A jobs program for pedophiles

From the telegraph:

Amazingly,... ministers have cleared an unknown number of men with a tendency to paedophilia to work in schools. The Government is evidently unable to understand that protecting children is incompatible with leaving them with paedophiles.

No intelligible rationale for this bizarre policy has come from the Government. The Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, has merely said the whole issue should be "looked at seriously", and promised a new law amalgamating the various lists that identify those guilty of offences against children.

How has the Government managed to get itself into the position where it cannot recognise that protecting children is incompatible with exposing them to men known to harbour the desire to have sex with them? On behalf of the Government, it has been claimed that the European Convention on Human Rights has tied the Government's hands. That Convention, it is alleged, stipulates that no one can be deprived of "the right to work" without a fair hearing - which means that even paedophiles have to be individually assessed for their suitability to work with children, and must have a real chance of being cleared to do so.

After all, pedophiles have rights, too. Not giving them jobs teaching kids might hurt their feelings.