Sex offenders in schools?

[Keith L]

Originally Posted by ahar

The majority of cases of child abuse come from family members and relatives - not from teachers or random strangers.

Quite - that's a real fact rather than a gutter press perception as well -

Numbers of respondents recording sexual activity with relatives which were against their wishes or with a person 5 or more years older, were very small: 3% reported touching or fondling and the same proportion had witnessed relatives exposing themselves. The other categories of oral/penetrative acts or attempts, and voyeurism/pornography were reported by 1%. Much larger numbers had experienced sexual acts by non relatives, predominantly by people known to them and by age peers: boy or girlfriends, friends of brothers or sisters, fellow pupils or students formed most of those involved. Among older people, neighbours and parents' friends were the most common. Very few said that the person involved was a professional. The only category which was experienced to any great extent from strangers was indecent exposure: of the 7% of the sample who experienced this, just over a third said that the person concerned was a stranger.

Again that is from a study by the NSPCC.

Source : http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/Resea...fega26234.html

It's about time people put down their Daily Mail's and stopped imagining Gary Glitter's on every street corner.

K

[chas49]

Originally Posted by ahar

.... How about the guy that is in the news at the moment - convicted of indecent assault on a girl that was 15. Read the headline and it's easy to condemn, look closer and you see they were then married for 19 years and had two kids together.
...

Nevertheless he did become involved in an inappropriate relationship for a teacher with a student. Whether this justifies him being classified as a sex offender is moot - however i think it is undisputable that it is behaviour which schools, parents and the wider community do not expect of teachers and he should have been disciplined as a result (with the impact that such action would also have on his future employment prospects).

Before we break out in too much sympathy for this guy, we should note he was jailed for 30 months in December 2000 after pleading guilty to seven counts of deception, one of forgery and one of theft. This should be enough to prevent him from working in schools anyway shouldn't it? (Although the system seems to have been lax enough to allow him to get supply teaching jobs....)

[yazzyfooty]

[quote=ahar]Every single case where a predatory paedophile attacks a kid is reported in the papers, which is why it seems there are so many. They are rare, and if we build a system without this knowledge it will fail. [quote]

What about the cases that do not get reported? Are you suggesting that all assaults are reported to the police? I am sure that they dont and that victims of this type of abuse carry the shame and the guilt through their lives and keep it their dark secret.

The more child sex abuse is discussed and reported then hopefully victims of this crime will feel able to stand up and still hold their heads high.

[ericdv]

Ahar I do not believe anyone on the sex offenders register should be allowed to teach children. I agree they are not all paedophiles but by virtue of the fact they are on the register suggests to me they are morally flawed.
As with all things there are degrees of culpability but in this area I believe we should err on the side of the childs safety and a complete ban in the way to do it.