National Insanity: British Parents Not Allowed in Parks With Children Unless They Complete Police Background Checks
October 29th, 2009Via: Telegraph:
Only council-vetted “play rangers” are now allowed to monitor youngsters in two adventure areas in Watford while parents must watch from outside a perimeter fence.
The Watford Borough Council policy has been attacked as insulting and a disgrace by furious relatives who say they are being labelled as potential paedophiles.
It will further fuel concerns over a growing nanny state amid the deepening row over the Government’s new national anti-paedophile database.
That will see at least 11 million adults have to be vetted to work with children or vulnerable adults, including parents who give officials lifts to and from social or sports clubs.
Councillors in Watford claim they are only following Government guidelines and cannot allow adults to walk around playgrounds “unchecked”.
But Osfted dismissed the ban while parents branded it “a joke”.
The rules have been imposed at Harwoods and Harebreaks adventure recreation grounds.
Activities on the half acre sites include a skateboard half-pipe, a zip line, rope swings, den building, arts and crafts, plus a wide range of indoor and outdoor sports activities.
Play rangers currently patrol both parks – which are specifically for children aged five to 15 – and are fully qualified and have been cleared by the Criminal Records Bureau.
Makes perfect sense. After all, if a parent is a child molester, they’ll certainly abuse the child at a public playground and not in the privacy of their homes where there is no control whatsoever.
Why is it that the people making the decision often seem like they know less about the subject than anyone else?
And what is now the Number ONE career choice of every paedophile who hasn’t been nabbed and added to the “official” registry yet?
Can you say “play ranger”?
Reliance on hard data over good sense is empiricism gone mad. Scary and stupid.
In this case, the end result is a even more perverse than the original pre-crime offense now on display in Watford. All adults off limits without a wade in a high-and-mighty bureaucracy only serving to focus the problem and unwilling to confront this knock-on effect in its own internal propaganda until the first wave of stories hit the press in a few years and the damage is done. Sigh.
In a few more years, everyone in certain parts of the UK will be required to wear their own protective suit, using only government-approved breathing filters manufactured by Monsanto. Now there’s a good script idea that’ll never see the light of day.
I sometimes wonder if this sort of high weirdness isn’t the Tavistock set having yet another go at social engineering, ala War of the Worlds, et al.
It certainly bears the taint of “unreality”.
I like how you tagged it with “Collapse”. Hopefully it will all breakup rather fast and we get past this folly.
It makes sense. After Dunblane, we banned guns. After Baby P, we ban parents. It’s just a pity that after everything else, we have not yet banned politicians. Ban everything. Create countless new jobs in the bureaucracy where we are all busy trying to work out what is allowed or not, so busy n fact that we barely have time to do anything in contravention of any regulations.
I’m really curious to take my son to one of these play areas and test them out, but he isn’t old enough yet as the parks are for 5 to 15 age ranges. But if he were old enough, what are they going to do to me if I go in with my son? Am I going to get arrested for helping him down the death slide? Pushing him on the swing?
I think we’ll just head off to the forest and build our own dens and play areas, thanks.