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Yvonne Roberts argues that excusing people's behaviour because "it's cultural" will leave the vulnerable without protection.

In May last year, Malcolm Hayes, 38, a Kent headmaster, and his wife Paula fostered Rhoxan, aged 15. She had been expelled from schools in the past but now flourished at her new special needs school.

However, Rhoxan's sister, Zoey, 26, soon became concerned about the relationship between Hayes and her sister. Last Christmas, at Paula's request, Rhoxan returned to her mother's house. She and Hayes met secretly. Hayes subsequently separated from his wife, bought a flat and two months ago, Rhoxan, now 17, moved in. Zoey made a complaint but police are unable to take action since Rhoxan is over 16 and no longer a foster child.

Hayes, who had been suspended from his job, has returned to his primary school. Zoey says of Hayes: "He has taken advantage of Rhoxan's adoration for him as the first father figure in her life. He has totally brainwashed and violated a vulnerable young girl when he should have been treating her like a daughter not a lover."

Hayes is guilty of a profound breach of trust. Yet, there will be no comeback. This exploitation of damaged teenagers by the much older male isn't about romance but about immature men who can only cope with the uncritical attention of the inexperienced young. Could Hayes's behaviour be described as a "white, western cultural thing"?

A girl of 14 arrives from the Caribbean to live with her mother and is raped by her stepfather who is eventually imprisoned. Rejected by the mother, she is now sixteen, living alone with her baby by a man who has recently fathered three other children. The girl is the most junior of the four young mothers. A guardian ad litem requests intervention in the relationship and more support for the girl. She's told by the social worker that this is unnecessary, "...It's a black cultural thing..."

The same excuse for inaction is laced through the Victoria Climbie inquiry and will, no doubt, resurface if British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering obtains its wish for proper regulation of the private fostering system to protect up to 10,000 children, many from West Africa, who are now privately fostered.

The mantra "...It's a cultural thing..." isn't about racial sensitivity, as is claimed, but about inaction. It is a shameful excuse that ought to be banned since it allows adults - white, black and brown; male and female - to undermine a young person's independence and sense of worth and distort their notions of what an adult's love and protection ought to mean.