have said above about anything that potentially saves a childs life is worth undertaking.

Having said that i do feel that more needs to be done to protect children from their families - as Byron said 90% of abuse happens within the family and yet another story of this nature has apperaed in the Guardian today...

WARNINGThis article does contain details of injuries inflicted on a young child by her parents. www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,862150,00.html

I don't see why this should have been allowed to happen. But as it isn't easy to get permission for the police to accompany social workers and health visitors i'm not sure what could have been done. I even heard someone on the train discussing this case this morning saying that it was appauling, then in the same conversation start complaining that social workers had visited the home of someone she knew after the child had a fall and was taken into hospital


It might not be pleasent to be examined by a social worker, bvut i'd much rather that than more and more cases like this turn up that could have been avoided.

Fixed Url

(Edited by Sange 18/12/2002 13:49)

That rather depends on the circumstance. I know of one family where the child was considered rather clumsy. The little girl would fall all the time, walk into tables and things like that. Someone noticed that she was always covered in bruises, some newish, some older and faded, and reported her to the social services.

Her school was phoned to say that they must not let that child go home with her parents that night (and if you've ever seen a parent trying to take their child away from you, you'll know how traumatic that can be). It was heart-renching for me to have to refuse her access to her child. She started shoving and pushing me around the room and I was actually frightened by her, she was *so* hysterical and angry I had no idea what she would do. In the end the head was called and he difused the situation.

That child was taken away from her parents and put inot a temporary foster home for a week - a week! The girl didn't even know the nameof her carer after two days. She didn't eat apart from what I could get down her during the day.. there were forms and statements for us to make. It was awful. She cried all day, stopped speaking, stopped playing. Her parents were refused entry to the school during that time.

In the end, they discovered it was a medical condition that was making her fall over and returned the child without an apology.

I understand that Social Services have a job to do - but in my experience with the organisation it is very poorly done.

I would rather my children be safe of course, but there are ways of dealing with situations like that. It seems to me that all cases are dealt with in the most severe ways, when an iron fist isn't always necessary. It's a shame that many families don't trust the social services and reject their help when it is offered becuase of the bad reputation they have.

my sister and now brother in law was accused of atrocities against my nephew when he was one years old by a nurse who didnt even stand around to find out what had really happened. she accused my borhter in law of being a violent drunk because she could smell alcohol and he was loud... we were at my nephew's christening at which neither parent touched an ounce of alcohol in any way or form on our way home my sister stumbled and fell on some cracked unlevel pavement while holding my nephew and he fell from the carchair she was holding he was taken to hospital straight away where the nurse saw my brother in law in a panick to find out what was wrong. A social worker was assigned to the case under the nurse's accusations that he was a violent drunk and was the cause of the whole "accident" I can still feel the tears whell up when I think of how that women could've destroyed my family on one women's assumption.

on this subject with being so far away from my nephew's and niece I missed my nephew's first school play and it breaks my heart that I may never get to see one especially if they ban cameras and filming of school plays maybe they can do like the cons make a special one through the school and then sell the films on to parents only and the money can go to school fund but even then peodofiles could somehow get their hands on the film/footage as no one of us knows who they are so you could be rightfully selling the tapes to them, it's a tough case to argue I understand why they want the ban but it won't stop them or other kinds of stuff from getting on the net. We'd just be giving up and letting them win and at the same time making our children suffer later for not having such childhood memorabilia for them and their children.

"mummy why dont you have any pictures or homemade videos of me?"
"well thats coz some bad naughty man might get hold of it."