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I used to work in bethnal green too Carol can’t believe I used to walk down Brick Lane…Commercial St…all those places on my own but now ..like you say I cr@p myself just driving through!!
My sons going on a school trip Tuesday evening…its a Jack the Ripper theme thingy and he cracked me up …said “mum there are going to be prostitutes and everything there”!! I kind of preteneded I didn’t hear him :shock:
I think a lot of us used to walk a few miles a day to get to and from school. One school I went to I did the 3 mile round trip walking on the road cos there were no pavements, it was all country lanes, and I was 8 at the time. But there weren’t so many cars then, and the cars there were didn’t go so fast. I would no way let a child of mine walk that kind of distance on their own. Not these days.
It may well be that ‘back in the day’ parents were a tad more relaxed about allowing their children to walk to school and back unsupervised.
However, in today’s world with the focus on ‘safeguarding’, this is seen as a high risk exercise in independance and one to be avoided if at all possible – especially returning home in the dark.
That said, the central issue here is in fact a mother of a pre-teen failing in her duty of care towards her child by ‘working late’ such that the child wasn’t collected by her when it should have been – and for this she is 100% culpable.
Over the years I’ve been a school governor, i’ve seen this happen more times that you’d think. Sadly, it’s usually the same group of parents who arive late (or sometimes not at all) with an assortment of excuses – week after week. Inevitably their child is made to feel guilty for causing ‘mummy’ such a lot of bother – and the mother’s attitude is often confrontational to say the least.
You can bet your bottom dollar that the mother would be amongst the first to complain to all and sundry if the youth worker had breached the strict rules on safeguarding and taken the child home (or allowed someone else to do so).
Was the 12 yr old actually afraid or just a bit wet.. i mean what are the actual chances of him being abducted … pretty remote i’d bet
The facts prove you right Pete – he wasn’t abducted or harmed in any way…. as it turned out.
But what if ……. ???
Can you just imaging the Media feeding frenzy that would have resulted if this child HAD been harmed? The youth club worker would have been hung drawn and quartered in a grotesque ‘trial by media’; the mother would have been screaming from the rooftops about letting her child walk home alone; and yet IF the youth worker did the opposite (as the Times Online suggests by implication that they should have done) they would have been summarily dismissed for sure.
It must be quite easy being a sanctimonious patronising journalist able to point the finger of blame whatever the outcome.
I am surprised that the after school club just sent him off home on his own to be honest. Although as Pete says, he was 12. But afterschool clubs only cater for the 12 and under. They act in loco parentis until someone takes over. Someone should have stayed with the child until the parent could arrange for someone to pick him up.
The child’s safety comes first. The club needs to re-evaluate its procedures.
Actually, it seems it was a village youth club. Hmm… surely they must have the same kind of rules as an after school club?
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