The Good Samaritan Fears Legal Action

Saturday, September 27th, 2008

There is an alarming sense of unease growing within society throughout this country when faced with the dilemma of helping a stranded child or single female, for fear of being branded a ‘paedophile’ or ’sex offender’.

On GMTV this morning, it was announced that people are no longer playing the part of the Good Samaritan for fear of possible recrimination. Is there proof for this? Well, GMTV tested this theory and placed a stranded 7 year old girl outside a row of shops on a busy road in London, with cameras discretely placed out of sight, tasked with counting the number of people who walked past whilst the little girl shouted: “Mummy, mummy!” A staggering 43 people wandered past, many of whom did not even give the girl a second glance; some even rushing forward in the hope that if they moved away quickly enough the situation would resolve itself.

It took the shop owner, whose shop the girl was standing outside, 12 minutes of observing the girl in this state to finally take the plunge and go to the young child’s aid. Being interviewed moments later by GMTV, the gentleman admitted that he initially hoped a woman would stop and help her, thinking that it would appear inappropriate (or the image perhaps being misconstrued) for a man to approach an unaccompanied child in the street, despite the fact that she was calling for her mother and was visibly distressed. It took him 12 minutes to muster the courage to step outside his shop door and approach the child. The footage recorded by GMTV spoke volumes from the visible distance he maintained from her even as he asked if she was okay and more so by the sheer number of people who walked on by and paid no attention.

What saddened me even further was the report that a two year old girl had managed to find her way out of her day-care nursery in Warwick and was left wandering the streets alone. A builder working on scaffolding on a nearby construction site observed the child wandering aimlessly but said he did not want to approach her for fear of being labelled a paedophile. The girl was allowed to walk by and disappear around the corner. Several hours later her body was discovered in a pond a short distance from where the builder was working.

If this is the future of our society, what does this say about our own concern over how others perceive our actions, as opposed to the honest and helpful nature in which they are offered? How far would you go to do the right thing when a child is stranded or calling for help?

Tags: good samaritan, helping people
Posted in Discussing Christianity, Food for Thought | 1 Comment »