I was sorry to hear - on this morning’s BBC Radio 4’s Today programme
- consultant child psychiatrist Dr Eileen Vizard apparently supporting the charity
Action for Children in calling for the criminal law relating to child neglect
in England and Wales to be changed.
The argument is that it should be made easier to prosecute
parents for emotional neglect. It is set out in great detail on the Action forChildren website
As I have said before, I cannot see what all the fuss is
about. There is no problem at all with the civil law (the Children Act 1989),
which allows local authorities to intervene in all cases where there is a
likelihood of significant harm to a child, whether caused by physical or
emotional abuse or neglect. So the only issue appears to be an aspiration to
prosecute and punish parents, who may currently be difficult to bring within
the ambit of the criminal law.
I simply can’t see what added value doing that would have. The
proposed changes do not make it easier to intervene to protect a child and
do not make it any more likely that intervention would be successful. And, I believe, they
make it more likely that some inappropriate cases would come before the
criminal courts, where the parents concerned turn out to be more deserving of help than
of prosecution and possible imprisonment.
