To think it wrong to punish someone for their partner's criminal past

[ReallyTired]

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/teachers-to-be-barred-for-living-with-criminals-9893209.html

Barring teachers and TAs from living with someone who has a criminal conviction is desperately unfair. If someone has no criminal record then they should not be punished by association. Such extreme rules will undermine rehabitiation of offenders as they will lead to a breakdown in relationships.

For example if a teacher has a teenage son who gets into a fight and a caution for assult then the teacher will have to either kick out her child or lose her job.

Young teachers who live in house shares are not in a position to know whether their housemates have a conviction.

Actually, at first school, my DDs met most of their teachers' partners as we all lived in the same village
Exactly, but then they would be neighbours anyway and know ypour children that way.Besides most teachers deliberately don't want to teach in the village they teach in for reasons which should be obvious to anyone on mumsnet!!

I think the Vanessa George case showed us (whilst rare) that employees working in trusted positions can be vulnerable to being targeted by people with horrific intentions. It is impossible to prevent every incidence of abuse etc, but if there is a known possible risk then why I think it's right it's assessed. Offenders can be manipulative, devious people and teachers etc are human like the rest of us and don't have special skills which make them immune to people like that.

One of the support staff at my daughters school got married recently and the school choir sang at her wedding. I can imagine the outcry if it later emerged her now husband was a sex offender and the school knew about it.

I think the Vanessa George case just harks back to extreme cases and bad laws.

Let's not fool ourselves that the partner of George was the evil one and she was Snow White. You don't have to live with a criminal to be nasty, manipulative and willing to take advantage in horrendous ways.

The implication being that people whose partners aren't SOs wouldn't do such a thing ?

What I mean is that there are cases of sex offenders manipulating their partners to do things that they otherwise wouldn't do. Like Vanessa George or the woman who allowed that musician to abuse her baby.

The whole crb check is flawed as it only works of you have been caught. Ian Huntly and Maxine Carr would have been fine and still working, assuming he hadn't go into a pub fight when he was 18 of course n

Pipbin
Schools do not allow teachers to store photos on their own media. They have to use school equipment to take photos.

Many schools have a complete ban on mobile phones and teacher's personal cameras, personal IPADs or personal laptops.

If I had my way I would have a total ban on usb sticks in schools and make pupils use a vle to tranfer files. (Pupils often have hideous viruses and images on usb sticks in secondary). With teachers I would make them use a VLE when working at home and set up network permissions so that they can only use school laptops to access sensitive information.

People forget that there has to be an element of trust. I suppose that a child sex offender could "borrow" a teacher's laptop to access information about children. However there has to be a balance between sercurity and useablity. Maybe staff should only be allowed access to sensitive parts of the network on the school premises. It could make IEP writing an absolute pig though.

Schools do not allow teachers to store photos on their own media. They have to use school equipment to take photos.

Many schools have a complete ban on mobile phones and teacher's personal cameras, personal IPADs or personal laptops.

Not true.
In my school we use our phones etc at break time. Who is to say that I'm not getting it out of my bag during a lesson.

Also, most teachers do work at home and take their school laptop home with them. Who is to say that they aren't taking inappropriate pictures using school equipment and then taking them home?

ReallyTired

I suppose that a child sex offender could "borrow" a teacher's laptop to access information about children.

If they were able to do that, then the schools Information Security Policy needs urgent review as not fit for purpose ...

1. We are talking an encrypted laptop aren't we ? Disk-level encryption that is.
2. We are talking a review of the data required by the teacher ?

for starters.

It's interesting to speculate what information a teacher might have which isn't on facebook

I might think someone living with a person with a conviction for gbh is an idiot - it doesn't mean I have the right to dictate to them that they should sacrifice either partner or career.

I agree.

yes and as I said it WOULD extend to their teaching because teachers teach moral codes as well as academic subjects. If a teacher thinks it's ok to live with a rapist or similar then they're not fit to teach.

Where does it end? If a teacher is teaching moral codes, can they be a member of the BNP? Maybe UKIP? Suppose they are a little racist? Or homophobic (now many religious people are right out).

Too thought crimey for me.

Of course, if you live with someone with such a conviction, that person shouldn't be able to go to the school/nursery.

Let's not forget Maxine Carr, Vanessa George, etc all committed crimes against children. You have to assume that they were not fit to be in charge of children in the first place, they weren't wonderful teachers who did terrible things simply because of their partners. They were all tried and convicted in their own right.

That's not to diminish their partners' influence of course. But under this legislation, do you think any of the above would have gone to their schools and admitted their partners' proclivities?

That's fine Tiggy. But what about my friend who is suspended because her husband got in a pub fight at 18?

Tiggy, since when did it become okay for the employers to refuse jobs to people based solely on their political affiliations? BNP are abhorrent IMO. But they are an actual political party, and it isn't okay to discriminate against people purely because of their political beliefs.

The thinking is that it isn't possible to dump racist views (or acceptance of a sex offender's crime for that matter) at the classroom door and teach without that mindset and judgement / lack of judgement affecting your work.

that is indeed the view. I don't agree with it. I say that as someone who is squarely in the line of fire of the BNP (non-white immigrant). Guilt by association is not on.

Extending this, should we ban conservative christians from teaching? can they leave their homophobic baggage at the door?

There are many children I dislike, not because of their race or religion but because they are rude, arrogant and generally unpleasant little individuals - I still treat them fairly!

Should we ban conservative muslims who do not equality of women and are against homosexuality?

If we ban all these people from the classroom who will we have left to teach? What will happen to islamic or Christian schools?

Why do teachers have to reach higher levels of saintliness than priests, doctors or MP? Wouldn't it be interesting if we applied the same rules to MPs as teachers? We would lose half of them over night!

Do we also ban Catholics from teaching because of the Catholic Church's stance on contraception?

Maybe we should ban all teachers and it would be like an infinite snow day. I am not sure it would be great for kids or the ecomony though.

I think that this will result in fewer trainee primary teachers. It's not a good situation at all for teaching.

YANBU OP. I think this is horrific. The government should not be dictating who teachers can't and can't sleep with FFS!

It's an outrageous violation of civil liberties.

Various chatter on the interwebs about this has suggested a couple more points ...

1. rehabilitation of offenders act - would spent convictions count ?

2. Although this is the next step in the post-Soham journey, once again even this measure would not have flagged up Ian Huntley - who had no convictions at the time.

3. Now we accept that partners of teachers are fair game, the principle will be established, and it won't be long (5 years) before friends of teachers become subject to scrutiny. And their partners. Ridiculous ? Remind yourself why we're having this debate, and then answer that question.

4. Feel free to vote for a party which will repeal this measure, in the same way you voted for a party to bring it in.

5. Don't be surprised if teachers would also be expected to have their personal use of social media monitored.

Fuel to the fire

Point of order: Maxine Carr, as far as I was aware, didn't commit offences against children. She was convicted of perverting the course of justice, after giving Huntley a false alibi. She believed previous allegations against him were false, but that he was at risk of being fitted up by the police onnaccount of them.

I infer Maxine Carr very much accepted all the most popular rape myths, sadly.

I do not say this to excuse her, but because the information is relevant, and may explain the origin of new regulations. Although it appears these new regulations wouldn't have prevented the murders.

And the jury accepted that Carr believed that Huntley was innocent at the time she gave the alibi.