NSPCC joins in register calls

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) has added its voice to campaigners calling for a register. The move follows two separate court cases last month involving a childminder and a nanny.

In the first case in Croydon, Surrey, a registered childminder, Linda Bayfield, was found guilty of the manslaughter of eight-month-old Joshua Osborne by shaking him vigorously. She will be sentenced next week. In the second case, a London nanny, Kelly Lawrence, received a 15-month jail sentence on 21 December for abusing two 14-month-old toddlers in her care, and the judge said she was disqualified from working with children for life.

But Tricia Pritchard, spokeswoman for CRY, the campaign for the registration of all those working with children and young people, said the judge was mistaken in thinking that 'the childcare industry is regulated in such a way that someone with a criminal conviction can be disqualified from working with children'.

Ms Pritchard said, 'We must remind the Government of its pledge to regulate nanny agencies, and continue lobbying for all childcarers to be registered and police-checked so when Kelly Lawrence comes out of prison she will not be able to work with children.

'She will never be able to obtain work as a childminder, nursery worker or playgroup leader, but she will be able to work as a nanny. Until nanny agencies are required by law to check that nannies are who they say they are, and there is a registering body to report to if something appears suspect, the likes of Kelly Law- rence will be able to seek work with children through an agency.' The NSPCC expressed grave concern about nannies being unregistered childcarers and called on the Government to close such a loophole on child protection grounds. NSPCCeducation and employment policy adviser, David Coulter, said, 'We want to ensure that dangerous or unsuitable adults do not have access to children, and a national register may well reduce the risk of children being maltreated by carers.' He pointed out that section 35 of the Justice and Court Services Act 2000 places the onus on the nanny not to take up work if she has been disqualified from working with children and that parents are not allowed to do police checks on a nanny themselves but have to ask the nanny to do it.

Miss Lawrence had been placed in her job through the central office in London of the nanny agency Tinies. Its co-director, Ben Black, said that in this particular case, she was 'a decent nanny who went bad'. He stressed that her references had been checked, she had had no prior record of physically abusing children, and she was a qualified childcarer.

He called on the Government to introduce a national register so that agencies and parents could see if a nanny had a criminal conviction or a bad reputation. Mr Black said that Tinies and other agencies had had to create their own informal 'bad nanny register' to try to prevent some people from working with children.

Amanda Coxen, another co-director of Tinies and its legal advisor, said, 'In this case we decided with the parents involved to prevent her from working with children, so we contacted 200 agencies in the UKto tell them what she had done. But Kelly could still advertise herself privately as a nanny in local newspapers - it would not protect parents who don't go through agencies.'