No doubt many readers of The Press have heard tales of schools banning cameras/camcorders, etc, from Nativity plays, sports days and swimming galas.

The usual excuse would be “there are some parents who don’t want photographs/video-recordings of their children being owned by strangers”.

This has been my experience, while watching my granddaughter in her Nativity play one year.

Questioning other grandparents/parents afterwards would reveal that not one had ever voiced any such complaint.

I read in a daily newspaper about a father going along to his son’s school to watch him participate in the sports day. He was turned away at the school gates because he didn’t have the necessary clearance from the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).

Rather than cause a fuss, and possibly upset his son, he turned round and went home.

Many people meekly submit their names to the CRB, if they want to help out at their local school as a classroom assistant/swimming-pool helper, etc. Without the CRB clearance they won’t be allowed to.

So, working on the thinking behind the CRB, we are, until we submit our names to the CRB, “guilty until proved innocent” or, in other words, we are (theoretically) all paedophiles until the CRB have checked us out. Frightening, isn’t it?

Philip Roe, Roman Avenue South, Stamford Bridge.