"My child is at football, do you fancy him or something?"

Mind, I'm fascinated by LGJM's determined efforts to claim that "youngsters" (as per reports of this case) in reality means children under the age of 10.

I suppose it's crucial to attempting to smear the victim of this horrific crime.

A few weeks back my girlfriend and I decided to walk into Pudsey park to eat a sandwich that we'd bought from Greggs. It was a nice, sunny day. Kids were playing on the slides, parents were pushing swings, Helen and I were chatting away.

I can't remember the exact subject but I decided to Google something and so got my phone out. Helen quickly told me to put it away in case "someone thinks you're photographing their kids." The thought had never occurred to me before. There's been many an occasion in the past where I've sat in parks during my lunch break, pottering with my phone to pass the time. I'm 32 years old, a little over weight, no kids of my own, typical IT nerd character - I probably fit the profile of a nonce for many a paranoid parent. Have there been people ushering their kids away from my corner of the park and I've just not realised? Could I have become the victim of mob rule simply because I decided to have a look at RLfans in the sunshine?

I've had this conversation with people at work recently (it came about because one of them had bought a GPS tracking bracelet [it looked a lot like an offender's tag for her daughter which I found rather unpleasant and Orwellian) and the consensus was simply "you don't understand because you don't have kids."

Get your workmate a copy of Paranoid Parenting for Xmas?
Mind you, ''she won't understand because she has kids.''

[urlhttp://www.frankfuredi.com/index.php/site/article/272/[/url

It's simple.
Taking photographs in public is fine, the key point being "in public", there is no privacy "in public" (harassment is different).
Taking photos of fully-clothed kids in a normal public situation is a perfectly valid subject, where's the problem?

In answer to Jose ... I have a print photo of my daughter from 30 years ago back when she was three, stark naked, before a bath to wash off all the juice stains from her face, hands, arms, legs etc from the blackberries we'd been picking.
Covered in the stuff she was and it made a rather endearing photo.
If Jose had been working at Boots back then he'd have phoned the Police ... but, and here's the point, NO-ONE DID ... and I wouldn't have expected them to either.

I have a picture of myself, aged about 18 months (must be a daguerrotype

), naked except for a sun hat, with genitals clearly visible, sitting cross-legged on the Scarborough sand.
I have no idea who took the picture ... ooh what if it was a paedo and I've been harmed by it ever since? Ridiculous.
Or, worse, what if a paedophile got a copy while it was being developed .... oooh, I'm defiled. Also ridiculous.

The problem is in the mind of the person who thinks there is a problem.



And there have been cases of people being reported for exactly this – and another I remember where Boots (IIRC) refused to print photos a woman had taken of the 'rude' frescos at Pompeii.

Fuckwittery, prudery and paranoia.

Many years ago my daughter was a very good diver and trained at Shipley. She had a flaw in her technique, minor having said that. Her very good coach tried to explain it to her, it didn't work. I took a video of her and she totally got it when she saw it. The following week there were signs up prohibiting filming.

Oh, now that is really ridiculous, the copyright must have run out centuries ago.

On a not-unrelated note, we went to the [iLife and Death in Pompeii & Herculaneum[/i exhibition at the British Museum a few weeks ago.

Everyone had had to book for a set time, but it was still packed.

One of the exhibits was a sculpture of [iPan and the Goat[/i, which was discovered in the 1750s in Herculaneum.

It features the half man-half goat god Pan shagging a goat. Actually, it's more like 'making love to', because the tenderness is part of the fun.

It spent 200-plus years in one of the 'Secret Museums', where only nice, white, respectable, middle-class (and above) men could see it by appointment.

So there it was and there was I, knowing that history and determined to see it.

It was in a small side room, with a little warning on the wall at the entrance.

But amazingly, it was the only part of the exhibition where you didn't have to queue to see an exhibit. Nobody was near it.

In fact, everyone in the little room was standing as far away from it as possible, pretending to look only at the entirely non-rude exhibits behind windows on all sides, but all the while casting glances at it.

Me being me, I rushed in, with tb not far behind, going: 'wow' – it is absolutely exquisite.

Then, behind us, we heard a very plummy male voice.

"Oh dear," it said.

Then a female plummy voice responded.

"Oh dear, oh dear."

Pause.

"Well, shall we have a look – quickly?"

Worth the admission fee alone.

Similar situation with my daughter and her high-jump technique. She had a lazy left leg but once she'd seen the video, she corrected it herself. Similarly too, I was requested not to take video footage, even though the only person in-shot was my own daughter.

Here is a still picture from Odsal

Horrific, isn't it? An unsuspecting child, aged maybe 10 or 11, and all the rest of the violated, unsuspecting public too.

But it gets worse. Much worse. Because it is not a single image, no, it is a still from a video available on the [url=http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/videos/stadium-legends-odsal-filmYorkshire Film Archive[/url page



In fact, there are countless thousands of men, women and children appearing in this film. I know, it is utterly disgusting. And not a single disclaimer form. Just think what untold damage such shameful anonymous filming in public must have caused.

Or rather, LGJM is spouting the usual claptrap.

If you do not want your children to be viewed by other humans in a public place then do not take them out in public. A "paedo" taking away a surreptitious image of your child to view later is the sort of irrational and paranoid "fear" that is so typical of 21st century dumbed down knee-jerk moral humbug and hypocrisy. It is hardly any different to your child being viewed "live" by the same "paedo", and in any case, the incidence of small and even covert video and still cameras is now so rife, really, trying to "protect" your child from having a blatant photo taken by someone who "might be" a paedo is really pi.s.sing in the wind, isn't it, as you might be totally surrounded by hundreds of paedos with buttonhole or bag cameras all recording every move your child makes. Indeed wouldn't this be the likely preferred MO of a paedo?

Some people really do need to get a slap, and be brought back into reality. If you sat them down and spent some time asking them to rationalise their "fears", and explaining why they are pointless as well as baseless, then eventually the penny might drop but the fashion is instead to feed the paranoia and encourage witch-hunts and vigilantism.

And of course the same children in the same city centre walking the same streets are constantly being recorded from all angles by innumerable video cameras anyway.