OUR eldest son left for university at the weekend, and we were a little surprised to find ourselves as lost and emotional as we were on his first day of school.

I took some photos of him settling in to a very comfy little flat in halls of residence, and he posed with his usual reluctant grimace.

One day, though, he will thank us for documenting the landmarks in his life. He will show his own kids the pictures and videos of him singing along at the nursery nativity play, doing the egg and spoon race at infants' school, playing with other children on a beach in Anglesey or just messing about in the local park.

Now ask yourself how many of those wholly innocent images of childhood could today be captured by any parent without arousing the suspicion of others.

The most potent answer comes from retired Det Chief Supt Chris Stevenson. The man who led the investigation into the Soham murders - the atrocity which most concentrated the nation's mind on how to keep dangerous people away from children - was recently taking pictures of his grandson at a village football match.

The manager came over and asked him to stop, saying it was 'against the regulations' unless he had permission in writing from every parent of every child.

Even a man who knew the law well, and had spent his entire working life upholding and enforcing it, was made to feel like a suspected paedophile. The very best of us feel the fetid cloud of suspicion hanging over us just because we have dared to photograph a child or grandchild in the company of others, doing something he or she would one day want to remember.

Daft rules

For the record, the law is clear. Schools may, and do, make their own daft rules prohibiting the filming of perfectly innocent activities. But the Data Protection Act does NOT prevent people taking pictures of their children and friends at school events.

Unfortunately, the letter of the law is incidental when it comes to the public hysteria which perceives a child abuser on every street corner. And the government is not helping us to get this matter in proportion.

There is a glimmer of sanity in the announcement that Ed Balls, the Children's Secretary, will look again at the scope of the Independent Safeguarding Authority, but as things stand, 11 million adults will be forced to go through criminal record checks just to run a group of kids to brownies or help out at a youth club. Many, presumably, will simply stop volunteering.

Now, I want to know that my children's teachers are not convicted paedophiles. But I don't want everybody who has the most informal contact with my kids to be put through the bureaucratic wringer.

Too many parents shift the entire responsibility for their child's education onto teachers. Are these parents also to be allowed to charge civil servants with the duty of deciding which of their fellow citizens they should trust?

If these 11 million people must subject themselves to scrutiny, we have overturned a basic principle, that we are all innocent until proved guilty. Like the all-pervasive use of CCTV, the burgeoning DNA database and the proposed use of ID cards, our political masters increasingly demand we prove we are not up to something.

Too many parents are seduced into thinking `stranger danger' means every single stranger is a danger to their children. What we need from government is calm and sanity, not hysterical overreaction. Where does it all end? In a culture of suspicion and blind ignorance which, a few years ago, saw the home of a hospital paediatrician daubed with the word `paedo' by some idiot who could lay his hands on some paint but not a dictionary.

It's time for divorce courts to see sense

THERE are teenage girls up and down this country whose ambition is to be a WAG. Like heroines of Jane Austen novels who know their only chance is to marry well, these girls cynically plan to turn their good looks into a meal ticket for life.

After decades of glass ceilings being broken and equality legislation enacted, isn't it extraordinary to find so many women eager to be the trophy of a rich man? But then the stakes in divorce are so very high. In no way should Heather Mills be seen as a gold-digger, but £24m does seem disproportionate compensation for six years of marriage to Sir Paul McCartney.

Baroness Deech now speaks common sense in criticising judges for too often awarding a wife half the matrimonial assets after even a short, childless marriage. On the one hand, society expects women to work and be rewarded equally with men, but on the other hand, divorce courts seem to assume that the wife is the housekeeper and child-rearer to be `kept' by her husband even after the marriage has foundered.

Tweet