I need to make a pedantic point, please help me out!

[Bensonbluebird]

I'm giving someone who treated me in a very patronising and paternalistic manner a 20 year too late telling off and I need to know about legal responsibilty for young adults.

Who would be legally responsible for a 16 year old on an informal trip (with a group leader but no sort of policy on under 18s, no permissions etc) with an adult sports club?

I am assuming you are in Scotland from your profile. The situation under English law might well be different. I also assume that the 16-year old is not married. I am not an expert on Scots law, but:

From Scotland.gov.uk:
Parents have the responsibility to look after their children... This includes being in charge of, and directing, their behaviour until they are 16 and advising and guiding them until they are 18.

If the trip is not a regular activity involving children or vulnerable adults, the group leader might not need a criminal records bureau check. However (at least in England and Wales) sports clubs have a duty of care to children and young people - see NSPCC briefing notes. It may be different in Scotland though.

Maybe this 179-page booklet produced by the Scottish government in 2010 or this 2006 safeguarding document have more to add? I haven't read them but they look potentially relevant. It is often tricky to work out the exact situation for 16 to 18 year olds, but the above paragraph suggests that they are considered children in Scotland (if not married).

Thanks for your response, I grew up in England, and I guess this is complicated by the fact that it was 20 years ago, when there wasn't the same regulation. I think from the NSPCC guidance the club could have been considered to have had a duty of care, though it isn't clear at what age that duty of care ends. The NSPCC guidance says that for specialist sports activities the group leader has a duty of care to those involved irrespective of thier age or position.

I will continue to formulate my response....

Benson - young people can be up until the age of 25 - have sent you a link

Hathor, thanks for that link. I think the issue I have is that it is ambiguous, I wasn't on an educational trip, I had joined an adult club because I was ready to go beyond the challenges that my school club could give me. It's all been dredged up again because the group leader tracked me down after over 20 years because he had written an article about that trip that he wanted to publish and sent me a copy (and yes I am more than a little creeped out). He claims the reason that he stuck to me like glue until I told he to leave me alone was because he had legal responsibility for me, I don't think he had any greater duty of care towards me than any other member of the group.

If you were a minor and the others were adults and he was the group leader then I would say he did have more responsibility for you than the others. But it sounds like you think there was something else going on.

I can't add to definitive legal situation (the law is often subject to interpretation anyway), but I went to Uni aged 16 in 1986, and my tutor mentioned to me at the end of my first year that he was considered in loco parentis for me (really? no one told me. and he didn't do much of a job of it then), had been told by the dept. That was an English Uni (but I'm from Scotland). No one stuck to me like glue.

I was also a member of an adult outdoor sports club (I can't manage to word that in a way that sounds innocent, but it was!) from the age of 15, and we went on weekend trips away. They always made sure I shared a room or tent with a woman. There was no official "policy for kids" in those days (80s). Once though, I cancelled travelling with one 40yr old guy who creeped me out (but with hindsight I don't think he was any threat, but I didn't feel comfortable travelling on my own with him). I got a lot of untoward comments about how rude I'd been from several of the men (it was about 90% men anyway), and overheard them bitching about me (while I was trying to sleep in a nearby tent - wasn't deliberately listening), yet no-one seemed to consider that I was just 16, wanted to travel with one of the men that my parents knew instead. I still wonder about that, why were they so mean about it? That's the trouble with being a competent, confident teen - people forget that your emotions are still those of a child/teen.

Benson - have sent you another link which might be more use

Universities (at least in England) have to get CRB checks done for staff who work regularly or closely with under 18s, but not all of their lecturers - so these days a university department would typically get a few members of staff CRB checked and assign the (small number of) under 18s to them as their advisees/tutees. However I guess that education has always been different from sport in law.

Also see one online view on "in loco parentis".

Thanks, Scatterplot and Hathor,

I think the reason I'm getting so involved with this is that I work in public engagement for a university, I'm CRB checked and when I am lone working with groups of school age young people I clearly do have a duty of care for them. It also means I come into contact with many admirable, confident, competant young women.

Consideryourself, I think your experience was probably fairly similar to mine. I don't think there was anything particularly dodgy going on, he was (is) just a misogynist who didn't think I could possibly be mentally or physically capable or experienced enough to do the things that I was doing. I didn't go on another trip with them and left the club, which was a shame but it did encourage me to seek out climbing partners elsewhere and I did find really good and positive mentors elsewhere.

Benson yes, it colours my memories of what was otherwise a great club. I went off to uni then, so only did a few more dives with these guys, and stuck to the ones I knew best who were coaches/members of staff at swimming clubs/pools, and I'd known them for longer, knew they always looked out for me (wouldn't let me drink, pah), without being patronising or scary (and they took the mickey a lot). There's 3 of them I wish I would bump into again.

I think it only natural that someone would think they had a duty of care to a much younger person in the group who wasn't legally an adult?

Having a duty of care is one thing, but being patronising and paternalistic is another. I'm sure I could have handled it more graciously, but then I was 16 and learning how to handle men who try to rescue you from imaginary peril was a skill I was still learning.