Posted on 03/21/2006 6:38:34 PM PST by iPod Shuffle
Man did not rescue child for fear of 'pervert' slur
ALEX CORNELIUS
A BRICKLAYER who passed a toddler walking alone in a village shortly before her fatal fall into a pond said yesterday he did not stop to help in case people thought he was trying to abduct her.
Clive Peachey, from Cornwall, told an inquest jury in Stratford-upon-Avon that he had passed two-year-old girl, Abby Rae, in his van shortly after 10am on 28 November, 2002.
This was just moments after the toddler disappeared from the Ready Teddy Go nursery in the Warwickshire village of Lower Brailes, according to staff.
Abby was found an hour later in an algae-covered garden pond and rescued by her mother, Victoria Rae.
She was taken to Birmingham Children's Hospital by air ambulance but was pronounced dead.
Mr Peachey, of Liskeard, told the inquest he had passed the little girl as she tottered towards the road in High Street.
He said: "I kept thinking I should go back. The reason I didn't go back was because I thought people might think I was trying to abduct her.
"I was convinced her parents were driving around and had found her."
Mrs Rae, 36, wept as Mr Peachey gave his evidence to the packed hearing.
She had earlier read emotionally from a statement as she relived the moment she dragged her daughter from the pond.
Two nursery employees had gone into the garden during their search but told the inquest they did not see the pond because it was covered in green vegetation.
The inquest was adjourned until today.
Of course it was *wrong*.
But it was safer than subjecting yourself to a self-rightous mob.
What you said - - BUMP.
I don't and neither do my kids who are home with me.
yes, but the false accuser is "the system".
imagine you are the parent of a 5 year old, and the police come by and say they found your kid in some guys car two blocks away. you would freak out, you would assume the worst, when when the state shrinks got the kid to say "he touched me" "he grabbed me", the parent would buy it and sign up for a 20 year sentence for the good samaritan.
When I was about 8 years old (1985), my two cousins and I were catching crawdads in a creek in Riverside, Ca. I grabbed a broken bottle to put them in, and gashed open my thumb in the process of clearing debris out of the bottle. We ran up the hill of the creek, and there was a fella fishing --He immediately helped us, gave me paper towels to put around my thumb, packed up his fishing gear, and gave us a ride about 2 miles to my house. Ended up getting 9 stitches in my thumb...
To this day, my Mom and my Aunt are STILL suspicious that the guy who gave us a ride home WHILE MY THUMB WAS GASHED OPEN, may have had pedophillic tendencies for giving 3 sub-10 year olds a ride home. Sad.
You are correct. It was safer.
Before "We" can help our children, "us" men "are" the perps. Very sad but true... : ) <<< me
I am sure if he thought the girl would have died, he'd have done something.
Hindsight is always 20/20/
Doing the right thing doesn't always march to a drum beat.
I misspoke. Napoleonic law presumes guilt. English common law presumes "innocence", but an Englishman has far fewer protections than an American under similar circumstances.
Consequences be damned, I like to think I'd have stopped to keep her in control til the police or her parents came to find her.
I'd hate to think that I'd let her go because of what people would have thought of me.
"I stated the choice that the guy was actually making..."
No you didn't. They guy never CHOSE for the kid to die.
Sheeeesh.
And he should've used it.
I'd never assume what *my* reactions would be.
BTW, I agree with the rest of your post. He made a bad decision, but ONLY with the benefit of hindsight.
It is a good thing to talk about. Ya ever been there? It will change your whole life if "your" the one who helped, and all the sudden "your" the one answering all the questions, not the parents, ya, it happended to me... : ) <<< me
I dunno - a loose two-year-old in proximity to a pond screams "danger" to me. But your point is absolutely correct, and neither one of us has to live with this, and he does. It's just a tragedy and I don't use the word lightly.
good discussion.
One day, while my husband, sons and I were at a local minor-league baseball game, I told my boys, "Stay close, we don't want to lose you!"
My oldest (8 y.o. at the time) replied, "I know, 'cause this place is full of bad guys."
I stopped in my tracks and thought about what he'd just said. I told him, "Look around you. There are about 6000 people here today. About 5990 of them would never EVER hurt you, and of them, thousands of them would probably put their lives in harm's way to protect you if they could. The problem is...we can't tell which one of these folks IS the bad guy, and that's why we have to be careful."
After reading this article, I'm afraid I may have lied to my child. I guess I never really thought about how many men are truly and honestly afraid of being accused of something villainous. I am hopeful, though, that most men would overcome their fears and help my child if he needed it. If not, I fear we're surely lost as a society.
Regards,
We can't resist the social trends. I think it was Hagel who said that one cannot rise above the moral tenor of the times. I have seen similar situations and experienced them myself, as those related by others above, though they never were life and death matters as in the Scotsman report. Don't judge, sit down and weep.
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