“My daughter is a keen rugby player—she is only 13 and her mother hopes that she will learn to do something a bit more sensible, but she is my daughter so, unfortunately, the chances of her growing up to do something sensible are limited. I feel that I cannot even take a camera to a game of girls’ or boys’ rugby without being looked at in a strange way. At best, I might end up in a diary column; at worst, I might end up appearing in front of the local magistrate having to explain why I was taking a photograph of young children. The situation is getting to the point of hysteria.”

So commented the Conservative MP for Uxbridge, John Randall, in April this year during the photography debate in the House of Commons. True, MPs were debating the introduction of section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, however Shahid Malik, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of state for the Home Department replied:

“There are no legal restrictions on photography in a public place, and there is no presumption of privacy for individuals in a public place.”

It is a shame that no-one at ground level seems to have taken much notice.

Visitors to PhotoLegal will be aware the press recently reported of a proud grandfather taking photographs of his grandson playing in goal during a football match. A match official challenged him bizarrely using non-enforceable rules about permission being needed by the parents or guardians of all the other children and that the club would be fined by the Football Association (in the newspaper article the FA are quoted as stating that they encourage appropriate photography).

How have we allowed ourselves to become so narrow minded to make a now embarrassed grandfather feel obliged to delete his innocently taken photos fearing he has been labelled a predatory paedophile? If openly taking photos of young friends or relatives playing football in a field is the action of a paedophile, so must watching.

The behaviour of retired Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Stevenson is key. I proposed in a previous article if you have nothing to hide you have everything to fear and once again a photograph has been taken openly by someone who has nothing to hide. This reasonable act has been met with a knee-jerk response. In the future how might a reasonable member of the public act should they want to capture a family memory? Would they feel comfortable, or afraid and intimidated in case another adult thought the worst?

The capturing of images that include children is not an offence, what defines its legality is the nature of the image and how the child is portrayed.

At the beginning of October three adults were convicted of sexual abuse and the making and distributing of indecent images of children. These images were taken privately in the children’s nursery by child carers in Efford, Plymouth using small mobile phones and sent to an abuser using e-mail or text. Whilst this case is rare in many respects, the historic abuse of children behind the closed doors of a secure and sterile environment such as a care home or school is not.

The vast majority of images taken publicly on sports fields will be by parents, relatives or friends, yet it seems that society is only capable of assuming that anyone taking photos containing a child regardless of the circumstances must be doing so for deviant reasons. Perhaps children would be better served if those wanting to identify predatory paedophiles were to challenge furtive behaviour or the use of smaller and consequently more covert devices, rather than focusing on an easy target of someone openly taking photos in a park or on the street.

Sadly other issues cloud the problem such as the desire of some elements of the media to sexualise children, selling an image or creating a problem that their advertisers have a ‘solution’ for. The recent article Isn’t it time that Lolita grew up? in the T2 section of The Times also demonstrates the shocking use of inappropriate clothing by parents to introduce their children to sex and sexuality. If there was no demand, such clothes would never exist. Why then, in a culture where we are only now acknowledging the extent of abuse let alone understanding the causes, do we allow children to be sexualised by the media and associated corporations?

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