CRB checks for car pool parents are a nonsense

Most mums and dads I know take it in turns to take their children’s friends (along with their own, obviously) to various after school and weekend activities. So excuse me for going into rant mode for a minute, but how utterly ridiculous that from next month parents who ferry children to clubs could need to be criminal record checked or face fines of up to £5,000. To be honest, I don’t really get the whole CRB thing anyway. I understand that it’s designed to stop paedophiles from working with children. But the fact is some paedophiles don’t have criminal records, which is what makes them so hard to identify. They operate as apparently respectable members of the community, seamlessly blending in so that they can identify their next victims. I know this because one of the parents at my secondary school was caught for making indecent pictures of children. He was a GP, with no criminal record. A CRB check on him would have been a complete waste of time, and it wouldn’t have protected any of his victims. So yes, of course, some paedophiles are parents, too. But rather than looking suspiciously at every adult that comes into contact with our children, I think we should be allowed to trust our instincts. If something doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t. Presumably the next step will be vetting parents who are taking kids Trick-or-Treating on Halloween. *Let me know what you think below. written by Liz Jarvis