• Media Enquiries

    07505 448925(24hr)

Taking your son’s picture? Really? Are you a paedophile?

Childcatcher Kevin Geraghty-Shewan had taken four-year-old Ben to the Bridges
Shopping Centre in Sunderland and took a picture of him while they were out shopping. He was accused of being a paedophile and threatened with arrest.

He told Sky News:

I took the picture on my phone and suddenly this security guard came up and told me it wasn't allowed because I could be a paedophile.

He told the guard that Ben was his son, but the guard replied that he couldn't prove it. A few minutes later Geraghty-Shewan was accosted by a policeman, who must have been contacted by the centre. The officer demanded his name and address, asked what I was doing in Sunderland, and said he had the right to delete my pictures.

Naturally, being confronted with this nonsense, Geraghty-Shewan became annoyed and raised his voice, and the officer threatened him with arrest "for breach of the peace."

Both the security guard and the police officer in this case are examples of the absurd reaction many people exhibit when they see fathers with their children.

This country has a destructive obsession with paedophilia. It is harming both parenthood and childhood, and it acts as a magic watchword for petty bureaucrats using overbearing powers.

By Alex Deane

Posted on February 26, 2010 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Overbearing state
  • CW

    Someone needs to sue one of these deranged fanatics for slander, plus seek financial compensation for the psychological trauma caused to their child.
    A few thousand pounds in fines, or better still, a jail sentence, and the cretins might start using their brains again.

  • Sandy

    I think we have Jim Gamble and the CEOP who are now targeting 5 year olds with a cartoon video to thank for this . My sister, who is a school teacher can no longer help a small child change his pants if he has had an accident…she must inform the parent. If the parent is at work and cannot leave ,the child must remain in wet pants for the day. Now tell me what is going on?

  • http://jess-the-dog.blogspot.com/ Jess The Dog

    Anyone get the cop’s name?
    Name and shame them….easy enough to get details and photos on most police force websites. Watching the watchers….
    I have a suggestion for a campaign. A folded leaflet or even a pack entitled “Your Rights”….maybe Liberty could assist and the Tories/Lib Dems could support it.
    It would contain details of what our rights are, and how to assert them, how to formally complain or take legal action, how to use FoI and other means of seeking information, also dispelling common myths (like the cop’s ‘right’ to delete photographs).
    It could even be a PDF for download from this website. Go on….

  • Sandy
  • Shelly

    Although this incident may seem a bit overreactive, bear in mind that like with the smoking-ban, laws of this nature are meritous on their face value of providing goodness in the way of giving us the health, safety and security we so rigidly desire.
    And once we have acquiesced to one such law, then we have acquiesced to all.
    One cannot “pick and choose” which groups of potential “harmers to society” should be singled out more or less, once the ball gets rolling and approval has been given to the one – then it applies equally, to all.
    That is the nature of the beast and always has been, throughout history, unless history is of no value in our post-modern age of enlightenment in which we once again find ourselves beholding to the dictates from above, human beings here on earth in authority who certainly know and speak the truth better than the eternal laws from a higher order, which we have been instructed to ignore.
    Once history has been rewritten to ignore former consequences and one full generation raised to believe in what the earthly rulers have said to be truth, from that point on there will be no further outrages against incidents like the one portrayed by this story. It may even last for one-thousand years or longer once firmly established, the final goal very close at hand.

  • Redacted

    Esther Rantzen in the Daily Mail, from 2008, famously. Worth reading if you haven’t already.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1033483/I-launched-Childline-protect-vulnerable–unleashed-politically-correct-monster.html
    The Jobsworths are still going strong and burning the witches though. Sadly people in general seem much more inclined to hysteria than to common sense. I wonder what the evolutionary advantage could be?
    I suspect the main driver is that a lot of people in positions of responsibility are terrified of being sued or becoming the centre of a media storm as the result of an event arousing child protection hysteria. Common sense in that climate becomes a matter of protecting your own hide at all costs.
    What to do?

  • Reason
  • Purlieu

    I am so tempted to take an empty camera (no pics on the card) and pretend to take pics in a shopping centre. Then when I’m asked to show the pics …
    Actually my camera has internal memory as well as a card slot, I could take it without the card in …

  • Lee

    @Purlieu – current high-end DLSRs that shoot video to CF cards can store upwards of 4 hours of HD video (on a 64GB CF card).
    It would be monumentally cruel (and somewhat fun) to consent to a viewing by an officer or PCSO of your camera’s contents.
    I have, on more than one occasion, filled up the two or three 32GB CF cards I work from, I wonder at what point the officer would simply give up and let the ‘terror’ suspect wonder off with unchecked footage/photos ?
    I expect of the 6 hours across those three CF cards (of mostly junk, photos of my 2 year old son, videos of cyclists, clouds, friends, buildings, street scenes an so on) – the officer would be probably loose the will to live after just the first 30 minutes.

  • Lee

    One other often overlooked question with regard to these incidents . .
    **The officer demanded his name and address, asked what I was doing in Sunderland, and said he had the right to delete my pictures**
    Why on earth would an officer want to delete the evidence of an alleged offence ?

  • Lee

    This is how they handle it in the US . . . .same wilful ignorance of the very law they claim to be enforcing, but the police over there end up getting a (metaphorical) kick in the rear and a $30,000 bill.
    http://markfocus.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-to-finance-new-camera-take-photos.html

  • http://www.genewatch.org Police are not ccountable

    I don’t advice any one to take photos at shopping centres, don’t forget that a police officer can arrest you just on suspicion and for the purposes of the prompt investigation of an alleged offence “they don’t need evidence to arrest you” that means you will be taken to the police station and have your DNA, fingerprints, mug shots, footwear impressions, palm prints, personal details, digital signature if you provide it, a PNC record will be created which will prevent you from using the US visa waiver scheme so you will be denied entry to the US and maybe other countries in the future, your DNA will be retained for 6 years but your PNC will be retained for 100 years. There are no plans in the currant Crime & Security Bill to delete PNC records of innocent arrestees.

  • Purlieu

    They can only take DNA for a “reportable offence” so I guess he’s have to arrest you for one of those …
    That’s ARRESTED for, not ACCUSED of.
    http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200001/cmbills/031/01031–o.htm

  • Purlieu

    Sorry I think I meant “recordable”

  • Sandy
  • http://www.ghd-straighteners-autralia.com ghd hair

    oh, it is great!wonderful post,ha.