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A Mother's Fight for the Return of Her Children | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon to everybody watching UK column members or elsewhere.
0:13
Speaker 1: I'm here in UK Column studio too, which probably a
0:17
Speaker 1: lot of our regular viewers will recognize. And I'm very
0:20
Speaker 1: pleased this afternoon to be speaking to Carol White, who's
0:25
Speaker 1: one of the abuse survivors. And Carol very bravely has
0:30
Speaker 1: said that she's very happy to talk to me about
0:33
Speaker 1: her personal journey which led to her being at for NEI.
0:38
Speaker 1: So welcome Caroly, and thank you very much for putting
0:42
Speaker 1: your head above the parapet, because I know this is
0:44
Speaker 1: a difficult subject for you all. Yes, well, where would
0:49
Speaker 1: you like to start.
0:51
Speaker 2: In the beginning?
0:53
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a good place. So how where was the
0:59
Speaker 1: beginning and how did it all start?
1:01
Speaker 2: Well? I was on some of this page and a
1:04
Speaker 2: lady had mentioned there was a group about Finette. It
1:07
Speaker 2: was a forum, a Glasgow forum that people got together
1:12
Speaker 2: talking about Fani Residential School and she was looking for
1:16
Speaker 2: other people that had been there, and that's where it started.
1:20
Speaker 2: And I found the forum and started speaking to other
1:23
Speaker 2: people on it. Yeah, where I met another lady in
1:28
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen and that's where the journey began.
1:33
Speaker 1: Right, And just you probably told us this anyway when
1:38
Speaker 1: we were speaking to you as a group, But just
1:41
Speaker 1: say it to me again. Before that time, before you
1:45
Speaker 1: you found the online forum, were you were you completely
1:49
Speaker 1: on your own or did you have connections?
1:51
Speaker 2: I was completely unknown before all that.
1:54
Speaker 1: Right, I was just going to say, and presumably you've
1:58
Speaker 1: got to this point where you were you'd pushed for
2:03
Speaker 1: NEPI to the back of your mind and you were
2:05
Speaker 1: getting on with your own life and you your family.
2:08
Speaker 2: When I when I came back from completely blocked out,
2:13
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff had happened there and it was horrendous.
2:17
Speaker 2: So when you got back home, you just you're glad
2:20
Speaker 2: to be back with the family. It was a relief.
2:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you made you made contact with with the group,
2:31
Speaker 1: and then how did that progress?
2:35
Speaker 2: Well? I spoke to a few. I spoke to one
2:38
Speaker 2: woman and it kind of frazzled out, and then I
2:45
Speaker 2: went to this other form and it was called Francis Threat,
2:50
Speaker 2: and I put up a post and asking if anybody
2:53
Speaker 2: had any memories about FORE and talking about abusive teachers
2:57
Speaker 2: and how bad it was. And then this other woman
3:01
Speaker 2: got in touch in twenty twenty asking me email, and
3:06
Speaker 2: that's where it really started from.
3:08
Speaker 1: Right, and Carol. But from the time that you left
3:13
Speaker 1: for Nethie until you found the group again, were you
3:17
Speaker 1: completely free of of sort of contact with the establishment.
3:23
Speaker 1: Was there any social services involvement or anything like that?
3:30
Speaker 2: When I was a teenager, I refused to go to school,
3:33
Speaker 2: so social services were involved because I played turned and
3:37
Speaker 2: just would not go to school.
3:39
Speaker 1: Right.
3:40
Speaker 2: I just did not like school at all.
3:44
Speaker 1: Did they ever bother to take the trouble to talk
3:48
Speaker 1: to you about why you felt like that?
3:51
Speaker 2: No, they took me, took me to your children's panel.
3:55
Speaker 2: Well they did decade what happens to you if you
3:59
Speaker 2: don't want to school?
4:01
Speaker 1: Right? So how old were you when you were put
4:03
Speaker 1: in front of a panel?
4:04
Speaker 2: Then I would have been about twelve, right.
4:08
Speaker 1: And you've been playing true and so that eventually the
4:12
Speaker 1: school complains and then social services get involved and they
4:16
Speaker 1: bring you in front of a panel. And I mean,
4:20
Speaker 1: you were quite young. But do you know how were
4:23
Speaker 1: you introduced to the panel? How did they describe you?
4:28
Speaker 2: They just said that I was lazy not going to school.
4:31
Speaker 2: There was no excuse that billy In did come into it.
4:37
Speaker 2: And I couldn't settle at school. So they said to
4:39
Speaker 2: my mom to move me to another school.
4:42
Speaker 1: Right, And in your mind did you connect the difficulties
4:48
Speaker 1: that you had going to school with the experiences that
4:52
Speaker 1: you'd had at FORNETHI.
4:54
Speaker 2: Not at that time, not until adulthood, because I went
4:58
Speaker 2: to another school and the problem was still there.
5:02
Speaker 1: Right, So as a result of seeing the panel, they
5:05
Speaker 1: suggest that you moved to another school.
5:08
Speaker 2: And the problem still possessed and it was just continuous panels, right,
5:14
Speaker 2: So the problem never went away. So I never went
5:18
Speaker 2: to school continuously dogged at Pladrin. Sorry, Right?
5:22
Speaker 1: And so how old were you when you left school?
5:26
Speaker 2: Then?
5:26
Speaker 1: When did you finally escape from the education system?
5:30
Speaker 2: I left school at sixteen legally, but I never went
5:34
Speaker 2: to school. I just went to libraries or places of once, right,
5:40
Speaker 2: put myself at rest where I should have been at school.
5:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then so how did that progress then when
5:49
Speaker 1: you left school? Because this is quite a story on
5:51
Speaker 1: its own, isn't it. People in years gone by would
5:56
Speaker 1: leave school before sixteen fourteen? Some of them they they
6:00
Speaker 1: often had a route through to apprentices or they worked business.
6:06
Speaker 1: What did you do?
6:07
Speaker 2: I went on to the right, yes scheme, Okay, the
6:11
Speaker 2: training scheme, which was the same scenario there was big
6:15
Speaker 2: crowds that couldn't settle. So it was the same thing.
6:19
Speaker 2: So I ended up at the unemployment off was saying
6:23
Speaker 2: and none because I could settle in a job, right.
6:27
Speaker 1: But you you ultimately did manage to stabilize and settle down.
6:33
Speaker 1: So how did that progress? Then? How did you get
6:37
Speaker 1: from finding it impossible to engage with the system to
6:40
Speaker 1: get into a point where you could slowly start to
6:45
Speaker 1: stabilize and rebuild your life.
6:47
Speaker 2: I got into a relationship and had children.
6:50
Speaker 1: Right, am I allowed to say a good man? You
6:54
Speaker 1: found a good man.
6:57
Speaker 2: It was a bit of a complicated relationship right where
7:03
Speaker 2: the relationship broke down, okay, and we'd separated, so it
7:09
Speaker 2: was unsettled.
7:11
Speaker 1: Right, But did it give you something? Well? It gave
7:14
Speaker 1: you to well?
7:15
Speaker 2: I had. I had two children out the relationship.
7:20
Speaker 1: And did did those children? Were the children good for you?
7:26
Speaker 2: Yep? Yep? And then I got into another relationship and
7:32
Speaker 2: had I ended up seeing violence. That wasn't a good
7:36
Speaker 2: relationship at all, and I felt vulnerable. It was in
7:43
Speaker 2: that relationship for about five years. Managed to flee violence
7:48
Speaker 2: and move about the area with my four children. And
7:53
Speaker 2: then I met someone else who got married and that
7:57
Speaker 2: relationship didn't work on and I had another child in
8:01
Speaker 2: that relationship, and then we ended up divorcing and I
8:09
Speaker 2: moved away from that area to another area just to
8:12
Speaker 2: get disquiet with me and the children.
8:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Carol, did this is very personal stuff you're
8:18
Speaker 1: talking about, But is it? And you tell me that
8:23
Speaker 1: I've got it wrong. But with hindsight, would you say,
8:27
Speaker 1: would you suspect that some of the problems you had
8:29
Speaker 1: were caused by underlying issues? Still from FINETHI.
8:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, that unsettled my life, right, unsettled my life. And
8:40
Speaker 2: then I moved to an area and it was me
8:44
Speaker 2: and my five children. Everything has gone fame, right. One
8:50
Speaker 2: of my children had mental health problems and it was
8:56
Speaker 2: struggling in school. Work department ended up involved and they
9:03
Speaker 2: cut a long story shot. It ended up two of
9:07
Speaker 2: my youngest children were removed out of my care and
9:11
Speaker 2: they used a future emotional harm as an excuse.
9:16
Speaker 1: Right, So, Carol, how were the children that were taken
9:20
Speaker 1: from you?
9:21
Speaker 2: One was twelve and one was seven?
9:24
Speaker 1: Okay? And have they been reunited with you? Just for
9:30
Speaker 1: a set period of time? They did this.
9:33
Speaker 2: They wouldn't give me my children back. They told me
9:36
Speaker 2: they were going into care for a holiday for six weeks,
9:42
Speaker 2: and at that point the trauma didn't have the trigger
9:46
Speaker 2: with FINEFI been there for six weeks, right, So they
9:51
Speaker 2: told me they were going into care for six weeks.
9:54
Speaker 2: The six weeks passed and they had a case conference,
9:58
Speaker 2: and they kept them for another six month months and
10:02
Speaker 2: it was excuse after excuse after excuse, and then another
10:06
Speaker 2: six months later they turn around and told me I
10:09
Speaker 2: wasn't getting my children back, that they were to remain
10:12
Speaker 2: and care for the rest of the childhood. And all
10:16
Speaker 2: through that time I still kept fighting, calling children's here
10:19
Speaker 2: and fighting and fighting. The oldest one of the two
10:26
Speaker 2: he ended up. He came out of care at the
10:28
Speaker 2: age of eighteen, and the youngest one it took me
10:32
Speaker 2: nine years to getting back, but they eventually gave me
10:35
Speaker 2: him back and put them back into my care.
10:39
Speaker 1: Well, Carol did in the process to take those children
10:47
Speaker 1: away from you risk of future risk of emotional harm,
10:53
Speaker 1: which I've heard many times before in the other family
10:56
Speaker 1: court cases that I've been involved with or at least
11:00
Speaker 1: ported on what's happened to them to the mum's or dad.
11:03
Speaker 1: This is one of the very devious things they use
11:08
Speaker 1: because you're guilty. They perceive you as guilty of some point,
11:12
Speaker 1: and you are then trying to prove yourself innocent. That's
11:19
Speaker 1: from something that's very difficult to define. So this is
11:23
Speaker 1: this is a very I think it's a very malicious
11:28
Speaker 1: way of dealing with things. But did social services at
11:33
Speaker 1: any stage deal with the issue issues from for Nephi
11:39
Speaker 1: as they were making this decision to take you.
11:41
Speaker 2: To They never ever bought up at all?
11:45
Speaker 1: And did you try to did you try to tell them?
11:49
Speaker 2: No? I used to think to myself, how to our
11:51
Speaker 2: sons caught? Because I was in Forneki for six weeks,
11:55
Speaker 2: I could never ever get over the fact and there
11:58
Speaker 2: was issues with us to care us and every time
12:01
Speaker 2: I complained about a foster care, they would say it
12:04
Speaker 2: was me that has the issues. And they did bring
12:08
Speaker 2: up the fact that I failed to go to parents
12:11
Speaker 2: nights and different things like that, but it was a
12:14
Speaker 2: single parent with other children, and there was other other
12:18
Speaker 2: reasons I couldn't make meetings and whatnot. But they used
12:22
Speaker 2: every excuse to try and keep my children off me.
12:26
Speaker 2: But they weren't they weren't good, they weren't good enough excuses.
12:31
Speaker 2: It was just any excuse, and they kept me on
12:33
Speaker 2: supervised contact for eight years.
12:39
Speaker 1: Okay, so you did, you did have some access to
12:43
Speaker 1: the children. How could you see them?
12:46
Speaker 2: At first it was all the time, and then it
12:48
Speaker 2: broke down fortnightly, and then it went down a monthly,
12:53
Speaker 2: and then me and my son actually had a voice
12:55
Speaker 2: at the age of we give him his voice at fourteen.
12:59
Speaker 2: That when I started getting more contact when he got older.
13:05
Speaker 2: I think he got to sixteen.
13:07
Speaker 1: So how long how long did you get in a
13:10
Speaker 1: contact session then? So once a month.
13:13
Speaker 2: Three hours, three hours, three hours.
13:16
Speaker 1: And was that in a contact center?
13:19
Speaker 2: No, No, that would be my mom's or it would
13:22
Speaker 2: be mainly my mom's actually, because I'd have to travel
13:27
Speaker 2: if I had our health well, they would try and
13:30
Speaker 2: wriggle out it that I could manage. I had a
13:35
Speaker 2: hip operation and they said six weeks after it I
13:37
Speaker 2: could travel and I couldn't travel, take it to children's
13:41
Speaker 2: hearings and they would they would always support social work.
13:46
Speaker 2: Every time I called a children's here, and which was
13:48
Speaker 2: my right, was every three months, they would say, no,
13:52
Speaker 2: I've done it for attention reasons, and that I've never
13:54
Speaker 2: done it for that. I wanted my son home and
13:57
Speaker 2: so did his family.
13:58
Speaker 1: Sorry, just explain that again, what what were what were
14:01
Speaker 1: they trying to claim you were doing for?
14:05
Speaker 2: It just says that I wanted attention, and I was
14:08
Speaker 2: not happy that my son wasn't cared, that everything was
14:10
Speaker 2: for attention reasons. There was attention seeking to get my
14:14
Speaker 2: son back, right.
14:17
Speaker 1: I often when I interview moms like yourself, Carol, I'm thinking,
14:22
Speaker 1: I wonder how the audience, you know, reacts to this,
14:26
Speaker 1: that you were trapped in this, your child has been
14:29
Speaker 1: taken away from you, and then when you try to
14:33
Speaker 1: have contact, proper contact with the children, when you try
14:38
Speaker 1: to get your children back, as any normal mum would do,
14:43
Speaker 1: then that's turned against you that you you've got something
14:47
Speaker 1: wrong with them. Sorry, you've got something wrong with you
14:50
Speaker 1: because you are trying to do that. And what year
14:56
Speaker 1: were we talking about when you were trying to do that,
15:00
Speaker 1: And roughly it doesn't.
15:02
Speaker 2: All the same from two thousand and seventeen, Yeah, and
15:08
Speaker 2: on that time.
15:09
Speaker 1: So it's called attension seeking for you. But if we
15:13
Speaker 1: go back another ten years before that, maybe not even
15:20
Speaker 1: that long, they were social services were branding mothers all
15:25
Speaker 1: over the place with Munchausen by proxy and then when
15:31
Speaker 1: that was proved to be a false situation, they drifted
15:35
Speaker 1: in another term which has escaped me at the moment.
15:38
Speaker 1: But they're always introducing so called fuls or mental health
15:45
Speaker 1: issues or personality defects in the mum in order to
15:50
Speaker 1: stop them having contact with the children.
15:53
Speaker 2: It's all about money as well.
15:55
Speaker 1: So I was contacted by another individual up in Scotland
15:59
Speaker 1: a few days ago and I had to chat with
16:01
Speaker 1: them and they've also been through the process of having
16:06
Speaker 1: children taken away. And in the brief conversation I had,
16:11
Speaker 1: it was very interesting because that individual said things to
16:15
Speaker 1: me and I said, this is just like a tick
16:20
Speaker 1: box exercise because you say this was done and that
16:23
Speaker 1: was done, and then I can say and this and
16:27
Speaker 1: this and this and the same process seems to happen
16:32
Speaker 1: to so many families. Once social services have decided they
16:36
Speaker 1: want the children, there is this process that they go
16:40
Speaker 1: through in order to leave the children away from the parents.
16:44
Speaker 1: That's been my experience.
16:46
Speaker 2: I mean, the one thing that I wouldn't give is permanence,
16:49
Speaker 2: which gave me my parents' rates, but social work. Social
16:54
Speaker 2: work will not tell a parent that they have parents rates. Yes,
16:58
Speaker 2: they keep that secret so that you don't know whether
17:01
Speaker 2: your parental response ability did.
17:05
Speaker 1: Did they did you? Did your mom? Did the grandparents
17:10
Speaker 1: get contact?
17:12
Speaker 2: My mum got contact with myself. So old family and
17:16
Speaker 2: sidling contact was to be together.
17:19
Speaker 1: And that was limited to the same time frame because
17:22
Speaker 1: in some cases I've known that they allowed the grandparents
17:26
Speaker 1: to see the children more than their actual parents.
17:30
Speaker 2: I think she got more time at near the end
17:32
Speaker 2: when he was coming home. It wasn't really that much. Right, well, yeah,
17:37
Speaker 2: we're here and there when the foster care felt like
17:40
Speaker 2: popping and you see her, right, nothing.
17:45
Speaker 1: Much, okay? And what about your older children? Why is
17:51
Speaker 1: it that they just came for two children?
17:55
Speaker 2: I don't know. I've been a parent for twenty one years,
17:59
Speaker 2: so I mean doing my children were one was eighteen
18:07
Speaker 2: and the other one was sixteen, so they had a voice. Yeah,
18:12
Speaker 2: and mother daughter she was in her teen so they
18:14
Speaker 2: couldn't touch her either. She said no. So they went
18:18
Speaker 2: for the ones that they had to. I mean, they
18:21
Speaker 2: weren't interested in the twelve year old. He had mental health,
18:26
Speaker 2: so realistically he got putting a children's here and it
18:29
Speaker 2: where the other one went into a foster care placement.
18:33
Speaker 1: Right, And you have responded to me pretty quickly in
18:37
Speaker 1: this chat. So Fault was saying, and there's money involved.
18:42
Speaker 2: Oh, it's always about money.
18:45
Speaker 1: I agree, But why do you say that?
18:48
Speaker 2: Because when I got my son back, we went to
18:51
Speaker 2: a panel and it was a chairperson that realized, hang
18:55
Speaker 2: on a minute, Luis's screaming to go home. He read
18:59
Speaker 2: the reports, didn't like the reports. So we're everywhere on
19:03
Speaker 2: the table and he said, he needs to go home.
19:06
Speaker 2: He's asking me to go home. I'd like this child returned.
19:10
Speaker 2: But even here the end, he ended up in the
19:14
Speaker 2: children's uring. It not that I wanted him in one
19:16
Speaker 2: of those places, because unfortunately, sometimes it comes to a
19:22
Speaker 2: bad ending in those places. Yes, not meaning something bad
19:26
Speaker 2: happens to men. They can come out bad. Unfortunately, they
19:34
Speaker 2: wanted to keep him one night a week, and they
19:38
Speaker 2: said it was so I didn't fail. It wasn't it
19:42
Speaker 2: was for that extray bit of money, because it got
19:44
Speaker 2: full weeks worth of money, which is up to two
19:47
Speaker 2: thousand pounds a week.
19:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of the key issues, Carol. Isn't
19:52
Speaker 1: it that children that have got special needs, as the
19:55
Speaker 1: special needs increase, the amount of money dramatically increases.
20:01
Speaker 2: And my son was special needs. He's visually impaired, so
20:05
Speaker 2: that really helped their pockets.
20:08
Speaker 1: Right. So he was away from you from the age
20:11
Speaker 1: of twelve to eighteen.
20:12
Speaker 2: No, seven, seven seven to.
20:15
Speaker 1: Seventeen, seven to seventeen Right.
20:19
Speaker 2: Wait a long time and how.
20:21
Speaker 1: Is he now? How did he react to coming home?
20:26
Speaker 2: Oh? He settled in really well, molder done and now
20:31
Speaker 2: he's then the second year of law. Wow, likes his politics. Yeah,
20:39
Speaker 2: he's doing well because Social Work says, my children would
20:41
Speaker 2: never come anything. I'm one of my daughters, she's got
20:46
Speaker 2: doctor rich, she's in Glasgow University. One of my sons
20:49
Speaker 2: is a chef. My other daughters a nurse. My son,
20:55
Speaker 2: the youngest one, he's he's a nivarsity studying law and
21:03
Speaker 2: likes as politics.
21:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that that's going to be a direct reflection
21:08
Speaker 1: on you, hasn't it, Carol. So you've been through tough
21:11
Speaker 1: times but you've got something.
21:13
Speaker 2: Right, that's Social Work and their opinion and that nothing.
21:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. When when things started to open up about
21:26
Speaker 1: for NEFI, were you one of the ladies that did
21:33
Speaker 1: manage to get some counseling? Did you get any help
21:37
Speaker 1: at all?
21:38
Speaker 2: As I've not had counseling for a lot of us
21:42
Speaker 2: have come together and we're there for each other. I
21:47
Speaker 2: still talk to the women I met in twenty and seventeen.
21:49
Speaker 2: We've still talk. We counseled each other's each other.
21:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fine. I asked the question because I from
21:59
Speaker 1: the moment I started to talk to you all, I
22:03
Speaker 1: began to wonder about this system where the state says
22:07
Speaker 1: it was providing this, and it was providing that. And
22:10
Speaker 1: although I know some people did go to some of
22:13
Speaker 1: the I'll say charitable organizations.
22:16
Speaker 2: In pathways help. They're brilliant help in future pathways. And
22:23
Speaker 2: I speak to other survive other survivors from Nava Post
22:27
Speaker 2: and Quarreya. Isn't that I knew them before I came
22:30
Speaker 2: forward with.
22:32
Speaker 1: Right, I wondered whether you'd been involved with any of
22:38
Speaker 1: those organizations and when I was.
22:39
Speaker 2: Involved with them when my children went and care because
22:42
Speaker 2: they were trying to help me get my children back.
22:47
Speaker 2: I was involved with the people and Quarrias and some
22:51
Speaker 2: of the people from nazareth House. We're in the same
22:54
Speaker 2: situation as myself. Survivors go through.
22:58
Speaker 1: What's the same situation, Okay, what's Nazareth's House.
23:03
Speaker 2: It's where the nuns had abused the children as well,
23:08
Speaker 2: but they were a long time oftens, right, Okay, they
23:14
Speaker 2: were long time survivors and historical.
23:18
Speaker 1: Abuse, and so there was a support group around that
23:22
Speaker 1: particular case, was there.
23:24
Speaker 2: Well, I think they'll support each other, right and as
23:28
Speaker 2: quary as as well, that one, well that that's where
23:34
Speaker 2: a lot of historical abuse happened as well. Okay, this
23:40
Speaker 2: is out there, historical up here, that historical abuse happened,
23:45
Speaker 2: because you've got the Scottish Abuse Inquiry up here too.
23:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, of course there's there's there is still a
23:52
Speaker 1: lot of controversy around this, Carol, and I can say
23:57
Speaker 1: that at the moment I've I've been along with Diane,
24:00
Speaker 1: we've been still researching in the background as to what's happening.
24:04
Speaker 1: And the thing which has really astonished me is that
24:07
Speaker 1: if as I have dug into child protection in Scotland,
24:14
Speaker 1: what I discover is there are so many different documents
24:20
Speaker 1: and government well bits of law and legislation and documents
24:26
Speaker 1: and recommendations. Scotland's a wash with all these words talking
24:31
Speaker 1: about the protection of children. But then you look at
24:35
Speaker 1: what actually happens on the ground and it's all words.
24:41
Speaker 1: There's to me no, there's no proper movement in order
24:47
Speaker 1: to root out where nasty stuff is happening from children.
24:52
Speaker 1: And one example, if I go to Police Scotland, Police
24:57
Speaker 1: Scotland makes a very general statement about child protection and
25:04
Speaker 1: then the only video they produce is a video which
25:08
Speaker 1: is really designed for children. It's not designed for adults
25:11
Speaker 1: to learn about what's actually happening. And I know there's
25:17
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism in the background about the Scottish
25:19
Speaker 1: Child Abuse Inquiry and things that it simply did not do.
25:25
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's happened yet, but I think
25:30
Speaker 1: there's going to be consideration at some point shortly by
25:33
Speaker 1: the Inquiry in respect of for NEFI. But it's one
25:38
Speaker 1: short session when my mind says it, I'm sure you
25:43
Speaker 1: feel that we know that tens of thousands of little
25:48
Speaker 1: girls went through for NEFI over the thirty one years
25:52
Speaker 1: it was in operation. You would think there would now
25:54
Speaker 1: be a massive investigation just into for NEFI, but it's
25:58
Speaker 1: almost like it does.
26:00
Speaker 2: Exist, it's just it's wraped out. Yes, yeah, I think
26:06
Speaker 2: there's a lot of places late for Nettie that's been
26:09
Speaker 2: weped out because nowhere has fails for that. It's not
26:13
Speaker 2: fails at all.
26:15
Speaker 1: Of course, this was part of Diane's work. When she
26:18
Speaker 1: started to really dig into the archives. It was surprising
26:22
Speaker 1: what wasn't there and had been deleted or or had
26:27
Speaker 1: actually disappeared. Yeah, it's quite amazing. You might not have
26:33
Speaker 1: seen it. But on Tuesday we streamed a talk which
26:39
Speaker 1: a lady i'll call her Gig. She got a couple
26:42
Speaker 1: of names. But in twenty fifteen she gave a talk
26:46
Speaker 1: at one of the UK column events and in that
26:50
Speaker 1: talk she described how the child abuse cover up system works.
26:56
Speaker 1: She's talking in England and Wales principal, but she gave
27:02
Speaker 1: a talk really excellent on who said what was in
27:07
Speaker 1: the documents which evidence simply disappeared. And this is particularly
27:13
Speaker 1: pertinent coming for us to show this again in twenty
27:17
Speaker 1: six because nothing has changed. So I just saw as
27:24
Speaker 1: for ne Ethie unfolded north of the border. It was
27:27
Speaker 1: just obvious to me there were words, but there was
27:30
Speaker 1: no real effort to get out and to get the
27:35
Speaker 1: testimony for the individual abuse survivors and then to bring
27:40
Speaker 1: the thing to the light. And you might not agree
27:46
Speaker 1: with me here because I know at the end of
27:48
Speaker 1: the day you will be thinking you want people who
27:52
Speaker 1: are guilty brought to justice. But even if they'd said,
27:56
Speaker 1: we've got to get the truth out about what happened.
28:00
Speaker 1: Never mind we're going to convict people, We're just going
28:02
Speaker 1: to get the truth out about what happened. This would
28:05
Speaker 1: have been a major start to getting the lid off
28:08
Speaker 1: for ne Nethi, showing what happened and then stopping it
28:12
Speaker 1: happening again.
28:13
Speaker 2: But they didn't get out there.
28:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they didn't do that, do they not?
28:18
Speaker 2: They keep it, they keep it locked up. Yeah. When
28:25
Speaker 2: when when they're bringing out these cases and bringing them
28:27
Speaker 2: out of the court, they try to brush them under
28:29
Speaker 2: the girl, but they're not getting a custodial sentence. That's
28:35
Speaker 2: not just happening with It's happening in a lot of places.
28:39
Speaker 2: I mean Quarry is that it went he pays the
28:41
Speaker 2: shed of court and it was an anti cottage, aren't
28:44
Speaker 2: they And she got community service. All these people that
28:49
Speaker 2: they're drenching up the past that they're standing up in
28:54
Speaker 2: court and they're bringing it up and it's a great
28:58
Speaker 2: thing for them to do, and it's an insult that
29:01
Speaker 2: gets sence like they get because these people have got
29:05
Speaker 2: to live with that for the rest of their life
29:06
Speaker 2: because the gun depend in the past, and they should
29:10
Speaker 2: get sentenced for it because it means it can you
29:14
Speaker 2: get me with it in the future as well.
29:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand completely what you're saying. And so I've
29:22
Speaker 1: also over the years seen a lot of very lenient
29:26
Speaker 1: sentences come out for people involved in the abuse of children.
29:33
Speaker 1: And then in contrast, abuse survivors who have attempted to
29:40
Speaker 1: tell the story of what's happened to them have been
29:43
Speaker 1: pushed to one side or undermined, demeaned. There's a lot
29:48
Speaker 1: of techniques, and on some occasions we've had prisons sentences
29:53
Speaker 1: for abuse survivors. In particular, I'm talking about Carl Beach
29:57
Speaker 1: here name so at the time cold Well, at the
30:03
Speaker 1: time he was abused, cald Beach, I think was around
30:07
Speaker 1: eight years old. And then it gets until he's a
30:12
Speaker 1: full grown adult that he gets the opportunity to say
30:15
Speaker 1: what happened to him. And then when he is not
30:21
Speaker 1: one hundred percent accurate in what he says, because what's
30:25
Speaker 1: he dealing with childhood memories, probably some fragmented memories, the
30:31
Speaker 1: system turns on him and says, well, you're making all
30:33
Speaker 1: this up. And I mentioned him because if I remember correctly,
30:40
Speaker 1: he got an eighteen year prison sentence, and I just
30:45
Speaker 1: found that outrageous.
30:48
Speaker 2: Now it's sad, Yeah, it's absolutely sad. But then you've
30:54
Speaker 2: got the scandals as well. You've got the scandals are
31:00
Speaker 2: coming out and they're doing nothing about that either, they're
31:02
Speaker 2: brushing them under the cup. But yes, you had the
31:06
Speaker 2: Holy Greg, the Holy Greg story as well.
31:10
Speaker 1: Did you Were you aware of that at the time
31:13
Speaker 1: that was was happening, Carol.
31:18
Speaker 2: Robert Green brot that then he saw.
31:21
Speaker 1: Yes, And so I I got to know Holly and
31:30
Speaker 1: her mum through Robert Green, and very very early on
31:37
Speaker 1: I met all of them. And at each stage the
31:45
Speaker 1: evidence was there, both in in my opinion, and the
31:50
Speaker 1: evidence was there both in the accuracy of the testimony
31:54
Speaker 1: and in court documents and in circumstantial things. It all
32:01
Speaker 1: just fitted.
32:02
Speaker 2: Uh.
32:02
Speaker 1: And of course Holly's mum, whose name has gone out
32:08
Speaker 1: of my head, helped me out here.
32:10
Speaker 2: I just remembered the story. It just these people need protecting,
32:15
Speaker 2: and yes, they're telling the truth, and then it's like
32:20
Speaker 2: nobody's lessing.
32:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that that one I found a very emotive
32:27
Speaker 1: story and sad. And then well, exactly and when when
32:35
Speaker 1: I was able to sit with her and she was
32:38
Speaker 1: telling the story. What was what was incredible was the
32:41
Speaker 1: amount of detail that came forward, places, names, who was
32:46
Speaker 1: related to who, what they did as a job. So
32:50
Speaker 1: it wasn't as if you had some she just.
32:53
Speaker 2: Couldn't come out with that information.
32:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, not.
33:00
Speaker 2: Some of the stuff people come out with. The just
33:01
Speaker 2: it's just not possible.
33:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was. And Greg, of course her name
33:07
Speaker 1: just disappeared out my head for a moment there. And
33:09
Speaker 1: of course how did they try and shut Anne up? Well,
33:14
Speaker 1: they sending to the psychiatric team m hm, put a
33:18
Speaker 1: needle in her backside, and then she woke up in
33:21
Speaker 1: a psychiatric unit. And it was only because she then
33:25
Speaker 1: when she did get out, she took herself for a
33:27
Speaker 1: psychiatric assessment. And of course in the psychiatrists report, he
33:32
Speaker 1: said there was nothing wrong with her. Yeah, and that
33:35
Speaker 1: professional statement was actually.
33:39
Speaker 2: I've had that one as well. I thought there was
33:41
Speaker 2: a normal mental health apparanoid schizophrenic button. Well, mental health
33:49
Speaker 2: said there was nothing like that.
33:51
Speaker 1: So so who made that accusation?
33:54
Speaker 2: Social department? Right, the situation itself, get my children taken
33:59
Speaker 2: away with me now, right, rare? The mental health team
34:03
Speaker 2: ended up involved, and they were like, it's a situation
34:06
Speaker 2: that what they were doing was Mike mail. Right, So
34:10
Speaker 2: these big departments of social work and all that, and
34:15
Speaker 2: all these people up there the same that thirty year is,
34:19
Speaker 2: it's it's not right, no right.
34:24
Speaker 1: To my mind, over the years, I've witnessed, witnessed and
34:30
Speaker 1: had different mums from different circumstances, all telling the same story,
34:35
Speaker 1: which is that essentially mental health or accusations and mental
34:41
Speaker 1: health problems are used against the parents in order to
34:46
Speaker 1: justify what there happens. And very often some of the
34:50
Speaker 1: stuff I find, I think it's deliberately very cruel. So
34:57
Speaker 1: just being able to see a child for all an
35:00
Speaker 1: hour a week, for example, is going to stress any
35:04
Speaker 1: parent out, particularly if they're not sure if the child's
35:07
Speaker 1: in safe, safe accommodation or a safe situation.
35:12
Speaker 2: Oh no, but see, if you say anything about the accommodation,
35:15
Speaker 2: you're making that up. They're just making it up. That's
35:18
Speaker 2: not the case, So on your head or whatever. Yeah,
35:23
Speaker 2: they're not like that, yes, okay.
35:28
Speaker 1: So lots of tricks get used, and one which several
35:33
Speaker 1: mums told me about was that if they had a
35:36
Speaker 1: contact session and say it was you know, with an email,
35:40
Speaker 1: they've been told that they had contact next week next week,
35:45
Speaker 1: Wednesday next week at two o'clock and they turn up
35:49
Speaker 1: at the contact and then they'd be told, oh, you've
35:53
Speaker 1: got the wrong day. Contact was yesterday.
35:57
Speaker 2: And then you'd get pilled up for not being there
36:01
Speaker 2: or appointments or meetings, and that they do that all
36:04
Speaker 2: the time, right, And it makes you, It puts you
36:07
Speaker 2: in the situation that you're the one that made the mistake,
36:10
Speaker 2: not them, Yes, because of course they don't make mistakes,
36:14
Speaker 2: do they. No?
36:16
Speaker 1: And this, well, I've said, no, that's a sarcastic.
36:19
Speaker 2: I've been sarcastic. You have been sarcastic as well.
36:26
Speaker 1: But I've said to I've said to many mums who,
36:30
Speaker 1: particularly the ones who are in a really bad place,
36:33
Speaker 1: the first thing they have to do is one trust
36:36
Speaker 1: their own instinct. And the second thing is regard the
36:40
Speaker 1: social service team as as sort of laboratory specimens. So
36:44
Speaker 1: you don't you don't regard them as humans in the
36:48
Speaker 1: first instance. You just regard them as a thing. And
36:52
Speaker 1: then you watch what they do and you listen to
36:54
Speaker 1: what they say, so that you're not expecting them to
37:01
Speaker 1: behave in a normal caring human way, because very often
37:06
Speaker 1: I come as across parents and they're trapped in a
37:11
Speaker 1: circle where they try and rationalize, they try and come
37:16
Speaker 1: to terms with what social services are doing, and this
37:24
Speaker 1: is exactly right. You can't.
37:27
Speaker 2: And I always wondered what it was was a problem,
37:29
Speaker 2: and I never knew what the problem was and you
37:32
Speaker 2: end up but I always think, no, no, I come back.
37:37
Speaker 2: They knew about for and they used that future emotional
37:42
Speaker 2: harm and the abuse being the abuse, not that nonsense,
37:46
Speaker 2: And I'm like, nah, no.
37:48
Speaker 1: Nor Carol, that's that's a really important thing. So you
37:51
Speaker 1: came to the conclusion at some point that the social
37:55
Speaker 1: services teams that were dealing with you actually so what
38:01
Speaker 1: they would have seen that on your record.
38:03
Speaker 2: Somewhere, I think so. But what used to get to
38:07
Speaker 2: me was how my son copd and then he got
38:10
Speaker 2: a bad care or foster carer. Looking back at it now, oh,
38:17
Speaker 2: I've seen robertson the one that was meant to look
38:22
Speaker 2: after us when we went for EPI, and it had triggers.
38:27
Speaker 2: But I have not realized that at the time because
38:30
Speaker 2: I would get upset my son and not know why.
38:34
Speaker 1: But now I know why, And are you saying that
38:40
Speaker 1: you recognized trying not to put words in your mouth,
38:46
Speaker 1: but you recognize similar I knew.
38:49
Speaker 2: When my son was having bad experiences in foster care placements,
38:58
Speaker 2: and when I tried to report it, they would say
39:01
Speaker 2: it wasn't happening. And then they ended up taking that
39:05
Speaker 2: up to higher ground by reporting it to the authorities. Yes,
39:11
Speaker 2: and they still called me out right.
39:15
Speaker 1: And of course the other thing which I think is
39:17
Speaker 1: absolutely wicked is that the social services or the child
39:21
Speaker 1: protection teams operate in a group. So you've you've got
39:27
Speaker 1: social services, You've also got the education system, you've got
39:32
Speaker 1: the police. They all operate together as a team, so
39:36
Speaker 1: there's no separation of the powers. You get to the
39:40
Speaker 1: point where you know your son is being abused within
39:46
Speaker 1: the care system, who do you go to is independent?
39:49
Speaker 1: You can't go You can't go to the police because
39:51
Speaker 1: they work hand in glove with social services.
39:55
Speaker 2: Oh, they weren't in trusted anywhere. And I needed proof anyway,
39:58
Speaker 2: I needed proof. My son ran away and he says
40:01
Speaker 2: I needed trip that he wasn't happy. They couldn't fight
40:05
Speaker 2: social work, because you can't fight social work. You just
40:11
Speaker 2: you can't fighte them. Yeah, the worst authority in this country.
40:17
Speaker 2: There's no way you can fight them. Even the courts
40:22
Speaker 2: tell them what to do, and they won't do what
40:23
Speaker 2: they're taught.
40:25
Speaker 1: That's absolutely true. That's also something else that I've heard
40:29
Speaker 1: many times, including when the courts actually made a decision
40:33
Speaker 1: that the child should be returned.
40:36
Speaker 2: Because my sons were to be writturned to me, and
40:39
Speaker 2: they said nope.
40:42
Speaker 1: Not very often I've seen that this has been used
40:49
Speaker 1: through a partner. So if the children have been taken
40:54
Speaker 1: away from the good parent and given to an abusive parent,
41:00
Speaker 1: or at least the abusive parents being given contact, possibly
41:05
Speaker 1: more contact than the loving parent. If subsequently there's a
41:10
Speaker 1: decision made for the court that the loving parents should
41:13
Speaker 1: get the children, they basically then push the children towards
41:19
Speaker 1: the abusive parent and then run the battle between the
41:23
Speaker 1: two of them. Oh it's not our fault as social services.
41:28
Speaker 1: It's between the two parents. They confuse.
41:31
Speaker 2: Oh, they love the game. They just love a game.
41:33
Speaker 2: I don't know what the problem is. It just maybe
41:36
Speaker 2: they should goes in mental health.
41:40
Speaker 1: Well, it's an interesting question, isn't it, Because if you
41:43
Speaker 1: look at the tactics they use on many occasions, I
41:46
Speaker 1: found that I'm wondering were they taught these tactics, Were
41:52
Speaker 1: they taught how to be manipulative of parents, or were
41:56
Speaker 1: they taught how to make false accusations and report because
42:01
Speaker 1: it's a tick box. Very often, what what you see
42:05
Speaker 1: happen in Scotland happens here in England, south of.
42:08
Speaker 2: The ball everywhere. Yeah, it happens everywhere. I've got friends
42:12
Speaker 2: down So if that happens to and up here, and
42:16
Speaker 2: people can move to the far ends of the earth
42:19
Speaker 2: and still not get away from them, Yeah, it's just
42:27
Speaker 2: and they should really be be protecting their kids that
42:31
Speaker 2: need to protect and like babyp and all the ones
42:33
Speaker 2: that didn't need it.
42:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, something that I have been trying to do, Carol
42:40
Speaker 1: for a long time, and I have made quite a
42:42
Speaker 1: lot of progress. But sometimes it's the two steps forward
42:47
Speaker 1: and one back business. But very often the parents who
42:51
Speaker 1: talk to me about childcases where they've lost children or
42:56
Speaker 1: they're alienated from from children, those parents are drowning in
43:07
Speaker 1: what they see as the evidence. So if you start
43:12
Speaker 1: a conversation with them about what has happened, what is
43:16
Speaker 1: taking place with them, they immediately refer to hundreds and
43:20
Speaker 1: in many cases thousands of pages of court documents, and
43:26
Speaker 1: their heads are not only full of those written pages,
43:31
Speaker 1: they can remember every email that they've received, they can
43:35
Speaker 1: remember every telephone call, and it's like they drown in
43:40
Speaker 1: all of the documentation and communication from social services. And
43:46
Speaker 1: the point that I've tried to make with them is
43:50
Speaker 1: that actually it's the individual testimony from the moms and
43:55
Speaker 1: dads that forms the evidence, because it isn't the You
44:00
Speaker 1: have one or two odd cases in one location where
44:04
Speaker 1: people say this happened and this was done to me,
44:07
Speaker 1: and you could quest a member of the public could say, well,
44:10
Speaker 1: they must have done something. We are dealing with thousands
44:16
Speaker 1: of cases across the whole country, in Wales, in Northern Ireland,
44:20
Speaker 1: in England, in Scotland, and what the parents say has
44:25
Speaker 1: been done to them is the same in all cases.
44:30
Speaker 1: So it's what they say is a personal testimony which
44:34
Speaker 1: forms the base of evidence. And my feeling is that
44:38
Speaker 1: we need we need to get as many parents to
44:41
Speaker 1: come forward to talk about it as possible, because their
44:46
Speaker 1: personal statements formed the evidence. You know, it's like a
44:50
Speaker 1: bank robbery taking place. What do the police look for.
44:54
Speaker 1: They look for witnesses, somebody saw the car stop somebody
44:59
Speaker 1: saw the men go into the bank. The evidence isn't
45:05
Speaker 1: thousands of pages of documentation about the type of carum
45:09
Speaker 1: where it was bought and everything else. At the end
45:11
Speaker 1: of the day, the key evidence is I saw those
45:15
Speaker 1: men go into the bank. But of course when we
45:19
Speaker 1: try and get parents to speak, the next thing they
45:22
Speaker 1: get frightened of is if their children are still in care,
45:27
Speaker 1: that their access to the children.
45:29
Speaker 2: All now, they stop their contact and children away. They're
45:32
Speaker 2: taken to force the adoption.
45:35
Speaker 1: Yes them, and parents can even be frightened of this
45:39
Speaker 1: when the children have come out of the system they're
45:43
Speaker 1: still relatively young, because.
45:45
Speaker 2: Oh, they can still come back and get them. I've
45:48
Speaker 2: got a friend they've already done that tour and it's bad.
45:51
Speaker 1: Hold were the children then?
45:53
Speaker 2: I think the daughter was returned at eighteen, and they
45:56
Speaker 2: went back and they got her and took her back in.
45:59
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what they know, right, I'm not sure
46:04
Speaker 1: what the law is in Scotland, But south of the border,
46:08
Speaker 1: I think I'm right in saying that in many cases
46:12
Speaker 1: social services is saying, well, of course at eighteen the
46:15
Speaker 1: child's clear of social services, but they social services still
46:21
Speaker 1: have a duty of protection until the child is twenty five, right,
46:26
Speaker 1: and so they can still get their clutches into a
46:30
Speaker 1: full blown adult.
46:32
Speaker 2: They can do what they want if they want to
46:35
Speaker 2: depend on their mood.
46:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're talking to me about this. And what's nice
46:44
Speaker 1: about this conversation is I know, I know that you
46:48
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about, and because what you tell
46:52
Speaker 1: me fits the picture absolutely. And you've mentioned a couple
46:56
Speaker 1: of other mums. But is this aspect of your battle
46:59
Speaker 1: with social services? Has this been a big part of
47:03
Speaker 1: your life or is this something else that you've.
47:06
Speaker 2: It's always been a big part of It has been
47:08
Speaker 2: a big part of my life because it's been in
47:11
Speaker 2: the past. I mean when I stayed in the last
47:16
Speaker 2: area where my kids got removed, there was a care
47:19
Speaker 2: home right around the corner, so I did see things
47:22
Speaker 2: getting done, but I used to ask my kids not
47:27
Speaker 2: to man go around the care home. It wasn't so
47:29
Speaker 2: much a children, it was a careless No, it wasn't
47:32
Speaker 2: the children I had the problem with. I felt for
47:36
Speaker 2: the children. It was the people that ran the care
47:40
Speaker 2: home that I didn't like. Yeah, it was just and
47:44
Speaker 2: then when they removed my children, that was a big impact.
47:49
Speaker 2: I thought, Oh no, what I mean, you don't realize
47:53
Speaker 2: that you don't see it till the company your door
47:56
Speaker 2: is it is true, it is true, it doesn't you
48:01
Speaker 2: don't see it till it happens at your door, and
48:04
Speaker 2: you can't believe that that is the way that they work.
48:07
Speaker 2: But as that they should really really protect children that
48:12
Speaker 2: really need it, because there has kids out with that
48:14
Speaker 2: need it, a lot of kids that need that help
48:17
Speaker 2: out there, and that's where all the half the country's
48:21
Speaker 2: money's gone social work removing children that don't need removed.
48:29
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that happens is that
48:32
Speaker 1: people who've had any connection with social services, so it
48:36
Speaker 1: may be that as a child they were looked after briefly,
48:42
Speaker 1: they might have gone back to their parents, but in
48:45
Speaker 1: their records there's a link to social services. And it
48:49
Speaker 1: seems to me the children and adults who've got any
48:54
Speaker 1: connection to social services are then tag it did in
49:02
Speaker 1: later life. Yeah, that's easy picking, because the moment social
49:06
Speaker 1: services re engages on what a whatever excuse it is,
49:12
Speaker 1: they then will start saying, well, of course X years
49:15
Speaker 1: ago we had a problem.
49:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I know, I know my sister, my parents
49:22
Speaker 2: had issues with social works, but I didn't know about
49:25
Speaker 2: it till the social worker bought it up when they
49:28
Speaker 2: removed my children.
49:29
Speaker 1: My children, right, okay, so that would probably fit then,
49:33
Speaker 1: wouldn't it If.
49:34
Speaker 2: It was something when we stayed in New Key was
49:38
Speaker 2: I was on air kid at the time. I was
49:40
Speaker 2: about eight, and I did not know nothing about it, right,
49:43
Speaker 2: And that social worker let me know that my sister
49:46
Speaker 2: was removed at my mum's care right, And I'm not
49:51
Speaker 2: horrible individual. I didn't know that we.
49:55
Speaker 1: Were you able to confirm that with your sister?
49:57
Speaker 2: No, I didn't know a thing about it. So he
49:59
Speaker 2: asked me, how open my way? And that's just what
50:02
Speaker 2: you're talking about.
50:03
Speaker 1: Are you able to talk to your sister now?
50:06
Speaker 2: No, my sister's in a care home with dementia. So right,
50:10
Speaker 2: because I asked about it, she says, we didn't want
50:14
Speaker 2: you to know you were you were like it, So
50:18
Speaker 2: you didn't you weren't aware of it? You're a child? Yeah,
50:21
Speaker 2: what kind of bringing it up? Has just being playing
50:24
Speaker 2: nasty something I didn't need to know in adulthood.
50:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I just wondered, Carol, what came into my head?
50:33
Speaker 1: Was it that they're saying this to you? But of
50:35
Speaker 1: course it may be true. It might not be true,
50:38
Speaker 1: because it was true.
50:40
Speaker 2: My mom did say it was true. It was just
50:42
Speaker 2: she went there part time. But right, but yeah, it's true.
50:47
Speaker 2: They stick, they stick to your family and the pick
50:49
Speaker 2: pick peck.
50:50
Speaker 1: So this could have been how you were selected for
50:53
Speaker 1: for Nefi.
50:55
Speaker 2: Well, no, no, my mom sent me there on holiday.
50:58
Speaker 2: It was a holiday. It was just who advertised for
51:00
Speaker 2: Nette as a holiday and she paid for me to
51:04
Speaker 2: go there. My mom paid forty pounds for me to
51:06
Speaker 2: go to nee right, and I was to go for
51:09
Speaker 2: six weeks and it was meant to be a holiday,
51:10
Speaker 2: but it was a holiday from hell.
51:13
Speaker 1: And sorry forty pounds. Then it was a reasonable amount
51:17
Speaker 1: of money, wasn't it.
51:18
Speaker 2: Well it was in nineteen eighty two, so that would
51:21
Speaker 2: have been a lot of money at at what point.
51:22
Speaker 2: And she was a single parent, she was divorced from
51:25
Speaker 2: my dad. So the break we're done her good.
51:31
Speaker 1: But not me, not you.
51:33
Speaker 2: No, her heart was in the late place. She thought
51:36
Speaker 2: it was a holiday.
51:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, Carol. In the research that I've been doing, one
51:42
Speaker 1: of the documents that I found, which is it's a
51:47
Speaker 1: research document from a university, but it's then gone through
51:50
Speaker 1: into government channels as formal advice. Formal comment is that
52:00
Speaker 1: children in the protection system are more vulnerable than children
52:06
Speaker 1: that are not in the care system. Right, and again,
52:12
Speaker 1: I wonder what the audience's reaction to this is because
52:14
Speaker 1: this makes total sense to me, because if you are
52:19
Speaker 1: somebody that gets involved in the abuse of children, you
52:23
Speaker 1: go where the children are. And what's special about children
52:26
Speaker 1: in care? Effectively, to a large extent, they disappear in care.
52:32
Speaker 1: So a parent may know where the child is, they're
52:36
Speaker 1: in such and such care home. But because they're not
52:39
Speaker 1: able to see what happens to the child twenty four
52:41
Speaker 1: hours a day, that child is actually at risk of
52:46
Speaker 1: people who are simply unkind. That's one possibly cruel, let's
52:51
Speaker 1: use that term since that was part of the charges. Infernethi,
52:55
Speaker 1: they're cruel all their a bona fide abuses of the children.
53:00
Speaker 1: If the parents can't see, they can't protect the children's
53:06
Speaker 1: That's what this university study had to say. So this
53:10
Speaker 1: really focuses or should focus people's attention south of the border.
53:15
Speaker 1: We've got about eighty five thousand children in care, that
53:21
Speaker 1: was the last figure I saw, anyway, a huge increase
53:24
Speaker 1: from COVID time.
53:26
Speaker 2: That's a lot of children.
53:28
Speaker 1: That's a lot of children. And then I say, and
53:31
Speaker 1: what's the cost of looking after those children. Let's say
53:35
Speaker 1: it's one thousand pounds a week, which is that small fry.
53:39
Speaker 1: You multiply these figures up and we're talking about billions
53:43
Speaker 1: of pounds around children.
53:48
Speaker 2: And that's where the money is. It's in children. Yeah,
53:51
Speaker 2: I'm afraid to say that's where they make the money.
53:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. How do you see an ethy now, Carol,
54:02
Speaker 1: because you've you've had a couple of well no, you've
54:04
Speaker 1: what is it a couple of months now since the trial.
54:09
Speaker 2: I'm on the appeal, the appeal, you Justice, I hope
54:13
Speaker 2: you're present.
54:14
Speaker 1: Do you know when that appeal is going to go through? Now?
54:17
Speaker 2: Well, there's been a provisional date sense, so that I
54:20
Speaker 2: think it's meant to be the twenty second day? All right, Okay, No,
54:26
Speaker 2: it's not set in stones. So I'd like to see
54:29
Speaker 2: her go to president. It's what she deserves. What she
54:31
Speaker 2: don't are those victims and there's many of them more
54:34
Speaker 2: out there.
54:35
Speaker 1: How does that appeal actually happen? That the league? All right,
54:40
Speaker 1: sorry stuttering here? How does that appeal actually happen? The
54:46
Speaker 1: legal team take the appeal forward on behalf of all
54:51
Speaker 1: the survivors. Is that how it works?
54:53
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not just showing it's to go to
54:55
Speaker 2: Edinburgh High and it goes in front of three judges
55:00
Speaker 2: and I think they just put the case across and
55:04
Speaker 2: they decide. Then I think they are I think the
55:07
Speaker 2: judge has already been last about the last decision, the
55:11
Speaker 2: way made that decision, that awful decision. Yeah, And I
55:19
Speaker 2: think they'll make the decision and hopefully it's a right one. Yeah,
55:25
Speaker 2: have you better time?
55:26
Speaker 1: Are the women still still in contact because I know
55:30
Speaker 1: there was a lot of a lot of emotion after
55:32
Speaker 1: that trial, and.
55:36
Speaker 2: I'm run in contact with the few, so I don't know, right, but.
55:39
Speaker 1: Some of you, know, some of you are together in.
55:42
Speaker 2: A Yeah, I think a few of them together. I
55:46
Speaker 2: think they'll talk over Facebook and that. So yeah, I
55:51
Speaker 2: don't know.
55:52
Speaker 1: Well, Carol, if it's if it's any uh, what's the word?
55:59
Speaker 1: If it's any help at all? We are still UK
56:03
Speaker 1: column Dian and myself for sil very much delving into
56:07
Speaker 1: this and we are going to produce something written which
56:12
Speaker 1: I think will be utterly unique because I don't think
56:16
Speaker 1: in any other case there's been a sort of independent
56:19
Speaker 1: comment on what's happened. There's always been the you know,
56:23
Speaker 1: the investigations and the formal stuff.
56:27
Speaker 2: I just hope for all those women they get justice.
56:29
Speaker 2: I hope it's the justice that they deserve. I mean,
56:32
Speaker 2: that was the initial idea of me and this other
56:35
Speaker 2: women and twenty twenty coming forward to get women they
56:41
Speaker 2: come forward and stand up. Yeah, but we don't know
56:47
Speaker 2: whether we would get Messus Robertson or not that the
56:49
Speaker 2: police would find them. It was just pail up. I'm
56:53
Speaker 2: wanting to get the justice we deserve.
56:56
Speaker 1: So do I I certainly do. And I wonder whether
57:01
Speaker 1: out of those, you know, out of the FINEFI women
57:04
Speaker 1: all together, whether whether more will be prepared to speak out,
57:08
Speaker 1: because I know, I know it is so hard. But
57:11
Speaker 1: one of the things I've learned over many years of
57:15
Speaker 1: talking about social services and the family courts and child
57:18
Speaker 1: abuse is that for the average member of the public,
57:23
Speaker 1: the the subject is hard. They find it hard to
57:28
Speaker 1: listen to. And many people I call them a nice people,
57:34
Speaker 1: so they find it very hard to even imagine somebody
57:38
Speaker 1: being cruel or unkind or abusive to a child. They
57:42
Speaker 1: simply know they wouldn't do that and you have to
57:46
Speaker 1: you have to work very hard to convince quite a
57:50
Speaker 1: few people that some really horrible things go on. And
57:54
Speaker 1: then when you have survivors that want to tell understandably
57:59
Speaker 1: what happened to them, the reaction of members of the
58:04
Speaker 1: public is they put a wall up because they can't hear.
58:09
Speaker 1: They can't take what you talk about, what the survivors
58:12
Speaker 1: talk about. And so for the the thing I've really
58:16
Speaker 1: learned is that for the survivors, they get trapped in
58:19
Speaker 1: this world where they want to get rid of some
58:24
Speaker 1: of the pain by talking to other people about what
58:27
Speaker 1: happened to them. That's a normal process. But trained counselors
58:32
Speaker 1: all listened, but many, many other people in the wider
58:37
Speaker 1: general public, they haven't got the It's not their weak
58:43
Speaker 1: you say, they just haven't got the strength to actually
58:46
Speaker 1: listen to it. And it's a very difficult subject.
58:51
Speaker 2: I think it's just taken and must it's believing some
58:55
Speaker 2: they could do that. Yeah, that some they could initially
58:59
Speaker 2: do that, but it does happen.
59:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we have to know about it in order
59:06
Speaker 1: to do something about it. This is the other bit.
59:09
Speaker 1: You can't you can't turn a blind eye to it,
59:12
Speaker 1: turn away or a wall goes up, and I'm not
59:14
Speaker 1: going to listen to that, because if you do that,
59:18
Speaker 1: you're actually helping the perpetrators get away with it. This
59:21
Speaker 1: is this is how they get away with it because
59:24
Speaker 1: the wider general public just turns off the protect.
59:32
Speaker 2: Some of it is through ignorance that people just don't
59:35
Speaker 2: want your lesson. It's like when you're telp people, but
59:40
Speaker 2: roful removald they don't want to that either. There's are
59:43
Speaker 2: different aspects that people just don't want enough. As long
59:47
Speaker 2: as it's not happening on their doorstop, door step, it's
59:51
Speaker 2: all right, yes, that that is a key thing that's
59:54
Speaker 2: not happenings and gaid along.
59:59
Speaker 1: Like over the years, I've often said to you know,
1:00:09
Speaker 1: said to people that if you think that because you are,
1:00:13
Speaker 1: for example, a professional, or you think that you live
1:00:16
Speaker 1: in a particular part of the country, that you are
1:00:19
Speaker 1: safe from social services, you need to think again.
1:00:22
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no no.
1:00:23
Speaker 1: And of course we've even had rare but it's happened
1:00:27
Speaker 1: examples where social services have gone after the children of
1:00:33
Speaker 1: law professionals. And I think there was one case of
1:00:36
Speaker 1: a lady barrister, Now obviously when when she fought, she
1:00:42
Speaker 1: could fight in a way that was different from other parents.
1:00:45
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, it demonstrated that social services will go for
1:00:49
Speaker 1: anybody's children. It's not just people who are you know,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: single parents and poor and the bottom of the pile. Yeah,
1:00:58
Speaker 1: it's quite amazing. This is Carol Lowball for you. But
1:01:03
Speaker 1: what do you make of Epstein and the revelations that
1:01:06
Speaker 1: have been coming out over that.
1:01:08
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised by half the people that are on it.
1:01:10
Speaker 2: It doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise me at all.
1:01:15
Speaker 2: And Prince Andrew Andrew, I mean, he deserves everything he
1:01:19
Speaker 2: gets coming in. But the royal family standing like, oh,
1:01:24
Speaker 2: Prince Edward, he is an innocent and all, he's not
1:01:27
Speaker 2: as bad as the rest of them, But they're all
1:01:30
Speaker 2: standing as if when we look at Prince Charles, is
1:01:34
Speaker 2: he not a friend of Jemmy Savile's.
1:01:36
Speaker 1: Well, I wonder whether you go in that direction. And
1:01:38
Speaker 1: that's absolutely true. And of course it's well known that
1:01:42
Speaker 1: Jimmy Saville was operating in Scotland as well as England.
1:01:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was well known to be doing that.
1:01:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was intimate with the raw family, but
1:01:54
Speaker 1: they didn't know, I.
1:01:56
Speaker 2: Know, very friendly with Margaret Thatcher too.
1:01:59
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, Christmas Checkers.
1:02:01
Speaker 2: I think he actually remember that.
1:02:04
Speaker 1: Yeah. So to me, all of the evidence is there
1:02:08
Speaker 1: that something's going on. You can't point a finger and
1:02:12
Speaker 1: make claims without the evidence, but there is enough evidence. Yeah.
1:02:19
Speaker 2: I don't believe he's dead. I don't believe he's dead.
1:02:22
Speaker 1: Who Epstein?
1:02:23
Speaker 2: You don't know, don't he said? I think he's been had. Yeah,
1:02:28
Speaker 2: you can't do that.
1:02:30
Speaker 1: It's interesting this thing, isn't it, Because I've just you know,
1:02:36
Speaker 1: I've seen people talking about this sort of thing. But
1:02:38
Speaker 1: when this latest release of the files came out and
1:02:42
Speaker 1: I saw an email myself, I went into the files
1:02:47
Speaker 1: and was flicking through various emails, and then I came
1:02:50
Speaker 1: across an email when it was talking about what Epstein's
1:02:56
Speaker 1: cell mate had said had been talked about. Of course
1:03:01
Speaker 1: the press isn't talking about that. And then I thought, Okay,
1:03:04
Speaker 1: so at one stage he had a cell mate, and
1:03:07
Speaker 1: then he's on his own, and then there's very strange
1:03:11
Speaker 1: circumstances where the cameras were not on at the time
1:03:15
Speaker 1: when he's allegedly committed suicide, and we don't actually know
1:03:22
Speaker 1: what happened to him. Nobody seems to have the irrefutable
1:03:26
Speaker 1: evidence that.
1:03:30
Speaker 2: Israel. Yes, yeah, apparently.
1:03:35
Speaker 1: My biggest concern over the Epstein files is that we
1:03:39
Speaker 1: see more and more people digging and some of the
1:03:42
Speaker 1: stories sort of get more and more convoluted, and you
1:03:46
Speaker 1: could say fanciful and does this weaken it in a way,
1:03:51
Speaker 1: But I've certainly seen so much. I've only spent four
1:03:56
Speaker 1: or five hours going through Epstein Files, but I've come
1:03:59
Speaker 1: across stuff which is very creepy and disturbing.
1:04:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a shame for the survivors. As a survivors
1:04:06
Speaker 2: as well, they've went through. Yeah, that was a whole
1:04:11
Speaker 2: lot for them to come forward to. That would have
1:04:14
Speaker 2: been scary, scary. I can imagine what they went through.
1:04:20
Speaker 1: And are the are the met Police? I mean, the
1:04:23
Speaker 1: FBI has done what it's done, and there's lots of
1:04:25
Speaker 1: people saying they haven't investigated properly. And I'm now watching
1:04:30
Speaker 1: with interest to see what the met Police do here
1:04:34
Speaker 1: because the whole focus is just on Prince Andrew abusing
1:04:41
Speaker 1: power by sorry, abusing his position as trade envoy or whatever.
1:04:49
Speaker 1: They're just talking about that and Mandelssohn.
1:04:54
Speaker 2: I wonder if the plot will second off, if any
1:04:57
Speaker 2: more charges will come on that or well no, you
1:05:02
Speaker 2: don't know, it's not got my may to protect him anymore.
1:05:04
Speaker 1: So yeah, well I have zero trust to faith in
1:05:10
Speaker 1: the police want to.
1:05:13
Speaker 2: I don't really think that it's going to come to much.
1:05:17
Speaker 2: It's just a wait and see. Yeah, nothing will surprise me.
1:05:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, Carol, it's really good to talk to you. What
1:05:27
Speaker 1: how do you see twenty twenty six for yourself? Where
1:05:30
Speaker 1: would you like to be going from here on? Are
1:05:33
Speaker 1: you still fighting forward? Yeah? But I mean are you
1:05:38
Speaker 1: still have you still got fighting you?
1:05:41
Speaker 2: Or are you at the perhaps not over yet? No, Right,
1:05:46
Speaker 2: she'll go to court and then it'll be the next
1:05:48
Speaker 2: next chapter from that, a few other chapters yet, I'm
1:05:52
Speaker 2: not kinds yet. No, there's a few other books. Is
1:05:57
Speaker 2: another few things I've got to finish off right. What
1:06:01
Speaker 2: we were talking about before that, Well.
1:06:03
Speaker 1: This is good because from my point of view, and
1:06:06
Speaker 1: I'll say the point of view the UK call them team.
1:06:09
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here talking to you and I've never had
1:06:12
Speaker 1: to go through the horrible experiences you've gone through, but
1:06:16
Speaker 1: I am trying to do something. And then you say
1:06:19
Speaker 1: you can only do something if the people who've been
1:06:21
Speaker 1: affected want to fight themselves. And my promise to myself
1:06:28
Speaker 1: this year is I'm going to have another go at
1:06:32
Speaker 1: getting these groups of ladies together. Last year I had
1:06:39
Speaker 1: quite a I had some really good connections with a
1:06:43
Speaker 1: whole lot of ladies who'd been through the system, they'd
1:06:46
Speaker 1: lost children, all sorts of things happen, and they're all fighters,
1:06:50
Speaker 1: but emotions come to the surface, and then the next
1:06:54
Speaker 1: minute there's a big bomb burst and people are falling out,
1:06:57
Speaker 1: and people don't want to do things with each other.
1:07:00
Speaker 1: And I found it so frustrating because the secret to
1:07:04
Speaker 1: getting the lid off what's happening with children is for
1:07:07
Speaker 1: enough people to be speaking out about it. And I've
1:07:11
Speaker 1: been able to demonstrate that we can report without putting
1:07:17
Speaker 1: people at risk, even to the extent a couple of
1:07:20
Speaker 1: months that did interviews with me, the local authorities had said,
1:07:26
Speaker 1: if you speak out, we're going to put you in prison.
1:07:28
Speaker 1: So there was a committal order standing, and yet we
1:07:32
Speaker 1: did the interviews and nobody went to prison. And I
1:07:36
Speaker 1: think this is because we got it right. But ultimately,
1:07:41
Speaker 1: if we had pick a fink figure, if we had
1:07:45
Speaker 1: five hundred, if we had a thousand parents coming forward
1:07:50
Speaker 1: and all giving a personal, calm, measured, personal testimony about
1:07:55
Speaker 1: what's happened to them, whether they've been through the abuse
1:07:58
Speaker 1: system or their children. This would form the basis of
1:08:02
Speaker 1: evidence that there's something really unpleasant going on in this
1:08:05
Speaker 1: country and then we could fight it and you, I
1:08:10
Speaker 1: can say, you guys, for women, you've been quite remarkable
1:08:15
Speaker 1: because because of enough of you have coming forward to
1:08:19
Speaker 1: speak out. And I think that the reporting that you've
1:08:25
Speaker 1: achieved for yourself, I'll grudgingly say some of the bigger
1:08:30
Speaker 1: media outlets alongside the UK column, but I think it
1:08:34
Speaker 1: was the fact that all of you had enough guts
1:08:37
Speaker 1: to talk, talk and keep going is what actually got
1:08:42
Speaker 1: for to court.
1:08:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:08:45
Speaker 1: I think if you hadn't pushed, it would never have
1:08:47
Speaker 1: got to court.
1:08:48
Speaker 2: No, you've got to keep pushing. Yeah, I think there's
1:08:51
Speaker 2: a lot more survivors out there probably do you know what,
1:08:54
Speaker 2: There'll probably be more that will come forward and keep pushing. Yeah,
1:08:58
Speaker 2: because I do need to get us is because it's see,
1:09:01
Speaker 2: when it hits you and it comes back to you,
1:09:03
Speaker 2: it doesn't go away, and there's only one way to
1:09:06
Speaker 2: get rid of it, and that's put her down, the
1:09:09
Speaker 2: dog down.
1:09:11
Speaker 1: And then the next thing is the Scottish government as
1:09:14
Speaker 1: to what they are really going to do as opposed
1:09:17
Speaker 1: to the words we are.
1:09:20
Speaker 2: Those blassbell counsels. It's like a ping pong effect. One
1:09:23
Speaker 2: is blaming each other.
1:09:25
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, I think.
1:09:26
Speaker 2: Once as well said the councilor will hands up. That's
1:09:29
Speaker 2: when that's when the Parliament will say okay, well, but
1:09:37
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to be redressed. I think
1:09:39
Speaker 2: they're going to have to look a properly up for
1:09:41
Speaker 2: the fanetic girls. I think they're trying to pull away
1:09:44
Speaker 2: from the redress.
1:09:45
Speaker 1: That the scott course, of course, because.
1:09:48
Speaker 2: They don't want to pay out money.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: Absolutely, they did kind.
1:09:53
Speaker 2: Of say about another scheme for the ladies, So maybe
1:09:56
Speaker 2: put their hands in their pockets and look for their
1:09:58
Speaker 2: scheme and give them some then, yeah, because why should
1:10:02
Speaker 2: the ladies suffer they need something and they prove they've
1:10:06
Speaker 2: been at there's plenty of us to see that they've
1:10:09
Speaker 2: been infin. Yeah, might well tell the same thing that happens.
1:10:14
Speaker 2: So if they can't get the dressed, come on thank
1:10:17
Speaker 2: for something else because it's not fair. Yeah.
1:10:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. My simple statement on this is that when when
1:10:25
Speaker 1: I have seen the damage that abuse has done to individuals,
1:10:30
Speaker 1: men and women, but you see their whole life. Okay,
1:10:34
Speaker 1: they might have rebuilt a life, but they have suffered
1:10:38
Speaker 1: throughout their whole life as a result of childhood abuse.
1:10:42
Speaker 1: And you say, what amount of money compensates for that? Well,
1:10:49
Speaker 1: it's it's not twenty on that, which is the sort
1:10:53
Speaker 1: of money that is very often offered. To me, you're
1:10:58
Speaker 1: talking a lifetime worth of income and opportunity and progression.
1:11:04
Speaker 1: So to me, the minimum figure is a million, and
1:11:08
Speaker 1: I just pluck that out of nowhere because twenty thousand
1:11:11
Speaker 1: pounds gets offered, but the real damage a million must
1:11:15
Speaker 1: be where it starts, because it's a whole lifetime that's
1:11:19
Speaker 1: been affected by what happened.
1:11:22
Speaker 2: Where would you begin with a survivor? A survivor down
1:11:25
Speaker 2: and ask, well, pace for your damage, because if I
1:11:30
Speaker 2: survivor couldn't set and say how much is priceless the
1:11:33
Speaker 2: damage you've been through on that?
1:11:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand that, Carol, Well, I think it is
1:11:41
Speaker 1: a useful It's a useful measure for other people because
1:11:50
Speaker 1: I know for people who were abused up in the
1:11:53
Speaker 1: Nottingham area in England, the sorts of money that were
1:11:57
Speaker 1: being paid out sort of fifteen to twenty twenty five pounds.
1:12:02
Speaker 1: It was that sort of figure. And actually this is
1:12:05
Speaker 1: just an insult because yeah, a lot a lot of
1:12:10
Speaker 1: those people didn't have their own homes or they don't
1:12:14
Speaker 1: have what a lifetime of a good job provides. That's
1:12:19
Speaker 1: what they lost and that's a big figure. But of course,
1:12:23
Speaker 1: if we, if we then if the state was to
1:12:26
Speaker 1: be paying out that sort of sum for everybody that's
1:12:29
Speaker 1: been abused as a child, we're talking massive, massive amounts
1:12:34
Speaker 1: of money. And that's that's why I think Scottish government
1:12:37
Speaker 1: is so scared of for NEFI that potentially the bill
1:12:42
Speaker 1: is very big for them.
1:12:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that new dress has things behind it, like
1:12:48
Speaker 2: you've got to prove you it there. There's different aspects
1:12:51
Speaker 2: to it as well. You're saying the way that you
1:12:53
Speaker 2: can't talk about different things like that, Well.
1:12:57
Speaker 1: There's a gag in order on for NEFI. I don't
1:13:00
Speaker 1: I didn't know.
1:13:00
Speaker 2: That there's a gag orden on the redress. There's a
1:13:04
Speaker 2: gag and order on it. If if you take the
1:13:07
Speaker 2: redress that that's a gag and order on that, so
1:13:10
Speaker 2: people can't really speak about it.
1:13:13
Speaker 1: I did, Carol, I didn't know that isn't that telling?
1:13:19
Speaker 1: So take the money and shut up. So wow.
1:13:24
Speaker 2: I think they should come out with the best scheme
1:13:26
Speaker 2: for the ladies because they deserves so much more.
1:13:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, we will see. We'll see what this
1:13:34
Speaker 1: year brings. But as Diane said on one of our
1:13:38
Speaker 1: other interviews, we are we the UK column are still
1:13:43
Speaker 1: here with you guys, and we're going to stay with it.
1:13:48
Speaker 2: That's brilliant. Thanks for your help.
1:13:49
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, thank you, thank you for talking to me,
1:13:52
Speaker 1: and thank you for talking to a wider audience, Carol,
1:13:56
Speaker 1: because I said, unless you tell people they haven't got
1:14:00
Speaker 1: a way of understanding.
1:14:02
Speaker 2: They haven't.
1:14:05
Speaker 1: And we've ended with a smile, so that's good. So
1:14:08
Speaker 1: it wasn't it wasn't too painful, I know,