This news report comes as no surprise.
While in the past, adults would have helped children in distress or rebuked those misbehaving, there was now “a feeling that it is best not to become involved”, it said.
Report author Prof Frank Furedi, of Kent University, said: “From Girl Guiders to football coaches, from Christmas-time Santas to parents helping out in schools, volunteers – once regarded as pillars of the community – have been transformed in the regulatory and public imagination into potential child abusers, barred from any contact with children until the database gives them the green light.”
This is the consequence of fear-mongering at its finest colliding with years of poor news reporting. Give the public something to worry about, and they will – taking it out of all proportions in the process.
Instead of relying on Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks, adults should be allowed to use their “discretion and professional judgment” to decide who should work with children.
Bravo.