Tom Addiscott, a Church of England Reader, has just sent the following email to the church authorities who were asking for him to be CRB checked. More and more volunteers are taking this stand; if enough of us do it we will be strong enough to turn this thing around. Tom’s email reads: ‘I am sorry to be awkward but I object strongly to the CRB process, which I consider insulting and humiliating. I have no criminal record but if the parish wants to regard me as a potential child molester that is their problem. CRB was a knee-jerk reaction to the…

This email from a junior golf coordinator puts the case for informal club vetting of volunteers, rather than relying on CRBs and other box-ticking. It should be adults’ responsibility to look out for children in their club. It’s a good case, very well made… ‘My arguments have always been about the effect the current CRB-checking and the proposed Vetting and Barring (V & B) schemes are having on the retention of experienced Club-based volunteers, and the recruitment of suitable new volunteers. Most sport is Club-based in this and, indeed, most countries. Within those Clubs there have always been people who levitate towards…

A survey today showed that many private tutors will refuse to register on the vetting database. Three quarters of the tutors interviewed by the website thetutorpages.com said that they wouldn’t register: many said that they didn’t think it would stop paedophiles, and resented the implication that they were ‘assumed guilty until proven innocent’. Henry Fagg, director of www.thetutorpages.com, made the excellent point that tutors have close relationships with the parent of the child; they often go into the family home to give their lessons. ‘This scheme is in danger of undermining that bond of trust as it breeds the suspicion that every…

This is an outrageous case: a woman disciplined for helping a young boy down from a tree. Apparently she went against the school’s (Ofsted-approved) child protection guidelines, which recommended that teachers observe children when they are stuck in trees. This shows that child protection rules are all about ticking boxes, observing rules, and nothing to do with actually caring for children and helping when they are in trouble. In fact – these policies are actually about the re-education of adults’ decent and caring instincts, into something quite cold and distant. (Incidentally this woman was disciplined by a CSO, who clearly have the…