Checks on children's club drivers

[Matt Mackenzie]

For all the predictable diatribes against "NuLab" et al, stuff like this in reality is the product of two things that are not party political as such - the civil service and the media.........

Media "moral panics" are *why* politicians feel the need need to "do something" about things, and these *are* the sort of proposals that result when the civil service gets to devise said "something"!

(Do note that I said "politicians" irrespective of party. Those fondly hoping that "Dave" and his chums will make things better are overlooking the above - and the fact that he is a product of the media/PR culture himself, of course )

[Rob Thompson]

Maybe Guy Fawkes had an idea in getting rid of the lot of them...

[Paul McKeown]

Dear Mr. Mackenzie,

It's true that NuLab make me sick: Blair's rictus always made me want to put a length of 6"x2" straight through it, with considerable force, that and every time he lied as if he thought the public didn't understand that he was lying. However, you would be wrong in thinking that I have a dislike for the political left or carry a torch for the political right; plastic Dave will also no doubt make me swear in despair, too. I'm equal opportunities when it comes to loathing our political masters, I just don't like them taking us for fools.

Perhaps it comes from the politics of where I grew up. The politicians lied there too, but their lies incited murders, broken bodies and broken hearts, rather than just tax rises to pay for cheap headlines and the aftermath of their cock-ups. Now in Northern Ireland, of course, the scum that incited so much violence through the years, the DUP and Sinn Fein, sworn enemies at the time, walk hand in hand in the corridors of power, collecting enormous salaries and pensions, whilst the widows and daughters still grieve.

Regards,
Paul McKeown.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Well, you know the old saying about getting the politicos we deserve!

(what you in NI must have done to get yours then, God only knows )

Seriously though, I think the real problem isn't politicians, for all their manifold faults - it IS the media.

That bastard Murdoch is more powerful than any elected person here, if not in the world. THAT IS WRONG

[Paul McKeown]

Back to the topic on this thread, it seems that there have been developments. Mr. Yvette Cooper has, rather sensibly, been having a bit of a rethink: Vetting contact rule under review

[Matt Mackenzie]

Ah, just shows you that you *can* get results if you put your case in the right way

[Matthew Turner]

Kevin Thurlow wrote,
"Another way CRB checks and the like fail is that they only work for people who have been caught before. So it might have worked in the Soham case, but would not (I believe) have worked in the high-profile chess cases. Mind you, in one of those cases, lots of people seemed to know before the arrest, and one wonders why nothing was done."

Personally, I doubt very much that any rules would have prevented Ian Huntley from doing what he did. I believe Ian Huntley had never committed any crime and police forces and other organisations are not going to divulge information about their 'suspicions'. They will argue (possibly correctly) that it will harm ongoing investigations and it would open the way for massive legal disputes.
On a similar theme, I have just heard an amazing story on the radio. A family had been fostering for 7 or 8 eight years and took in a ten year old boy who 'had a go' at one of the foster parents' daughters. It later transpired that the boy had a history of 'sexually inappropriate behaviour', but this couldn't be revealed to the foster family because it would infringe the boy's privacy! One has to wonder who some of these regulations are designed to protect.

[Gary Cook]

The main problem with any type of database check is trusting:

1. The database
2. The people running/accessing the database

Knowing the government's record on large scale IT projects then my trust in this one is somewhere close to 0.

As has been stated before all this branding everyone as guilty until proved otherwise will simply drive most of the innocent away from helping.

Re CRB checks are club officials supposed to be cleared before they have junior players play for them?

Gary