Fiona MacKeown should be questioned...

[oracleslave]

I see nothing wrong with entrusting your children to a complete stranger when there's some advantage to doing so.

You can't be serious ?

[KathyWoolfe]

I cannot see anyone who is blameless in this case - apart from maybe the victim who used bad judgement in her actions.

The "mother" has fewer maternal insticts than a sewer rat and I would immediately take the rest of her children away from her even though they're not the "scum of the earth" that a lot of single-parent children are.

The authorities tried to hush everything up and act as if nothing had happened until the mother kicked up a stink and now they want to eject her from their country and prevent her from ever returning. (Mind you, if I were the mother I wouldn't want to return to a country where the lives of individuals mean so little).

[IR35 Avoider]

I wouldn't like to have been one of your kids. So you would hand your kid over to any stanger because statistically speaking they will not be a nutter.

If the advantage in the unspecified scenario outweighed the risk.

I'd also suggest the stanger who agrees to look after your kid is probably more likely to be a nutter - normal people generally do not do this type of thing and refuse to look after your sprog.

I wasn't thinking of scenarios where the other person might refuse, that would indeed raise the risk. In that case you are in precisely the situation I said was to be avoided, allowing the person to choose you rather than you choosing the person.

I would guess that an extensively screened and inteviewed nanny, or any female primary school teacher, would be a higher risk than a random female member of the population, on the grounds that nannies and teachers have specifically sought out positions with access to children. (I say female member to compare like with like, since risk is gender-specific. A similar rule would apply if all three persons were male.)

[SueEllen]

She has nine!!!! children, and somehow managed to save £7k to go 'on holiday'

OMG

Maintenance.

Some of the kiddies daddies must have a few bob

[BoredBloke]

What I was saying is that a person who wants to abuse kids would say yes to looking after your kids. A normal person (low risk) would probably say no.

Presumably taking your statistical approach, you don't have insurance because statistically speaking what you are insuring against will probably not happen this year.

[IR35 Avoider]

I understood what you were saying, and I agreed with you, which is why I said exclude those kinds of scenarios.

[meridian]

I would guess that an extensively screened and inteviewed nanny, or any female primary school teacher, would be a higher risk than a random female member of the population, on the grounds that nannies and teachers have specifically sought out positions with access to children. (I say female member to compare like with like, since risk is gender-specific. A similar rule would apply if all three persons were male.)

Blimey, do you have any concept of risk, or indeed any contact with nannies or teachers?
Nannies and teachers seek out their positions for roughly two reasons - either they enjoy kids, the looking after them and teaching them, or they're doing it because they can't do anything else.
An extensively screened and interviewed nanny/teacher would clearly reduce the risk of selecting the latter, and therefore would increase the chance of getting a qualified person with an interest in looking after children, which seems to me to be better than randomly picking someone off the street.

[IR35 Avoider]

Blimey, do you have any concept of risk, or indeed any contact with nannies or teachers?
Nannies and teachers seek out their positions for roughly two reasons - either they enjoy kids, the looking after them and teaching them, or they're doing it because they can't do anything else.
An extensively screened and interviewed nanny/teacher would clearly reduce the risk of selecting the latter, and therefore would increase the chance of getting a qualified person with an interest in looking after children, which seems to me to be better than randomly picking someone off the street.

I think you have got to the nub of issue. What proportion of the population do people think would harm a young child?

I'm thinking that well over 999/1000 people that would pass a basic test of plausibility (being female a good sign, man sitting on the steps of the local homeless hostel not so good) would be safe. People here seem to be assuming that odds of danger are considerably higher.

Admittedly the original example doesn't help my argument, I wouldn't think the "benefit" of going into a shop without child justifies any risk at all. And that's not the sort of scenario that avoids self-selection, i.e. the problem that the dangerous are more likely to say yes.

[BoredBloke]

But of your 999, how many do you think would actually accept to look after your kid - how many would want the hassle and responsibility? That significantly reduces your 999 and in so doing increases the chances of asking a nutter to watch over them. I guess that nice Myra Hindley would have looked after them - she had a thing about having kids under her feet all the time, especially when she and her mate Ian went out planting them.

[Diver]

I think you have got to the nub of issue. What proportion of the population do people think would harm a young child?

I'm thinking that well over 999/1000 people that would pass a basic test of plausibility (being female a good sign, man sitting on the steps of the local homeless hostel not so good) would be safe. People here seem to be assuming that odds of danger are considerably higher.

Admittedly the original example doesn't help my argument, I wouldn't think the "benefit" of going into a shop without child justifies any risk at all. And that's not the sort of scenario that avoids self-selection, i.e. the problem that the dangerous are more likely to say yes.

I for one would like to give a few a right good kicking.

That out of control obnoxious little B#*#*#d that was behind me in the hospital waiting room yesterday for a start.