Pervs in schools?

It seems reasonable enough that people convicted of sexual offenses, particularly sexual offences against children, should not be allowed to teach in schools.

But Paul Reeve, who is on the official UK sex offenders’ registry, was hired as a PE teacher. Was this because someone didn’t check the list? No, a Minister of Government, Kim Howells, reviewed his case and determined that he should not be banned from teaching. Partly because he wasn’t on a rather mysterious black list – called List 99.

What did Paul Reeve do exactly to get on the list? Well, he accepted a caution for downloading child pornography from the Internet. He claims that he is innocent. He just might be.

A couple of years ago, there was an investigation by the FBI into child pornography. They collected thousands and thousands of credit card numbers used to purchase pornographic images from a US site. If the credit cards belonged to someone in another country, they handed over the identity of the credit card holders to police. In the UK, there were thousands of arrests. Some of these people are guilty as sin, plead guilty or went to trial. Some of these people, presumably, checked out OK. And some people, people who maybe had only 1 or 2 images in their internet caches or PCs that might be deemed illegally pornographic, accepted police cautions. Essentially they plead guilty in exchange for no jail, but they are listed on the sex offenders’ registry for a finite period of time and they do have a criminal record, but without court oversight.

One man, caught in Operation Ore recently appeared on More4’s television news programme anonymously. He claimed that he was innocent, but that he accepted a police caution because above all he didn’t want to face the publicity of trial and be forever tainted with the smear of pedophilia (potentially dangerous, a number of people have been assaulted and occasionally killed because of mob anger). He says that although he accepts that his credit card number was used, he didn’t buy any porn (how many of us have had dubious charges on our accounts?). And he also acknowledges that there was one dubious picture in his Internet cache, but he thinks that was an accident. OK – maybe he is guilty, but maybe he’s innocent but thought fighting the charge was a losing proposition.

Now, this issue of potential innocence is being largely overlooked by the media. Partly because cases of other sex offenders given ministerial leave to work in schools have come to light – and these are cases where the public should be rightly outraged. Apparently, pedophiles attracted to young boys have been given leave to work in all-girl schools, and those attracted to really young children have been allowed to work with high school age kids. Sick. Sick. Sick.

Paul Reeve will probably never work as a teacher again. And although I think he should have accepted that this would be the case when he accepted the caution (after all there’s no right to teach in schools as there is a right to due process), now that his case has gone public his chances for any meaningful employment are probably now dashed. I don’t know anything about Mr Reeve, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were innocent but extremely unlucky.

I still think it’s worth remembering that innocent people can be pressured by police to accept the “lesser” caution without court oversight and be ruined for life. Especially as the Labour Government wants to further erode the powers of the court and allow police and prosecutors together to issue summary convictions and punishment for certain crimes – eliminating the ancient liberty of “innocent til proven guilty”.

From Tony Blair’s recent return to “respect” speech:

This has, bluntly reversed the burden of proof. The person who spits at the old lady is given an £80 fine. If they want to challenge it, they have to appeal. The suspected drug dealer loses the cash. He has to come to court and show how he got it lawfully.

What’s new Pussycat?

I’m away for three weeks and what do I find when I return home?

George Galloway on Celebrity Big Brother. Ewww. It’s unseemly for a sitting politician to participate in such things. I’d think less of my MP if I found out he were even watching this show. I have to admit that I don’t know who half these people are, but he’s sharing a house and screen space with such luminaries as: Maggot, the Welsh rapper; Dennis Rodman, NBA cross-dresser (in my view the only real celeb); and Faria Alam whose claim to fame springs solely from sleeping with the chairman of the Football Association (governing body for English soccer) and England Manager, Sven Goren-Erikkson and the tabloid scandal fallout.

This is the same George Galloway, “Respect Party” MP for a London East End constituency, George Galloway of “Sir [Saddam], I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability…. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory until Jerusalem.” George Galloway of testifying before Congress and thus becoming the darling of certain misguided anti-war activitists in the US.

There have been calls from both consituents and political adversaries that he quit the show. Parliament is in session, which means he’s AWOL from his job.

George says that his Big Brother strategy is to raise politial awareness and money for his charity. (He also gets some cash). Channel 4, broadcasters of Big Brother, are editing out his political comments, citing political “fair and balanced” broadcasting rules. Others are calling for his stated charity InterPal to be banned in the UK (as it is in the US). InterPal ostensibily raises cash for the poor and downtrodden of Palestine. But British intelligence services have advised that InterPal be given another look.

But perhaps the most horrible thing about it is that you can’t avoid it, news programs are running clips of his BB antics. Particularly, where he’s acting like a cat, licking imaginary milk from actress Rula Lenska’s hands. I’m not easily offended, but watching that, my stomach lurched.

Watch the video here via SkyNews, and never say the Vol Abroad doesn’t provide good value – you’d normally have to pay good cash to see perverted films like this.