UK -- Too Politically Correct to stop gay child abuse?

Too PC to stop gay child abuse

By ALASTAIR TAYLOR
September 06, 2007


http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007410542,00.html



TWO gay foster parents were allowed to sexually abuse boys because
social workers feared being accused of discrimination, a report reveals.

Officials knew there were question marks against Ian Wathey, 40, and
Craig Faunch, 32.

But despite allegations about the first two kids they fostered, they
were allowed to have 18 children in their care over 18 months.

An independent inquiry said managers and social workers at Wakefield
Council, West Yorks, were reluctant to investigate them for fear of
being seen as prejudiced against gay people.

The inquiry’s report said: “The fear led them to fail to discriminate
between the appropriate and the abusive.�

It said some council staff were “ill-equipped� for their jobs and
chiefly blamed middle managers for blunders.

Faunch and Wathey, of Pontefract, were jailed for six and five years
respectively in June 2006.

Their trial at Leeds Crown Court heard that when suspicions were raised
about an indecent photo of a boy urinating, social workers decided the
men had been simply “naive and silly�.

Kidscape director Michele Elliott said: “People have let political
correctness get in the way of good practice and common sense and and
children have been abused.

“It is totally inexcusable.�

Wakefield Council corporate director of family services Elaine McHale
said it would be “inappropriate� to comment until after a council
meeting next week.