Most of us would do anything we could to keep children from harm.  The nation followed the events of the Soham murder trial with horror, anguish, disbelief, but perhaps now it is time to put our money where our mouths are.  What are we prepared to do to minimise the risk of the abuse, molestation, abduction, rape and murder of children?

English law has been built up over decades and centuries with statutes and cases overlapping, sometimes contradicting, but always creating more and more complexity.  The amateur lawyer enters at his peril.  Yet there is one simple underlying principle which everyone in the country could quote: a man is innocent until proven guilty. 

Huntley was accused on ten previous occasions of crimes such as indecent behaviour, under-age sex and rape.  Most of his accusers were young girls.  But none of the accusations resulted in a trial, and so in the eyes of the Law Huntley was innocent.  Civil liberty groups would no doubt urge that police records should not be kept on innocent people, and so in Huntley’s case he should have left Humberside without a stain on his character.  If we would do anything to save our children, this is where we need to start.

Crimes between adults are one thing.  One must assume that victims have access to resources to fight their case.  Crimes against children are different.  Most parents would not want to submit their already traumatised children to a difficult court case which, at the end of the day, might rest on very little tangible evidence.  The absence of convictions against Huntley does not necessarily signify his innocence. It may simply indicate a parental desire to protect their children from more pain.  In some places there have been recent experiments with the baseball ‘three hits and out’ policy, particularly as applied to cases of vandalism.  There is no reason why this should not be extended to sexual claims by children against adults.  After claims against him by three different children the adult is out of protection and in a sex offenders’ file.  He is barred from jobs and voluntary work involving children.  Any more accusations and the adult is guilty until he proves his innocence.

The Huntley case was confused by other factors.  Huntley moved to Cambridgeshire and changed his name.  Two police forces were involved; connections were not made; and so Huntley was allowed to take a job as caretaker in a school.  It seems odd that the payroll department should have accepted a new employee without P45, P60, or National Insurance number, but the pseudonym prevented proper checks being made.  If you want to make a small investment you will have to prove who you are and where you live by producing driving licence, utility bill, bank statement, etc.  If we care about our children as much as we care about our money it doesn’t seem too much to ask that schools adopt the same policy.  But this is where another change would be helpful: identity cards for all adults.  Come on, you Civil Liberty Groups, what price do you put on a potential infringement of your so-called privacy?

The only scrap of comfort for the victims’ families would be if they felt that Holly and Jessica did not die in vain.  Would we really do anything?  If so, we owe it to those families to do something: introduce a radical change in how we protect our children.