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Adults who work with children 'guilty until proven innocent'

By John Hirst

Adults who work with children 'guilty until proven innocent'

All adults who work or volunteer with children must have abuse allegations made against them investigated by council officers and kept on file until they retire, even if they are totally groundless.

Local authorities around the country are setting up databases to hold records of accusations made about anyone from teachers and doctors to Scout leaders and private tutors.

They are employing staff just to look into the claims - which can be made anonymously - who are required to contact police, social services or the adult's employer and then keep track of the case.

Details of the allegation will be kept on the accused's personnel file until they retire so they can be seen by potential employers, and in a reversal of the basic tenet of English law they will only be deemed innocent if they can prove it.

This is frightening. Let's just say I accuse Norfolk Blogger, Nich Starling, who is a teacher, of being a paedophile. There is no evidence to support my allegation. He is then in the impossible position of disproving a negative. Lets just say, Nich tells off an unruly child and the child in response accuses Nich of being a paedophile. What emerges is a pattern of behaviour.

So far I have been recalled to prison and been subjected to prosecution on the basis of so-called patterns of behaviour. In both cases the allegations were unsubstantiated.

However, the guidance given to LADO states that unsubstantiated "does not imply guilt or innocence".

You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on September 10, 2008 (boomark / email).