A controversial council policy to stop and quiz childless adults using Telford Town Park today came under fire from both the Government and civil liberties campaigners.
Telford & Wrekin Council’s insistence that anyone using the park to campaign, make a protest or any similar activity had to undergo Criminal Records Bureau or risk assessment checks was also said to be out of order.
The row erupted after the authority’s sports and recreation manager David Ottley said Town Park staff had been instructed to approach adults who did not have children with them and ask what they were doing there.
He said is was a child safety precautionary measure.
Mr Ottley outlined the policy after two two environmental campaigners dressed as penguins were thrown out of Telford Town Park last month when they were caught handing out leaflets on climate change.
A Home Office spokesman said today: “An individual cannot be stopped by a local authority and asked to account for their actions, using CRB as a basis.”
Anna Fairclough, legal officer with civil rights pressure group Liberty, has today written to the council to ask to see its written policies over access to the park.
She says in her letter to Mr Ottley: “It is important that the crucial aim of child protection is not undermined by a lack of clarity or misapplication of well-intentioned rules.
“There is a balance to be struck between competing interests. If there is a particular reason for concern in this park, I should be grateful if you would let me know about it.”
Telford Labour Councillor Kuldtip Singh Sahota said the policy had “gone too far and is perverse and even grotesque”.
He added:”It will empty the Town Park. Every decent adult will be afraid to go there, for fear of being labelled a paedophile.”
By Simon Hardy
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