Richard Tammadge asks if paedophilia is worse today (Oxford Mail, August 28).

I remember several years ago, a man from Kidlington wrote to the Oxford Mail suggesting that the Childline helpline for children was exaggerating how many calls it received from children in distress.

It is this attitude of disbelief that makes it so hard for a child to tell someone that they are being sexually abused and why many of them carry the secret to their graves.

People do not want to believe that it exists because it is such an abhorrent thought, but refusing to acknowledge it won't make it go away.

Whether it is more prolific today than it was in the past I do not know, but thankfully today more people are aware of it and are trying to protect children.

Certainly there are more means of 'feeding' it nowadays, with the increase in porn videos and the Internet.

Sexual abuse wasn't 'talked about' in earlier times so it was hard for any child 'to tell'.

Thankfully now, people are talking about it and there have been many documentaries and plays on television on the subject so that people are more aware.

But some parents still sadly allow their children to be child-minded by people who have not had police checks, and others are still abusing their own children.

How can a young child know that this is not the norm for parental behaviour?

I once worked in a bail hostel where I was responsible for all sorts of offenders awaiting trial, including paedophiles.

One was a man of 82. He eventually admitted abusing hundreds of children.

So, yes, I think paedophilia has been in our society for probably hundreds of years.

It is just that today, because we bring it out into the open more, it is beginning, thankfully, to be identified, and specialised police and charities, such as the NSPCC and Childline, can do more about it.

We are also learning more about paedophiles to prevent them hopefully from offending again.

But the danger is still there and children still keep 'secrets' so we still have to provide means to protect children — sometimes from their own parents.

I feel schools and nursery groups could do a lot to encourage children 'to tell' if anyone is doing anything to them that they do not like.

There used to be an excellent video, produced by an Oxford filmmaker, that presented the subject of educating children against 'not telling' through song and dance — more should be produced but, in the meantime, we cannot close our eyes and hope that it will go away, or try to convince ourselves that it doesn't exist.

PAMELA WEBBER Bullingdon Road Oxford