Please remember that not ALL men are crazed perverts and predatory paedophiles
TAKE a look at this photo of Karl Pollard and his 14-year-old daughter, Stephanie.
Look alike, don’t they?
But when Karl checked them in to the same hotel room before a visit to his dying mother in a nearby hospital, staff reported him to police as a suspected paedophile.
“It was an emotional trip already, but it was made so much worse — one minute I was brushing my teeth, the next I was being told I was a paedophile,” says Karl, 46, of Lampeter, South West Wales, who booked the double room after being told by reception that it was the only one available.
The hotel in question, the Travelodge in Macclesfield, Cheshire, at least had the grace to admit it “got it wrong”, but added: “All our hotel teams are trained according to national guidelines supported by the NSPCC.”
But surely, rather than robotically adopting the “all adult men sharing a room with a young girl must be a paedophile” mindset, a modicum of common sense must be factored in?
Their physical similarity aside, what about their body language, or the way they interact?
Any eye-rolling or exasperated tutting from a young girl every time the man opened his mouth would tell you immediately that it’s a father with his teenage daughter.
Or how about quietly taking him to one side to prove their matching surname?
Instead, the police were called and not until Karl and a “distraught” Stephanie had been interviewed separately did officers believe his protestations of innocence.
Stephanie’s mother Kim has multiple sclerosis and wasn’t able to make the trip.
But if it had been her checking in to the room with Stephanie, there’s little doubt that it wouldn’t have been regarded as a police matter.
Yes, there are predatory male paedophiles who prey on young girls, but they remain the exception rather than the rule.
And yes, the routine sexual abuse of young girls in Rochdale was ignored by police for years.
But that shouldn’t mean the pendulum swings so far the other way that all men are treated as paedophiles until proven otherwise.
Green 'n' bear it, Kate
A SMALL number of foam-flecked potty mouths in the echo chamber that is Twitter professed themselves outraged that the Duchess of Cambridge stuck to royal protocol by not wearing MeToo black to the Baftas.
While others mused that her black sash and handbag were perhaps a quiet nod to the Time’s Up campaign.
Yawn. She was wearing black mascara too, if that helps.
Tellingly, no one dared criticise Best Actress winner Frances McDormand for wearing red – probably because the movie clip writ large on the auditorium screens showed her no-nonsense character kicking three people in the crotch.
As she so eloquently explained, she has trouble with compliance but still supports the cause.
In other words, not wearing black doesn’t mean you support the sexual harassment or abuse of women in the workplace, it simply means you’re not a virtue-signalling sheep.
Which is a pretty powerful statement in itself.
- THE estranged wife of under- cover investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre has been arrested on suspicion of planting a secret “coat hook” camera in his home. If the ongoing investigation decides there’s a case to answer against mother of four Ameera, 43, one might humbly suggest that she has some way to go in matching her husband’s skills at subterfuge. She was rumbled after allegedly buying the device on his Amazon account.
Powerful messages
AFTER being honoured by the Queen last week, Helen Sharman said: “It’s very powerful that I was the first British astronaut, regardless of gender . . . I think it’s quite clear to girls that I just got on with it.”
And there, in my opinion, is an attitude towards gender equality that’s far more effective than protests or women-only shortlists will ever be.
A write mess at Oxfam
THE Oxfam scandal rumbles on as more first-hand accounts emerge of bad behaviour towards vulnerable women by certain aid workers abusing their positions of trust.
And that’s not all.
This week, the UK-based African Health Policy Network declared that we have: “A broken aid system, one in which the EU controls African countries with its agricultural policies and drives down innovation and local production. A shift to direct investment and trade is long overdue.”
Hear, hear. So let’s hope the Department for International Develop- ment seizes the chance to overhaul the entire system, rather than focusing on a few bad apples. But don’t hold your breath.
In the meantime, anyone got an indelible pen to cross out mission statement number four on Oxfam’s shopfronts?
- PREGNANT Carolyn Lipczynski took out a payday loan of £10,000 to fund IVF treatment because the “postcode lottery” meant she couldn’t get it on the NHS in her home town of Bromley, South London. With an APR of 49.9 per cent on the loan, she will have to pay back £23,715 over five years. Cripes. It might have been been cheaper to move house.
Give him a wide berth
PLAYBOY bunny Karen McDougal says she had a nine-month affair with Donald Trump behind his wife Melania’s back.
Karen, 46, says it happened in 2006 and some of their secret assignations took place at Trump Tower, where The Donald pointed out that Melania had a separate bedroom because she “liked her space, to read or be alone”.
Married to him, you would, wouldn’t you?
- JO MARNEY, the 25-year-old lover of ousted Ukip leader Henry Bolton, 54, who left his wife and mother of his two children for her, says: “My love for Henry is unconditional of political leaderships.” I give it six months.
Shame fame is crazy
TESCO manager Caitlyn Kirby has been dubbed “the Kim Kardashian of Norwich” by her older sister after a secretly filmed video of her romping at work with colleague Neville Fox went viral.
But far from being a criticism, it appears that her sibling considers this comparison to be an accolade.
Caitlyn, 19, says: “She would definitely have preferred it if she had got fame out of this.”
Ye gods. What a damning indictment on how warped the notion of “fame” has become.
- TWO Oxford students who are members of the notoriously snobbish Bullingdon Club stand accused of “groping and harassing” women at a party and were later heard chanting: “I’ve got a better castle than you.” Meanwhile, a number of “loutish” Oxford students are facing a collective fine for smashing glasses and abusing catering staff at a separate function. Call me old-fashioned, but aren’t this disgraceful lot supposed to be the country’s elite?
MOST READ IN OPINION
Not so much MeToo as cue heavy sigh
A FEW weeks ago I joked there would soon be a “Times Up” T-shirt and an apostrophe would cost you an extra £20.
Well, I thought it was joke until a “feminist group” called Sisters Uncut stormed the Baftas red carpet in their apostrophe-free tees to protest against Government funding cuts for domestic violence services.
But crimes to grammar aside, doesn’t it rather blur the issue when you hijack an event already protesting in favour of better treatment of women?
Not so much MeToo as, cue heavy sigh, What Now?
- A REMOVAL man has been jailed for wasting police time after staging his own kidnapping then spending the ransom money on booze. Leigh Ford, of Blackpool, got two mates to bundle him into a van then call his pregnant girlfriend Zoe Boyle who, believing he was being tortured, paid the money before calling police. The ransom demand was, er, £80. The police are no doubt obliged to investigate such matters but couldn’t someone, somewhere, have smelled a rat before launching a 20-hour, £30,000 search operation based on such a paltry and obviously suspect amount?