Boris Johnson critical of over reaction

[AB Asks]

Boris Johnson has waded into the issue of child abuse, criticising the 'hysteria' surrounding the issue of paedophiles in schools. He made it clear that he is in favour of protecting children but commented that certain aspects had got 'out of control'. He claims that this fear is stopping men from becoming teachers and so kids are losing out on male role models. Do you think that the fear for our children in schools has gone too far? Or should we be extra vigilant when looking after them?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6472707.s tm

[Supernick]

Very VERY occasionally, Boris Johnson will make an observation that almost makes sense, and this one almost does. I think as a nation we are gettinf towards a stage where we're hysterical about the risk and danger that our children are in.

The first point to make is that criminal checks on people working at schools and youth groups/clubs is a good thing. I'm not sure that there is an argument against that to be honest.

I think that the more interesting point is that we are perceiving the risk to be much greater than it is. If men are at the stage when they are scared to become teachers, then clearly we are doing something wrong. The majority of child abuse is from trusted family members, parents, uncles and aunts, grandparents and family friends. There is very little that can be done to stop random attacks in the street id the paedophile is not known to the law. I would hate to think that we are doing our children a diservice with hysterical fear, but I'm not sure that we're even quite at that stage yet, no matter what good old Boris says.

[Figi]

I'm no fan of Boris Johnson and I wholeheartedly agree that we need to protect children in schools from paedophiles etc etc . But, the current ways of doing this are totally OTT - they are stopping perfectly good people from operating in schools in a normal way and I very much doubt if they will stop the serious perverts from slipping through the net.

[Loosehead]

Yes I think Boris has a point especially about men working with children. Ask any middle aged bloke what he fears most and the answer wont be what you expect. Children are very dangerous they can literally destroy you very easily by some sort of accusation. No wonder men don't want to work with children. I run a mile from them myself too dangerous. I'd rather sit at the Arsenal end with a spurs shirt on than get anywhere near them and I have an 11 and a 17 year old by the way.

[joko]

one of the problems these days is children know the law and have all the information regarding these issues at their fingertips, because of the internet.
and they, and their parents know about compensation culture, and are just looking for a away to get a payout.

children can be cruel and spiteful especially to teachers and they know this is one sure way to get their teachers into trouble.
they can get blow by blow accounts of other people abuse and of sex acts and games and use it to make their story convincing.

kids will make accusations and have no real comprehension of what actually will happen.
when all the trials, arguments, police, news stories etc get involved they back off because they hadn't realised how tough it would be to keep up.

fortunately these things don't usually get very far but the teachers know the kids are aware of the law, and kids know just what to say to the teachers to scare them

obviously it works both ways and sometime the child is telling the truth and the teacher is just nasty.

when i was at school (1982) one teacher threw a girl down the stairs and broke her arm...then when her dad came in to sort him out - he threw him down the stair too....this teacher was there long after i left.

a boy deliberatly broke 2 of his own fingers just so that he could blame his teacher... there was of course a fuss and he eventually admitted it because he had naively believed he would be believed and the teacher would just instantly get the sack.
he did it in a class full of kids...most of whom backed up the teacher.

[jenstar]

Yes, Boris is quite right about this. Now there's a turn-up for the books.

[LeMarchand]

As joko said, it's all too easy to cause someone's career to go down the tubes with one accusation. I have a friend who is currently going through something along those lines; he knows of no reason why the girl involved has picked him to accuse, so I can only guess that it was some sort of "dare". Unfortunately, once thrown, the mud sticks.

Children undoubtedly need protection, but it does sometimes seem as if adults need equal protection from false accusations.