Name and address withheld.
AFTER reading your Editorial about the Enhanced Criminal Records Bureau Disclosure, I wish to share my own experiences of the same.

In theory, it seems entirely reasonable to vet those who work with children. The reality however is hideously different. This disclosure has been the subject of a BBC documentary which cited examples of thousands of false positives, whereby innocent people with similar names to offenders have been branded criminals.

The Enhanced CRB isn’t simply a check against convictions but can include mere speculation and rumour. This was used against me in a horrific way when I volunteered at a school here in Jersey a year ago, in preparation for a teacher training course.

Two days into my placement, two children whom I did not know suddenly accused me of contacting them over the internet. It was the most intimidating experience of my life to face a police interview, even though they frankly admitted that there was no proof of the accusations. I was not even allowed to know the names of my accusers, in the name of child protection.

As a result of this, my clean Enhanced CRB was revoked, and a new one issued, repeating in sickening detail the accusations of these two strangers. After over six months of anguish I was eventually allowed to continue training, however the future remains uncertain.

This is compounded by the fact that an Enhanced CRB is required each time someone applies to work with children, therefore I will have to face these accusations everywhere I go.

I returned to Jersey in the hope that I would not have to go through this again, only to find that that the Enhanced CRB is now in use over here. In my opinion, widespread use of these disclosures would place a powerful weapon into the hands of people not mature enough to use it wisely.

I would beg the people of Jersey to consider every alternative before someone else’s prospects are ruined. I am not exaggerating when I say that this experience has seemed like a nightmare, only it is all of us who have to wake up.