''Risk and the real danger for children''

SPTC continue with the campaign against the climate of fear and excessive child protection laws in an article in "The Herald".

In the article on August 1st, SPTC told Kenny Hodgart about two cases which epitomise the "misguided vigour invested in child protection procedures in Scotland".

The first case involved a 13-year-old boy who, late last year was told by his guidance teacher that he (the boy) had been accused of sexual assault by two girls in his year. Under the child protection rules the teacher was obliged to hand over the matter to the police. The boy was not asked to give his version of events and knew nothing of the details until he was interviewed by the police. (This interview also involved fingerprints and DNA samples being taken. Ed) The boy's parents were not permitted to discuss the matter with the school.

After weeks of stress and worry, it became clear that there were some discrepancies in the girls' stories and the Children's Reporter threw out the charges. During this time the boy was kept in the same class as his accusers and was subjected to taunts of "paedo" and "rapist" from other children.

Judith Gillespie (SPTC) told the reporter: "Nobody wanted responsibility.... everyone has to cover their backs, so it was passed on to the police." SPTC have heard from teachers that even if they are told something in confidence by a pupil, they must pass the matter on and that this situation may be discouraging pupils from coming to them for advice. "That's partly what's behind the escalation in cases going before the Children's Panel," Judith Gillespie said. "The Scottish Executive says the police are being irresponsible and reporting too many cases, but that comes out of its own legislation. Nobody has applied a proper risk analysis. Nobody is asking what the dangers are to kids, when they are most at risk or what can be done to protect them. If they did, we'd be putting money into frontline services such as social work and supporting cases where there are children at risk. You wouldn't be putting money into disclosure checks for people helping at a school disco, for example."

SPTC also believe that not only are we wasting money on needless police checks and discouraging adults from volunteering to help out in schools and youth organisations, we are teaching children to grow up with fear and suspicion and that we have exaggerated the threat of paedophiles and sex offenders in society. "To listen to people talk, you'd think kids here are in more danger than they are in Lebanon or Baghdad. It's almost that we live in an incredibly safe society and can't deal with it being safe so we've got to create these monsters to satisfy some need to feel threatened. It's a sort of social version of Munchausen's by Proxy," Judith Gillespie said.

The second case that SPTC has heard involved an unemployed father with some time on his hands who offered to help at his daughter's school. The school applied for a disclosure check which subsequently threw up an incident in which he had been charged for carrying a knife in the boot of his car - this knife was used to cut through seat belts in an accident.

The father took the matter to Disclosure Scotland and provided evidence that the charges had been dropped. However the local authority still refused to let him help out. It was only after he offered his help with a road safety scheme at another school that his disclosure came back clear and he was accepted.

Local authorities have actually been given a reasonable amount of freedom to enforce the legislation but the result is some confusion over who should be checked. The Scottish Executive were quoted in the article: "It may not be necessary for very parent volunteering for school activities to have a disclosure check. Generally, a check is only required if a parent is going to have unsupervised access to pupils..... Councils have their own policies on when a disclosure check is necessary..."

SPTC are valiantly trying to get local authorities to exploit a loophole in the legislation, as Judith explained: "The 2003 legislation says that those whose duties are normally childcare are the ones who have to be checked. If it's ad hoc, then you don't have to be checked. We have been trying to encourage schools to find ways of making the involvement of parents more ad hoc. This is an official way around the legislation but many local authorities are not prepared to go down that route. Local authorities are saying everyone should be checked, which is increadibly expensive."

It's not only schools that are complaining of the burden of the checks. Did you know that the Church of Scotland is spending about £250,000 a year on its child protection scheme.

SPTC has received dozens of emails from PTAs and others with reports of volunteer numbers dropping off and plans to phase out their drama and sports clubs. "It's driving people out of voluntary activities.... what swimming enthusiast, say, would dare volunteer to coach children these days? Politicians won't say anything because they're scared of the tabloid agenda and local authorities and the bureaucrats are scared they might be prosecuted if something goes wrong."

We all know that the majority of child abuse cases happen within family circles or are perpetrated by someone known to the child. If we focus on "low-risk" environments, we may not be doing children any favours. Child protection procedures have even moved on from hard data on convictions to "soft data" and supposition. SPTC believes that situation can only get worse - who decides which data is worth sharing, with whom do they share it and to what end?

Judith Gillespie told "The Herald": "Everyone thinks it's alright because it's going to apply to other people, but the trouble about wrong data is that it can be attached to you and it's the same scenario as when people find their credit rating wiped out for some mystery reason. It happens all the time.

Officials and others say "we can't take any chances with children's safety". But if children are encouraged to see risk where there is none, what kind of adults will they become?

SPTC want to hear from you if you have been forced to close a voluntary group due to this legislation. Please contact us.

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