Teen rights and health at risk?

9:59am Monday 18th February 2008

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THE national Children's Commissioner is right in calling for the removal of the mosquito devices that are installed outside certain stores in the York area. (Angry blast for proposal to scrap mosquito device, The Press, February 13).

Rather than launch a Buzz Off campaign for their abolition, Sir Al Aynsley-Green should consider mounting a serious legal challenge against the right to install these monstrous aberrations.

As it stands at the moment, there are issues concerning the safety of these devices, as well as the distinct possibility that the gadgets are denying the rights to free movement of young people.

Coun Roger Pierce has admitted as much, but feels it appropriate that businesses be allowed to continue using them.

City of York council's children' champion, Coun David Scott, doesn't seem to have much to say on the matter either. As a qualified lawyer, he should at least be able to put forward a statement arguing the pros and cons of this technology.

The groups of young people targeted are only a minority, and if they don't congregate outside stores then they are going to go somewhere else and cause mischief.

I realise that it is annoying, to say the least, for shoppers to have to put up with rowdy youngsters hanging around outside their local store. But there are laws in place to cope with these situations. Offenders can be dealt with by police and courts. Unfortunately, the penalties dished out are far too inadequate to deter behaviour of this nature.

While the offending elements are gathered outside a central place, eg a store, they can easily be targeted by the police, and brought to account.

The problem is one for those dispensing justice, not for companies marketing modern, hi-tech gadgetry.

J H Roy, Hadrian Avenue, York.

* I have concerns regarding the so-called mosquito alarms. If anyone has technical or medical information to prove or disprove my following points, I'd welcome it.

When they first became "in vogue", small shops would use the alarms to keep those under 21 from meeting outside their premises.

At that time, a friend of mine had a small baby who would cry as if thoroughly distraught while on local shopping trips. Baby's mum would be at her wits end as to what the problem was. We found that a large proportion of the local shops (not in York) had the mosquito alarms, and wondered if the painfully high-pitched noise, which over-21s cannot hear, was causing baby's distress. It couldn't be proven, but we had concerns.

I've often seen obviously upset children outside shops with a mum who seemed equally perplexed by their child's emotional state. Could the distress be as simple as the shop owner having an active mosquito alarm?

More recently, my 16-year-old nephew has been suffering unexplained insomnia. He would feel as if "his head would explode" with a weird noise.

The doctors could find nothing wrong and resorted to prescription drugs to aid his sleep.

On a visit to his home, my own 17-year-old said: "What's that horrible noise!"

It transpired the neighbours had a mosquito alarm fitted, their reason being, they lived next to a children's play area and didn't like kids playing near the fence! (Also not in York.) Mums using the play area might be utterly confused because their kids don't like that park. At least my nephew has a possible reason why his sleep is being disturbed.

This reason alone causes me to suggest that the alarms, if fitted, should be registered somehow, and that there should be places and reasons why the alarms are not suitable for homeowner use.

Angela Heaver, Briggs Street, York.