Fear of paedophiles 'a tragedy'

Media-stoked fear of paedophiles is an "absolute tragedy" which is destroying communities, a senior Liberal Democrat has warned. Baroness Williams said there was no reason to believe paedophilia had got worse in the past 20 years. But fear of it was now damaging the trust between adults and children. And people had stopped volunteering to work with young people for fear of being branded a paedophile, she told a party conference fringe meeting. Baroness Williams, formerly the Lib Dems' leader in the House of Lords, said the erosion of trust was "eating away" at communities. "I have to say quite directly that the trust issue has got completely out of hand," she told a Social Market Foundation meeting on "loving thy neighbour". "One reason for that is the way in which the popular media play upon two things. One is crime and the other is, specifically, paedophilia." [...]

She said it was a "tragedy" when a teacher is afraid to put their arm around a child who has grazed their knee in the playground for fear of being branded "a potential criminal". "That's ludicrous. This particular meeting is called loving your neighbour. If you can't love your little neighbour, if you can't show any love to your little neighbour you are already beginning to destroy his or her sense of trust in other human beings. We have to address it. We have got to get this particular problem under control."

"And if people are working - as so many of them are - 60 hours a week then the time they can give to both parenting and volunteering is essentially carved out of what are already terribly pressurised lives," she told the meeting.

source: Article < Fear of paedophiles 'a tragedy' >; news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5364256.stm; BBC NEWS; 20 September 2006