They give us the cameras and moan when we want to take pictures of our sons/daughters/nieces and nephews etc. I have a solution to this. We have an amnesty where pictures of children at swimming pools and other such activities can be handed in and destroyed so they dont fall into the hands of perverts.This would see the confiscation and prosecution of everyone that owns Nirvanas "nevermind" album Once every photo has been destroyed we can then start smashing all of the naked cherubs in the worlds art galleries, After all a pervert may see them. These people such as the idiot spokesWOMAN (for it was clearly a she)for the organisation Kidscape on the tv spot related to this story are the western version of the Taliban. They wont be happy until they squeeze every ounce of pleasure ,joy and beauty out of this world.BEWARE THE NEW PURITANS!!!

www.bbc.co.uk/southtoday/content/article...photos_feature.shtml

This link also has the full programme for viewing presumably up till about 7pm today

I been to that Haven park and its very snobbish so it don't surprise me at all. I would love to boycott Haven me and my sister was featured in their broucher years ago in our swim suits running around the pool etc did us no harm just our 15 mins of fame if you can call it that.

This is madness I got aload of photos of me in a pool on holiday which my parents took. Couple of years ago 2 old grannies took a picture of a empty pool in a park in Autumn they were arrested and think even dubbed a pedo.

In the interests of balance...
I have a conviction for the possession of indecent images of children. And while I applaud the overall tone of your post, Giles, I feel I should take issue with the final lines of it. It's not "pleasure" or "joy" for the kids who find {or possibly quite often don't- at least they are spared the knowledge of their abuse } themselves posted all over the net in various stages of undress. There is no "beauty" in that. As pictures they are in themselves harmless. But as a source of tittilation for an univited audience not only are they harmful, they are genuinely abusive.
I don't believe anybody wants to confiscate family albums, neither is the intention to prevent people taking pictures of their own kids at swimming pools, beaches, or anywhere else where the results might be a wanking opportunity for people who really ought to know better.
We need to take a sensible view of this, something which we seem singularly incapable of doing. As long as one one side we have hysteria and witch hunts and on the other a press who use stories like this as a way to sell papers to a public who actually appear to enjoy reading about things like this the real problem will remain unadressed. People who enjoy looking at these kind of images need help. Not hanging, not having the key thrown away, and not castrating. People like me need to realise why it's wrong and set their moral compasses accordingly. But as long as there are abusers there are the abused. We need to stop it. I know little about this case, mainly because little has been, so far, made public. Just enough to paint the woman in question in the worst possible light while appealing to those who wish to shriek while their imaginations go into overdrive. But what I do know is that until we begin to grasp this nettle in a civilised way it won't go away. The people at Kidscape - an organisation I know nothing about - are at least seemingly motivated by good intentions, something that those who would promote the abuse of children can never claim. An overview is certainly needed. But it needs to be measured and sympathetic. Certainly there are those whose actions are motivated purely by evil. But not all who have fallen - or will fall - foul of the law are irredeemable. I certainly hope I'm not. People like me need to speak out because we've been there. The police have their problems and their rotten apples. They are, after all, drawn from a society beset with its own ills. Balance, please....

I think we have now reached the point in the ORWELLIAN LABOUR BRITAIN where :

All photos are Child Porn if they

a) Show a place where children might go
b) Show any child up to 18 years old

Therefore most families are now at risk of being raided for their own family photos .

This is getting more scary every day. We are not free anymore in the UK.

In addition although only 15% want LABOUR in the UK they carry on regardless of how we feel and get more extreme every day.

This is truly a One Party State - where the elections are now window dressing and where opposition parties are intimidated with violence if they look a threat ( BNP ) or being arrested ( Tory - Green etc ) or being ridiculed ( UKIP - Libs ) by the ruling elite.

Wow, BR. How spectacularly you miss the point. When, exactly, was the last time you smelt the coffee? You can take this conspiracy stuff too far, you know...

Contrary to what some people have been led to believe, there is no law that says you cannot take a photograph of any subject in a public place. If some life guard at a swimming pool or on a beach forbids you to take a photo of your own child, just tell him: "Listen, pal, you've no authority to stop me taking photos and I shall take as many photos as I want!" and if he threatens to call the police, just say: "Alright, call the police if you want to. I've not broken any law and meanwhile, I shall carry on taking pictures."

This whole situation has got completely out of control. Twenty years ago, the definition of child pornography was any image or images of a child engaged in sexual activity by themselves, or with other children or with adults. These days, ALL images of children, whether drawings or paintings or photographs, are classed as pornographic. I wonder if all the microwave radiation from the thousands of mobile phone base stations is frying peoples brains and eliminating common sense.

And supposing a paedophile did take a photograph of a child on a beach...how could the taking of that photo harm the child in any way whatsoever? It couldn't, of course. I still have many family photos taken of me as a child in the early 1950's building sandcastles on the beaches at Blackpool and Southport. There are other children in the backround enjoying themselves, too and no one ever tried to stop my parents taking photos of me. If you could go back in a time machine to 1951 and tell the people there taking photos of their kids just how paranoiac things are regarding these simple pleasures in 2009, they would never believe you.

We live in a country where if you are male and walking down the street you feel as though you must stare skywards if small children are approaching. After my twice weekly shopping excursion to town I come back with a crick in my neck from all the cloud fascination.

What a wonderful place the UK has become...they didn't tell me any of this when I was a kid.

I'm serious...for the first time in my life I am TRULY thinking about emigrating.

This is where you are wrong. I know personally people who have been arrested for less.

The Police can arrest you - today a woman has been charged with making - distributing Child Porn on her mobile phone camera. The crime - a TORSO.

This is not conspiracy stuff at all - it is genuinely happening.

The law has been changed so that EVEN FULLY CLOTHED PICTURES OF UNDER 18s can be used as evidence - IF the POLICE decide the child is posing in a sexual way ( e.g Head back or sitting astride a horse or seat or in nightwear or swimwear or leotards etc ) That is the new laws which HAVE been passed. Go and read them - they are readily available on the Government websites. The Government is not hiding anything - they have published these laws.

They now apply to UNDER 18s ( which means Sam Fox photos are child porn ) as has been pointed out on here several times.

Wake up and realise that in the last 12 years New Labour has re-written the Sexual Offences act on a number of occasions to widen it so wide that now all it needs is "suspicion" to make someone a criminal - you dont even need any evidence. If someone says a photo is "porn and sexual" then it IS. Even though it might be 100% innocent.

Their argument is ( and this has been published as well ) that Paedophiles would often pleasure themselves with photographs of fully clothed child models from catalogues etc. Therefore, any photo can be porn.

If you have missed all of this in the press and in legal pages and on photography sites then you really are living in a different world - head in the sand springs to mind.

and just to prove my point - even TODAY they have again changed the law ( This time in Scotland )

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8092157.stm

No wonder solicitors are so stressed and so unable to keep up with the changes that seem to happen on a daily basis in order for the Police to be able to keep arresting more and more people.

I don't blame you, Fat Controller, but I'm too old to emigrate now, so I'm stuck here. I remember that when I was a little boy, many years ago, adults and children mixed freely together and children respected grown ups. You could go into any park and see "strangers" pushing children on the swings and on the roundabouts and down the slides and nothing untoward ever happened. If you passed an adult stranger on the street, you'd greet each other "Hiya, mister" "Hiya, sonny." We'd stand outside the pictures if an "A" certificate film was showing (children not allowed in unless accompanied by an adult) and ask a man to take us in. Modern parents would be horrified by such a once commonplace practise. But those days are long gone.

These days, young boys look at every man they pass in the street with great suspicion, having been taught from the cradle by their paranoid parents that every man in the country is out to do them harm and any adult that wants to work with children to help them, whether as a scout leader or youth worker is treated with great suspicion. No wonder there's such a generation gap.

This forced inability for young boys to have adult male role models is one of the reasons why the country's in such a mess. One other thing that we don't see any more. The streets of my childhood were full of the sound of children happily playing. These days, the streets are definitely not alive with the sound of children. In fact, the streets are devoid of children. So where are they all? They're all inside the houses, forbidden by their parents to go out to play in case they get abducted. There are about three child abductions per year in this country. Which means that your child has got more chance of winning the jackpot on the national lottery than of being abducted by a crazed sex fiend. But common sense has gone out the window these days.

but you cant blame parents.

They are TERRIFIED.

The way in which the Plymouth Case has been blown out of all proportion is similar to the WITCH HUNTS by Hitler of those he singled out to destroy.

The Police have spent more time at press conferences NOT ANSWERING any questions than giving any information at all. They have hinted and tried every emotional trick possible to frighten parents in Plymouth and around the UK.

Therefore you cant blame parents.

Three abductions a year you say - probably true. But the Police and News of the World have made every parent feel that every day hundreds of abductions are taking place. Thousands of photos are being taken of unsuspecting children and so on and so on.

One day someone will tell the Police that they have to deal in facts. Some one will tell them to issue statements of fact and let the courts decide the guilt or otherwise of suspects.

Our Police are destroying the country. They are as has been pointed out today by the GREEN PARTY - an out of control group of people who need to be stopped.

Well, I will say that if P.C. George Dixon was to come back today, he wouldn't recognise the modern police force and there's something very odd about the Plymouth case. Yes, it's true that there are female paedophiles, too (although perhaps not as many as their male counterparts). But there's something about this case that doesn't feel right. We'll have to see what evidence is presented in court.

This country is in a terrible mess and is getting worse all the time. There is a witch hunt going on regarding paedophiles that has got more and more intense in the past twenty years. There have always been people who are sexually attracted to children and it's nothing new. I remember reading in the Sunday papers fifty years ago about vicars touching up choir boys in vestrys. But the same song and dance wasn't made about it then that is made about it today.

The present witch hunt is allegedly to protect children, but is probably part of a wider plan to make this a complete surveilance society where you are forbidden to do anything anymore. Even train spotters get into trouble now for taken innocent photos or video footage of trains entering stations. And that has nothing to do with protecting childen. I agree with you that parents these days are terrified. So something must be done to convince them that there is nothing to worry about.

I retired from the police force in the early 90s and even I wouldn't recognise it now, so PC Dixon would have no chance. In the early 90s we saw the beginning of the current paranoia when trawling operations were in full swing and the media were realising what mileage they could get from allegations of child abuse. It has spiralled out of control since then and the police have not only lost the trust of the British public but, to their shame, do not care that they have. I deeply regret the way things have developed in this nation.

some wierd replies there.

People are weird..they really think a camera is stealing their soul!

I have a friend who is the photo editor on one of Murdoch's largest Oz tabloids.He told me was abused for taking pics of his own kids in a pool and he knows he'spart of the problem working for a news outlet that promotes the hysteria.

Isn't kidscape run by that strange woman who reckons the new threat is pedos "brushing against children" as they rush down the street?..another wacky nutjob.

odd isn't it that the man who promoted so much of this "pedo" hysteria made his money from producing and selling (what is now regarded as ) child porn in his Page 3 models.

I see the evil sod is now saying Obama is very dangerous..this after supporting Bush & Blair who between them have caused the deaths of thousands of kids.

If only the modern police were as you used to be then, Beat Master. What I can't understand is while the public know what's going on and don't like it, they don't do anything about it. What are they being dosed with clandestinely to make them so compliant?

It surprises me that there hasn't been an uprising in this country before now, especially when parents are forbidden to take innocent photos of their own children at play. We once had a Civil War in this country for less than is going on now. There's something really odd going on, that's for sure.

It reminds me of part of the opening notice at the start of the 1960 film "The Alamo." "They faced the decision that all men in all times have faced. The eternal choice of men. To endure oppression or to resist." How much more must the British people be pushed towards the edge of the precipice before they begin to turn around and fight back?

some wierd replies there.

People are weird..they really think a camera is stealing their soul!

Excellent point Veritas.

The logical extension would be to force children, both boys and girls, to wear burqas.

A rather depressing point I need to make is that it is no longer in the power of the British government to define child pornography. A few years ago the United Nations defined child porn as an image of a person who is under 18 or LOOKS under 18, and that merely implies sexuality. This legally binding definition formed part of the rights of the child treaty which every country in the UN signed up to.

In other words, in every single country in the world these laws now apply (or should do).

I remember reading last year that Germay were being pressurised into bringing their child porn laws into line. Previously Germany had enshrined in law the sensible distinction between a child (under 14) and a young person (14 -18). 'Youth porn', was not illegal. There was a lot of opposition from the Greens and social democrats, one of the politicians calling it a form of American 'sexual colonisation' and cited concerns that 14 year olds could go to jail for uploading nude pics onto MySpace (as happens regularly in America). In the end the protest was so great that the government of Angela Merkel agreed to put the new leglislation on hold until a thorough review took place.

Now obviously most governments (especially ours) are happy to implement these laws because it gives them and their police forces terrifying powers over a huge percentage of their populations.

it's a touchy subject innocent accused but I do believe these laws are being abused by authorities for nefarious purposes and they do little to help genuinely abused children

It's impossible to make sweeping statements such as looking at photos is continuing the abuse. That means-unlike any other crime on the statutes that judges,lawyers, police , juries and even defendents in cases are literally abusing the person during a court case.
We know policeman, barristers, judges and even a top crown prosecutor have all been arrested on child porn charges.

After the Abu Graihb torture photos outraged the world you may recall there were horrific videos of Westerners (including Britons) being beheaded, circulating. Some of these clips were shown up to certain points on mainstream TV around the world.

It was clearly propaganda and it produced the desired effect..absolute horror throughout the West. I say anyone who participated in even viewing those videos fully or partly could be accused of encouraging the atrocities.

The law must always be consistent if it is to be fair-it's gotten out of balance and that is because the media and hysteria drives much of today's lawmaking. That is a bad thing.

One side will say porn encourages abuse yet the psychiatric world says porn probably decreases abuse. I certainly don't know the answer.

I also believe the current hysteria creates victims who weren't necessarily there in the first place .
Tell people enough times they should be full of guilt and shame for something that happened to them and they'll believe it eventually.

Also I've said it a hundred times-Interpol who have been in the business longer than most have declared that around 85% of what is classed as child porn that is recycled on the net is up to 50 years old.

It could be questioned also that the FBI which claims that it keeps 800,000 images on file in an attempt to identify "victims" is in itself continuing the abuse by their own reckoning and if Interpol is correct then it's likely the majority of people in the pics are well past middle-aged by now.

I'd also question whether a majority of people really would be upset if their snaps popped up on the net. It would depend on whether real abuse happened at the time.

We can always use the Page 3 Girls as an example. I'm still waiting for one to sue one day. Not only would they win in spectacular fashion but the media and legal sensation would be earth shattering.

Wake-up former Page 3 girls-there's a fortune to be had !

As for photography in public places..I have a young gay friend of 24 who poses for raunchy snaps and runs his own blog publishing these snaps and those of his friends. He told me how he was acosted on Bondi by lifesavers a few months ago when he was photographing a surfing friend.

This guy is an amateur and was quite disturbed...I informed him that the professional snappers I know all carry a copy of the rules about public photography (which basically say there is no right to privacy) on them as even the cops don't know the rules.

Local councils have tried to enforce laws which have been deemed unlawful...people have been arrested snapping topless girls on Bondi with the cases thrown out of court and costs awarded against the police...yet Bondi itself participates in a TV show shown around the world that breaks their own unenforceable laws by showing thousands of beachgoers in the background without their permission.

Even worse-the Lifesavers know the 6 or so papparazi who patrol Bondi snapping topless celebrities covertly and never hinder them

4 months ago when returning from Thailand I was stopped at Customs (I always expect it ) searched and asked if I'd particpate in a local "reality" TV show about Customs. I said "yes as long as the producer comes over and negotiates a fee "..I was then questioned basically as to "what did I have to hide"...I replied I didn't realize taxpayer funded Customs officers were now spruiking for a commercial TV show and asked for their business cards at which point I was politely ushered out.

The laws about photography...about what is really porn or child porn are an absolute shambles...everywhere.

What needs to happen, and what is happening but too slowly, is for the general population to realise how unstable and unsafe many of these laws are. We still have a jury system (for now) and while the law still forces people to face prosecution, the jury have the power to find them not guilty, and to not have to explain their decision. Even if a judge advises them that they must return a guilty verdict, they can still do the opposite because, in practice, the judge is a mere referee and it is the jury who do the actual judging. If more juries understood the power they have, and used it, then fewer wrongful convictions may take place, but first the people who make up the juries must be educated. This takes time and experience.

Logically, the more people who are arrested and convicted on these stupid laws, the more people understand the reality of them, because each person's life touches so many others. The ripples of injustice reach far and wide. It's not just one person being made to suffer in each case; there are familes, friends, colleagues, etc. many of whom know the real truth and are having their eyes opened on a daily basis.

Similar background and similar feelings, Beat Master.

The police force is unrecognisable now, and it has lost touch with it's original purpose.