Well, I warned you a couple of weeks ago that I was going to start on about child abuse again, so here I go. This time, though, I have a couple of court cases with adjudications I can discuss with a degree of legal impunity, so why not see what we've learned from some of them about how to handle the judicial process better in this hugely complex area?

First of all, there was the Stuart Hall trial. An issue noted by the trial judge in summing up was the fact that Hall had pleaded not-guilty up until the very last minute and had used this time to accuse his accusers of being liars and fantasists. This is exactly the sort of threat that is used to keep a lot of abuse victims quiet. Nobody will believe you. Lying little boys and girls get taken away from their parents and put in a home and you'll never see them again. In addition, some survivors finally tell the truth to someone, often a parent, and find that they are not believed, and the repercussions can be immensely damaging. I'm not saying that anyone who speaks as Hall did is guilty, because it's the natural response of the innocent as well. What I am suggesting is that all participants in a trial should be required to restrict their public statements to facts established by the trial. She's a liar- well, we haven't proved that. I strongly deny the charges   – fair enough, on you go. Now I know that someone may well pop up and tell me a good legal reason why this proposal wouldn't work. Consider these draft suggestions, there to be hammered out and translated into something workable by people who know better.

Next came the conviction of publicist Max Clifford. It was established during the trial that one of the methods Clifford used to keep his victims quiet was his power – the notion that he was too big, and was 'untouchable'. During the trial Max Clifford demonstrated how seriously he took the hearing, most notable by standing behind a television newscaster who was delivering a piece to camera about the trial, and miming along to him. To the watching world, it probably said, 'this man is an idiot' but what it must surely have said to the victims is 'I don't care about this trial – they're never going to get me'. Quite apart from being an additional stress for the survivors, this had the potential to upset one or more of the witnesses enough for them to pull out of the trial altogether. Clifford's contemptuous behaviour was, again, noted by the judge in summing up and affected his sentencing. This is good, but could easily have been too late. He should have been hauled over the coals for it in court the following day. Move on, after that, he still may have been innocent, but the message is clear for anyone. Innocent or guilty, the rules of this court apply to everyone, and everyone will respect them.

I might be less worried about all of this if I could see that important work was being done to protect children from the prospect of abuse. In fact, some things are being done. For a start, the Government is currently proposing to allow local government agencies to give child protection service contracts to private companies. This is, quite simply, nuts. Private companies, and this is not a criticism, exist to make a profit. Delivering the best possible service and making the biggest possible profit do not necessarily go hand-in-glove. I'm not saying that this will be a disaster, what I am saying is that private sector involvement in public services had a dreadful record, and it is not at all obvious to me that this will make the system better rather than worse.

That was pretty much that wrapped up then, until today, when a new policy was announced. The new plan is to change the way child maintenance is paid. Currently if a couple get divorced and there are children in the equation, then the parent who gets custody is entitled to financial support for the children from the parent who doesn't have custody. If the two parents can't agree to the system amicably, it is decided for them by the Child Support agency. Under the new system, if it gets this far, both parties will be charged for the adjudication and both parties will then be charged for the dolling out of the money. What this means, then, is that parents in an already difficult situation for all concerned will be hampered in their ability to do the right thing by their kids because they can't afford it, and could be held to ransom by the other parent, because they can afford the costs and you can't. If there are two things we've learned in recent years it's that trusting our future to money and our children to strangers are bad ideas. Why on earth would we want to combine the two in one dangerously stupid plan that can surely only go wrong?

benjaminpmoore

26.05.14 Front Page

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