Intelligent Giving

Health and safety law in the context of industrial injury springs to mind. A good example is the battle over the degree of responsibility that mining companies should bear for 'vibration white finger'.

Don't shoot the messenger

Very well balanced post LMC. And rather than answering the $1m question I'll evade it (!), I don't know either.

Don't shoot the messenger

I second the 'well done' to IG for going ahead and posting. At the risk of sounding immodest, I think that the question I will be asking at the end of this post is a vital one that is not raised frequently enough in ANY sector/area/situation. I don't have any answer to it - I'm not sure that there is one. But it's one that should be considered more often in my opinion.

First of all, I have no connection with Barnardos - professional or personal. I don't even give them money - they just don't happen to be one of my chosen out of the 190K + charities in the UK.

Second, I think it's important to note that the court cases referred to took place in late 1998 - just over 9 years ago. Not recently, as could be inferred from the original post.

From the second article that Adam linked: "A spokesman for the children's charity said it had been "devastated" by the case. .... He (John Tebbet, Barnardo's director of communication services) said the charity had worked closely with police to bring Dunne to justice and had introduced new measures to prevent such abuse happening again."

To me, that says that Barnardo's co-operated fully in bringing their ex-employee to justice. If they had been trying to 'cover up' then yes, that would have been a crime. The case took place before compulsory CRB checking was in place. The crimes themselves took place over 30 years ago, when no real checks at all were in place.

Without wishing to make light of the pain caused to any individuals who have suffered, most of the children in Barnardo's care at that time benefited - in pure economic terms, the good outweighed the bad. The fact that some suffered is still 'unacceptable'. However, Barnardo's have "paid" for their mistake in employing Dunne and entrusting vulnerable children to his care. Of course, it is a tragic shame that current standards/checking requirements were not in place 30 years ago, or even before then - however far you want to go back. No-one should ever have to go through what those children went through. Even one mistake is one too many. But it was a MISTAKE, not a crime. That mistake (along with too many others by too many other organisations) has been learned from - but even 10 years ago, when these court cases took place, checking of people working or volunteering with vulnerable children or adults was not legally mandatory.

I'm sure that Barnardo's responsibly applied the standards prevailing in the 1960s/70s in delivering their work. The fact that those standards were inadequate cannot be said to be entirely the charity's fault - that fault is shared equally with other children's charities, politicians, the legal system - and society as a whole.

None of the is intended to excuse what happened to those who suffered and nor would I expect it to be any comfort whatsoever. 

However is it really fair to say, *over 30 years on*  that "Barnardos is (still) bad" by reason of this?

And the $64,000 dollar question: How far *do* you go in applying today's standards, expectations and perceptions to events past - and how far back is it reasonable to do so?

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... nearly Vlad the Impaler

Without declaring a personal opinion on this story you won't be suprised to hear that I applaud IG for printing Mr De Carss comments and adding the appropriate links.

An organisation with IG's declared remit should not cave in to aggressively litigious charities whose only interest is in preventing free speach and reasonable discussion. I'm not suggesting that Barnado's fall into this category..... but others do.

Good decision Adam et al.

The comment printed below refers to cases of child abuse perpetrated at a Barnardo's home during the 1960s and 1970s. Details can be found here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/241749.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/235618.stm

We published the comment after lengthy internal discussion. We do not believe that it gives a true picture of Barnardo's activities. However, to the best of our knowledge the comment appears accurate and is not obviously misleading. This is why we decided to publish it. But we'll let you decide what to make of it.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

TO WHOM IN QUESTION OF CHARITY RESEARCHERS.

I HAVE WON A VERY SUCCESSFULL CIVIL COURT CASE VERSE DR BARNARDOS WITH THE HELP OF LEGAL AID COSTING AROUND 4M, MILLLION POUNDS : THE CRIMES TOOK PLACE FROM 1966 to 1973 .BONFIRES CRIMES TO VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN CARE BY CHRISTIANS.

www.bbc.co.uk/news Barnardos sexual abuse. Ripon
www.bbc.co.uk/news Barnardos abuse.Ripon

I WA TAKEN INTO CARE BECOURSE I WAS A RETARTED AUSTIC SPASTIC IN A PLACE OF CHILD SLAVERY CAMP IN RIPON ENGLAND . CALLED THE OLD BISHOP'S PALACE. RIPOB UK.

SEBASTIAN J E DE CARSS

www.bbc.co.uk/news Sebastian de Carss / U
NICEF / THE BBC THE WEB BOX PETITIONS.

NONE ONE CAN GET AWAY FROM CRIMES AGAINST VULNERABLE CHILDREN ON CARE SYSTEM

YOUR SINCERELY SEBASTIAN DE CARSS