Kent Young Person's Police Commissioner

Paris Brown has learnt two hard lessons – that anything you post or send into the ether stays there forever – and second, that the media can be intrusive and pressuring beyond anything that you might expect.

But she's right to say that youthful follies should not follow you for life, and Tim Loughton is right that it would be a great pity if this sad occurrence has any impact more generally on reducing the voice of young people. But Brian Paddick is also right, it's difficult to read anything other than some quite worrying xenophobia and homophobia into what Paris wrote.

And I'd have to say that if an adult had said or written these things it would be a very serious matter indeed – a resignation or dismissal matter.

So what to do now? First, the recruitment process should, I fear, include disclosure of Twitter and Facebook, and any other social networking, as these can (as we have seen) come back to bite you – both as an employer and an employee. For young people, such earlier indiscretions ought not to disqualify as a reflex, but they certainly should be raised at interview.

And in this case, I'd want Paris to sit down with the young people panel from her appointment, or whatever reference groups of young people she now has, to have an honest and open discussion, and to decide whether or not what she said at an earlier age can in practice be put aside and excused. I'd really want this to be a decision made by Paris with young people, not the adults who have been so outraged.