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Ok, it takes me quite a long time to get up a head of steam on anything... I am a relaxed live-and-let live sort of person usually. But this has to be the giddy limit as my grandmother would have said: Watford Council are banning parents from supervising their children in playgrounds.

I think there is a danger to our children from people - mostly men - who prey upon them sexually. Yes, yes, I know women do too, as a notorious case which recently went to court shows very clearly... but in 20 years of working in a legal department, my sister has never come across a single case, where she has seen thousands involving men. The number of women involved is tiny.

If you look at the proportion of people in gaol for any reason, and how many of those are men and how many are women, the truth is that there are 20 times as many men, even though you are more likely to be sent to gaol as a women if you are taken to court, and for lesser offences.

The point is... even though more men offend than women do, you are still twenty times more likely not to be an offender, and children are more at risk from accidents and poor supervision than from sex offenders. Even then, I would say a child who cannot be supervised by their parent will be more at risk from an offender than they would be if other parents were in the park.

I think this decision by Watford Council sends out all the wrong messages: parents can't be trusted, children are better off with stranger professionals than their parents, and all people must be regarded as offenders until proven otherwise.

I hate HATE it. I didn't consider myself to be the sort of person to say this, but this country is going to the dogs. The RSPCA-organised, bolt-gun executed dogs.