Radarman
Good call on the DoC question. I suppose the way round it is not to allocate a squawk and therefore not identify them. With that done you don't know who they are from adam and so can't stop them having a nasty. They're VFR, they're meant to be in VMC, it's up to them.
Sounds a bit hardnosed - I suppose it does. I've flown the length of France under that basis and never had any problems, and flown in the UK following the same principle - never had a problem. We tend to nurse-maid a bit in this country where it's not really needed - the time has come to prioritise effectively.