Need Your Opinions!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1216762/These-mums-police-officers-paedophiles--crying-loud-.html#comments
Must get back to bed shortly if I am going to have my scan at 9.
But first, this is revolting...

It should fall under "Good Grief!"


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These mums are police officers, not paedophiles - for crying out loud...

By Richard Littlejohn


When our children were young, my wife belonged to a baby-sitting circle.

No money changed hands. Hours were ‘earned’ and ‘spent’ accordingly.

The arrangement worked well and ensured that our bambinos were looked after by mums who had children of their own, and not by hormonal teenage girls likely to invite their unsuitable boyfriends into our homes, with all the horrors that can entail.

Leanne Shepherd has been told that she can no longer look after her friend's child as it is seen as an illegal childminding business

Some of the group had part-time jobs and the deal meant that they didn’t have to pay a childminder or dump their kids in a creche.

To the best of my knowledge, none of the children was murdered or molested.

CLICK TOP LINK FOR THE POLL
Should parents who look after friends' children be checked by officials?

These days, such a set-up would almost certainly be against the law, as two policewomen from Buckinghamshire have just discovered to their cost.

The Thames Valley detectives, who gave birth within a few months of one another, take care of each other’s daughter two days a week as part of a job share.

But now they have been told that unless the arrangement ends immediately, they will be prosecuted.

Detective Constable Leanne Shepherd received a visit from an inspector working for the education watchdog Ofsted, who informed her that she was running an illegal childminding business.

Rules state that friends cannot gain ‘reward’ for looking after a child for more than two hours. In this case, the ‘reward’ was defined as free child care.

If the agreement is to continue, both women must register with Ofsted and abide by the myriad rules, regulations and background checks which apply to professional childminders and kindergartens.

DC Shepherd has received a letter from Ofsted telling her that she would be subject to ‘random surveillance’ to make sure she was not looking after her colleague’s little girl.

She has had to change her work schedule and fork out £260 a month for nursery fees — a huge chunk of her £900-a-month salary.

This ludicrous story is both depressing and disturbing in equal measure. As so often, it’s difficult to know where to start.

The rules governing ‘reward’ are contained in the Childcare Act 2006.

Clearly this legislation went through on the nod, without any proper parliamentary scrutiny.

MPs have simply given up their responsibility to sift through proposed new laws line by line.

A cursory examination of this clause, in particular, would have thrown up the obvious pitfalls.

It should never have made the statute book.

The State has no business interfering in consensual childminding arrangements between private citizens.

The idea that two policewomen should be subjected to criminal records checks before they can babysit each other’s daughters is beyond preposterous, as is the notion that they should be the target of a sinister surveillance operation carried out by a government agency.

Then there’s the question of who grassed them up to Ofsted in the first place. This vindictive individual must have been aware that the babysitting pact was illegal.

What was his or her motivation? Who benefits from the persecution of these unfortunate women?

Certainly not their daughters, who are said to love the time they spend together, and have grown as close as sisters.

It doesn’t do much for the smooth running of the overstretched police force, either.

Because the detectives now have to fit in with regular childminding hours, it has placed an additional burden on their CID colleagues.

Nor does the taxpayer gain from it. Quite the opposite, in fact. DC Shepherd says she intends to apply for child benefits to help meet the nursery fees.

The only winner here is Britain’s burgeoning bureaucracy. Another ‘crime’ solved, another box ticked.

Three-quarters of all child welfare legislation has been passed in the past 12 years and is applied rigorously without any proper sense of proportion.

Most of it is irrelevant and intrusive and serves only to irritate, inconvenience and criminalise decent parents trying to make their way in the world and do the right thing.

Since 1997, Labour has set about nationalising the family and childhood.

With much of the country apparently in an advanced state of paedomania, the politicians and their Guardianista apparatchiks have grasped every opportunity to seize more power.

As the recent furore over criminal checks on volunteers who drive children to football matches and help out at playgroups demonstrates, every parent is considered a potential paedophile, every grandad a leering Gary Glitter, every man who comes into contact with a young girl a Roman Polanski, every mum a Rose West.

Bearing the brunt of this assault on family life are the law-abiding, taxpaying middle classes, while the social services continue to indulge unsuitable, slattern mothers and the sort of pervert and sadist who killed Baby P.

What kind of sick country threatens to prosecute two policewomen for the ‘crime’ of looking after each other’s children?

Call Me Dave will have enough on his plate economically when he seizes the short straw next year.

But he should also make it a priority to reverse Labour’s scandalous assault on private family life and get the State out of our babysitting circles.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1216762/These-mums-police-officers-paedophiles--crying-loud-.html#comments#ixzz0SZmQPIJ1

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So, what do/did you do with your children when they were little, and you were on the payroll?

Personally I had the very best babysitters in the world; and all from one family too!

XOXO
Me