Anthony Horowitz: This law reflects a twisted view of society
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Independent Minds
It is hard to know what is most objectionable about the database proposed by a government that seems more and more like a dying wasp, determined to sting one last time before it goes.
In essence, I'm being asked to pay £64 to prove that I am not a paedophile. After 30 years writing books, visiting schools, hospitals, prisons, spreading an enthusiasm for culture and literacy, I find this incredibly insulting.
It is also so ludicrous as to be very nearly insane. When I go to a school, I usually talk on a stage in the assembly room with an audience of around 300 children and a dozen or more teachers. Even if I were the most cunning deviant in the world, how exactly would I contrive to molest a child in such circumstances?
You would have thought that by now New Labour would have got over its love affair with databases. It has created no fewer than 28 of them, according to Damian Green MP – and they have a fine record of mislaying their contents. They're also ineffectual. Let us not forget that Ian Huntley, whose crimes at Soham seem to have prompted this latest legislation, was vetted.
Of course we want to protect children. We don't want them to scratch themselves or twist their ankles either – but would this lead us to ban playgrounds? This is a case of a government that doesn't know where to stop. And it creates a situation worse than the one it is cack-handedly trying to solve.
What I really hate about this database is the way it poisons the very special relationship that exists between children and the authors they admire. What sort of sick mind could whisper that there might be something suspect in that relationship, that children should be wary of all adults – unless they're government-approved?
This is a law made by people with a bleak and twisted view of society. And such people, quite simply, should not be making laws.
Anthony Horowitz is an author and screenwriter. His children's books include the Power of Five, Alex Rider and Diamond Brothers series
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Comments
Other creative people will shout out and say "Hey... I should be exempted too" and so the small chink becomes a gaping hole, more exploitable as each time it widens, paedophiles are highly exploitive and manipulative people, it is their "stock in trade" and we start creating little holes for them to crawl through and a kid is going to get hurt.
It is one of the very very few things I agree with the government on, people with access to children have to be checked out, there should be no assumed guilt to pass a CRB check, hell I had to have one to prove to the court that I was suitable to continue looking after my daughter, it seems absurd and I think that the fee should be automatically waived for volunteers but all it takes is one... one dodgy pervert and then people are going to remember those that opposed it and then wonder why.
No doubt you attended the funeral of Diana, cried at the death of Jacko and believe that health and safety helps you to lead your life.
People like you put decent people off working with children. You should be ashamed. Idiot.
Now why would someone object so vehemently I wonder... I look with suspicion at those that seek unchecked and unfettered access to our children...
So listen to me Cretin, When I took my RMN, I specialised as a Section 37+41 Nurse, that means I have been face to face with more child killers, abusers and life wreckers than YOU can ever imagine.
Go look up the two names, William Mayne and Hal Porter, they are authors, under this proposal, they would be exempted, they are also paedophiles but hey, never mind eh because some brain dead morons like yourself want to support a blanket exemption for authors...
But you know what, from the statements from various authors, I think they are more cribbing about the fee than anything else...
As for the other puerile statements, I couldn't have cared less for either Diana or Michael Jackson, I have never read the Sun or the Mail so that kind of makes you look even more pathetic than before... The epitome of fail.
Check the facts the article did not talk about unfettered access to kids. As for inviting paedophiles to schools grow up.
I think it is clear what we have here is projection - you are a mental nurse and have probably a bit more need to be nursed yourself. The vileness of your mind can only be down to inherent paedophile tendancies that you are fighting - perhaps this came about due to the time your spent with them - a kind of stockholm syndrome.
As i said decent people dont need your kind. Go see a doctor sicko, or perhaps get your princess Di memorial plate out, put thriller on and try and get the idea of children out of your mind you wharped prat.
Car safety is something that can be far easier enforced, it is a tangible thing, a machine/driver relationship whereas paedophiles are insidious, prey on the vulnerable, the weak, wrecking lives as they go, there can be no let up on the diligence of these monsters in my honest opinion, show them no quarter, it is every parent's nightmare that their child is killed by a car as is every parent's nightmare they fall prey to one of these sicko's too.
Curious
This statement quite elegantly sums up the Labour Government. How come they are still in government?
Overgrown children who have no sense of who they are, and (with the exception of 1066) no understanding of their own history prior to the so-called 'Holocaust.'
If we teach chidlren to distrust all adults then they may deduce that when adults say something, it too is to be distrusted, and so chidlren become deviants (did I hear another child had knifed another child in the neck yesterday, which seems pretty deviant behaviour to me). There is a price to pay for zero deviance in one area, and so a balance has to be struck.
But I liked the question about GB being on the register. Of course, he will do it with a great flourish (as poiliticans tend to go to church). I dare say he will even put it on his expenses.
Oh, and did I notice the price of a passport is soon going up by well over inflation. A stealth tax to pay for the ID register database. by the back door.
I've yet to see any statistics that prove that requiring CRB checks and other such bureaucratic measures have made any difference to the number of children who are abused each year. I believe that the culture it creates, is actually more likely to reduce the sort of 'normal' vigilance that people would exercise because they think that because someone has passed one of these largely meaningless tests, they are somehow now 'approved'.
Examples of this seem to be the fact that Haringey council passed all its inspections, or the Mid Staffs hospital (I think) went through a similar box-ticking exercise without anyone noticing the problems that later came to light.
Guilty until proven innocent, it seems. And Easy-money made behind the unquestionable argument of so-called child 'protection'.
We live in a very sick society indeed, if no adult can have anything to do with children, such as being in the same room, until having been 'passed' as safe.
I do not want to live in a society in which the state mediates all kinds of social interactions.
Nu Labour is an ideology driven by tokenism and bossiness.
It does precious little to address the real child abuse which often occurs within the family.
The Charity, Kid's Company has to provide a Christmas Day for damaged kids who have nowhere else to go. It's government funding was in doubt. What does THAT say about Nu Labour's real opinion about children ?
Confident, secure children who get on with their peers and have good social skills are very very best protection against abuse.
Nu Labour has constructed a society based on fear, stress and anxiety, I want one based on trust.
As for comforting a kid if it's upset - got hurt somehow, been bullied, mother sick, abuse by parent or others, any teacher who dares to put an arm round a kid even though knowing the best comfort for anyone is a kind arm and even better held close for a few moments, any teacher who so much as dares to lay a finger on the kid in comfort will be in jail on a charge of paedophilia before they have time even to think - if the other teachers don't get the offender arrested to ensure they don't themselves get blamed for not immediately calling the police, you can be sure the parent will be onto a no-win no-fee solicitor just slavering at the jaws to build up his or her nestegg with a swingeing case of inappropriate and harmful behaviour against the teacher along with a demand for damages on a ludicrously generous level that even Jonathan Ross would absolutely love his BEEB salary to be raised to. Worse, judges let such cases, often totally and glaringly outrageous, go through. So have even our judges been corrupted it seems.
It's amazing schools can keep going if a teacher has to make such strenuous efforts to avoid brushing against a pupil by accident, or expressing concern for a kid's obvious unhappiness etc. Kids are being both denied necessary comfort and politicised into believing all their teachers are dangerous would-be criminals who might do themost unspeakable things - even in public - if given the slightest opportunity, must be watched and if the slightest possible infringement noticed or even imagined, immediately to be accused of the most heinous crimes and preferably the parents will get that teacher sacked and the teacher is damned for life.
What a disgrace. Well said, Mr Horowitz and Mr Pullman. We need famous people to speak out.
Anthony Horowitz is an author and screenwriter. His children's books include the Power of Five, Alex Rider and Diamond Brothers series
This is a law made by people with a bleak and twisted view of society. And such people, quite simply, should not be making laws.
I agree. I stop reading as when i read I think of writing
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
There are other laws that I love OUT LAWS What you do think of them Favous five
Its tosh, total and utter tosh. If you believed this minority administration and the scare mongering police we are all foreign immigrant child molesting suicide bombers and we are only allowed to breath by the kind permission of the police.
Worse, the stupid general public unquestioningly go along with it believing it will somehow prevent their kids getting molested.
Let me tell them, the sort of people that prey on your children are not going to be found by the police except by pure chance, they are not going to be the sort of people that are helping at the local rugby or football club. The fact your childrens private information has been given to 500,000 people on a computer file, and almost certainly lost is a far greater risk than the coach at the swimming baths!
After all, just remember the teacher convicted over sex pictures recently would also have been 'cleared' by the police and have been given access to your childs name, address and probably photo, dna and dabs!
It is time to say NO to this government and its plans to turn us all into criminals with a tag and camera strapped round our necks. After all only 25% of those who turned out last election voted for them, and even they didn't vote for the current intrusion into our private lives.
As we are emotional and sexual beings, these rationalisations are usually non-logical and are manifested in many strange ways. A few examples, only a few of many which could be chosen, are listed below:
1. We are constantly portraying sex in the media but completely incapable of managing lack of success in sexual matters and brutally intolerant of those not conforming to 'acceptable' stereotypes.
2. We are obsessional about higher education when bullying, thuggery and ruthlessness are the prerequisites for success in 'higher positions'. We fail to see that for more gentle people, 'ambition' is pointless because their skills are destroyed/neutralised by thugs.
3. We are obsessed about law and order but completely incapable of discussing bent policemen who expedite the international drugs trade. So we go on about 'bobbies on the beat' instead of facing hard choices about addressing organised crime.
4. We are still obsessed with international power games, refusing to face up to our natural status as a medium-sized power. As a result, we fawn to the Americans and display a schizophrenic attitude to the French/Germans, without forming a coherent series of alliances to further our true 21st century interests.
5. We preach multiculturalism whilst opening our borders in an uncontrolled manner. As a result, we hang on to outdated concepts of 'country pride' which reflected our days as an almost totally white, Caucasian nation without setting standards for incoming groups who do not wish to integrate into our society.
This current article merely reflects one of the stupider aspects of society: take some small but real dangers and assume that they may be found anywhere, thereby imposing on healthy adults a series of repressed child-like mantras.
Common sense dictates when and who need to be careful in certain situations.
It's just a shame that common sense is the trait which Britain seems to lose most readily, particularly in how the media communicates with the nation............
And the bobby had a whistle that in city streets anyway would hopefully reach another bobby if there was trouble. What hope of kids liking the police these days when they are mostly in squad cars, or when on the streets look threatening? But perhaps some police aren't like this. Where I live the police dont have the best reputation for friendliness and this is a small country town, not the centre of London. I think they are just to defensive nowadays.
Why are gangs of kids attacking police? It takes two - not just to find some way to educate the kids but also the police to be more outgoing if they can.
I wonder how long it will be before people in film and television will need to be vetted, on the grounds that they work for long periods with children. Would the director of a Harry Potter film require vetting? Would every adult on the set also require vetting, right down to the clapper loader? Given the wholesale vetting of adults who are likely to come into contact with children (even taxi drivers), the apparent exemption of the film and TV industries would seem a curious anamoly and a gap that must be closed.
How about a register for politicians: a 100 quid for being entered on a register that contains honest politicians?
But of course the proceeds would hardly be worth the effort.
When their next education reform affecting only England is proclaimed, will they be registered on the necessary databases before being allowed near our children?
The consequence will be delays of months before individuals are checked and registered, and organizations will be faced with either evading the law or barring those who want to do jobs or voluntary activities that bring them, even incidentally and in totally public situations, into contact with children. Not to mention the nightmare of people not being able to take up some jobs until the whole cumbersome procedure has run its course, and the inevitability that laptops or memory sticks containing the data will be stolen from offices or cars and left on trains.
And perhaps one step more along the road towards a time when they'll bring in legislation against "dishonouring and deriding the institutions of the nation", so that commenting in forums like this might well lead - at the least! - to an admonitory visit from some official, and when, like the Stasi in the old "GDR", they'll be employing snoopers to keep an eye on their neighbours and report back ....