John Nurden, editor of the Trinity Mirror-owned Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Times, speaks out on the ‘dos and don’ts’ of naming the children pictured in his newspapers.

I was interested to read about the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph battle to name schoolchildren in its First Class supplement.

I am having the very same fight here in Whitstable and Herne Bay.

Suddenly political correctness has gone mad. Head teachers tell me that if I print any of their pupils’ full names in my papers they will stand the risk of being attacked by a paedophile.

Excuse me, but statistically most child sex attacks come from within the family.

I have yet to read a court report which blamed a photograph in a local paper for initiating an assault.

I am passionate about supporting our local community but the faceless bureaucrats who came up with this ludicrous blanket ban on naming children should be sent straight to detention.

I say “faceless bureaucrats” because the guidelines come from the Government’s Department of Education. One of our head teachers showed me a circular sent out by Kent’s child protection officers. It would make a great script for a TV sitcom if it wasn’t so shocking.

The advice comes from the publicity division of the DfES and from child protection teams.

It states: “Providing the name and photograph of a pupil either in written, web-site or video format allows for the possibility that people outside the school might identify and then contact or attempt to speak to pupils directly.”

It goes on: “When considering the use of photographs of children, avoid close-up pictures of individual children where possible and instead use general shots of classroom or group activities.”

It gets better. “Decide whether there is a need for the school or pupils to be identified at all. If there is such a need, avoid captions that give the children’s full names or include personal details such as e-mail addresses, home addresses or telephone numbers.”

Now when did a newspaper last publish the home phone number of a student?

Read on…