0:00:02 > 0:00:06This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting
0:00:06 > 0:00:10In the 20th century, thousands of children found themselves rejected by society
0:00:10 > 0:00:14They were often children who had been abandoned by their families,
0:00:14 > 0:00:16or who had physical or learning disabilities.
0:00:18 > 0:00:23Today, we recognise the need to integrate such children,
0:00:23 > 0:00:26but in the past, attitudes were very different.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30NEWSREEL: 'The boy might have been admitted to hospital many years ago,
0:00:30 > 0:00:32'had Mr Harris had his way.
0:00:32 > 0:00:34'I was inclined to agree with him.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37'For whatever the cause, home has been destroyed.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40'Sometimes it may be better to take the children away
0:00:40 > 0:00:41'to an institution.'
0:00:44 > 0:00:46For many of Britain's rejected children,
0:00:46 > 0:00:50family life was replaced by a childhood behind high walls.
0:00:50 > 0:00:52For years and years,
0:00:52 > 0:00:58I was ashamed to say I'd been in an orphanage, I hated that word
0:00:59 > 0:01:02But 60 years ago, a revolution began
0:01:02 > 0:01:05to change peoples' attitudes towards these children.
0:01:05 > 0:01:09Every child was important, they were no longer a number,
0:01:09 > 0:01:11they were no longer a group. This was wonderful.
0:01:14 > 0:01:16The journey hasn't been easy.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20Along the way there has been trauma, scandal and even horror.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23NEWSREEL: 'Up to five hours a day tied to a post
0:01:23 > 0:01:25'when he's being particularly difficult.'
0:01:25 > 0:01:26It was what I call
0:01:26 > 0:01:29"the drug-them-up-and-shut-them up" routine.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32I was so heavily sedated, I could not stay awake.
0:01:32 > 0:01:35In this series, we follow Britain's progress
0:01:35 > 0:01:39in dealing with disabled or unwanted children.
0:01:39 > 0:01:41This programme looks at the disowned -
0:01:41 > 0:01:43those children, often abandoned
0:01:43 > 0:01:46who grew up without a family of their own.
0:01:58 > 0:01:59CROWS SQUAWK
0:01:59 > 0:02:00BELL TOLLS
0:02:08 > 0:02:12Vast orphanages like the one at Newsham Park in Liverpool
0:02:12 > 0:02:15once haunted Britain's cities.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18They were built to house society's outcasts,
0:02:18 > 0:02:19children who needed to be rescued
0:02:19 > 0:02:22from the destitution of life on the streets.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29They were founded on the 19th century Poor Law
0:02:29 > 0:02:30and run like a barracks.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43Oh, you had to salute them, just like in the forces. Oh, yes.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47You had to salute the master.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50Long way up, short way down, that's what we were taught.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57Slow march, quick march, about turn, all those drills.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01Very, very severe. Very severe
0:03:04 > 0:03:09George Bennett was brought here in 1937 along with his two brothers.
0:03:09 > 0:03:11There was nowhere else for them to go.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17The biggest providers of residential care
0:03:17 > 0:03:19were still the big voluntary societies
0:03:19 > 0:03:21and the kind of children they took in
0:03:21 > 0:03:23were those...
0:03:23 > 0:03:27Basically their parents couldn't cope any longer.
0:03:27 > 0:03:29Orphans.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32A mother whose husband had died ..
0:03:32 > 0:03:34More often, a father whose wife had died
0:03:34 > 0:03:38and he'd got to continue working but he couldn't look after his kids
0:03:39 > 0:03:41One of the prevailing attitudes there was,
0:03:41 > 0:03:44"Your parents have failed, we want you to stay here,
0:03:44 > 0:03:47"we'll try and break the link with your family.
0:03:50 > 0:03:52George's life in the orphanage was one
0:03:52 > 0:03:55that echoed over a century of Victorian tradition.
0:03:57 > 0:03:58But hundreds of miles away,
0:03:58 > 0:04:02the world of pre-war childcare was about to undergo a revolution.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08The O'Neill brothers from Newport in South Wales
0:04:08 > 0:04:11were living in slum conditions
0:04:11 > 0:04:12What happened to them
0:04:12 > 0:04:14would transform the system of care forever.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21There was ten of us in the family.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26And...I was the second youngest ..
0:04:26 > 0:04:33This one social worker had been visiting us over 200 times...
0:04:33 > 0:04:35and then we were taken away.
0:04:36 > 0:04:40Terry O'Neill was five when he was taken into care.
0:04:40 > 0:04:41During the war,
0:04:41 > 0:04:45he and his brother Dennis were moved from one home to another
0:04:45 > 0:04:47But it was their experience of foster care
0:04:47 > 0:04:51which would ultimately lead to a fundamental change in the law
0:04:55 > 0:04:59In 1944, the two of them were delivered to a new foster home
0:04:59 > 0:05:02a remote farm just outside the village of Hope in Shropshire.
0:05:06 > 0:05:07It belonged to a Mr Gough.
0:05:10 > 0:05:12He was a big, brutish fella.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17His idea was to have us
0:05:17 > 0:05:20to be working on the farm, kind of cheap labour, I suppose
0:05:22 > 0:05:24Mr Gough wasted no time.
0:05:24 > 0:05:28Both boys had to be up by six in the morning to bring in the cows.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34He had to have everything done his way.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38If you didn't do what he wanted, he'd punish us.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42Hittings or thrashings.
0:05:42 > 0:05:43You'd get them in the evening.
0:05:45 > 0:05:4950, 100, up to 200 strokes.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52We knew whatever we did, we'd get punished.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58Lots of people say, "Well, why didn't you run away?
0:05:58 > 0:06:01Well, when you were put in these places by...
0:06:02 > 0:06:04..the powers that be,
0:06:04 > 0:06:07you couldn't ask questions or anything,
0:06:07 > 0:06:10you were put there and you were there to stay.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17If unsupervised foster homes were brutal, the other main option
0:06:17 > 0:06:19orphanages - were little better
0:06:23 > 0:06:26Discipline at the Newsham Park orphanage
0:06:26 > 0:06:28was backed by the threat of the cane.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32And at night transgressions were punished by the prefects,
0:06:32 > 0:06:33who would make offenders
0:06:33 > 0:06:35run the gauntlet of the big boys in the dormitory.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51Some boys, they resorted to kicks,
0:06:51 > 0:06:56using a belt, a knotted towel, or even boots thrown down.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02And it was no good a boy trying to dash through
0:07:02 > 0:07:04because somebody would trip him up
0:07:04 > 0:07:07and he'd get twice as much punishment then.
0:07:12 > 0:07:14After they had been put through the ranks,
0:07:14 > 0:07:17everybody jumped into bed,
0:07:17 > 0:07:20the only noise was coming from the boys who'd faced the ordeal
0:07:22 > 0:07:26But the masters never stopped it, because they knew what it was.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29The prefects were doing their job for them.
0:07:32 > 0:07:34The residential care system in the UK
0:07:34 > 0:07:38was intended that it should be a punitive experience.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41Being taken away from home was not intended originally
0:07:41 > 0:07:44to convey very much benefit.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47So there weren't that many people who were
0:07:47 > 0:07:50particularly concerned about what went on
0:07:50 > 0:07:55behind the relatively closed doors of children's homes at the time
0:07:55 > 0:07:59There was no tender loving care or very, very little.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02You sort of rose above it.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06The only way I can describe it I know it's an old cliche,
0:08:06 > 0:08:08"like it and lump it."
0:08:11 > 0:08:16But a change in attitudes to the care of children was on its way
0:08:16 > 0:08:19And it came partly as an accident of war.
0:08:19 > 0:08:21Within weeks of the outbreak of fighting,
0:08:21 > 0:08:24nearly a million children were dispatched from their homes
0:08:24 > 0:08:27to escape the expected bombing
0:08:27 > 0:08:30NEWSREEL: 'The departure of the children in particular
0:08:30 > 0:08:32'has been a triumph of orderly precision.
0:08:32 > 0:08:33'From cities and towns,
0:08:33 > 0:08:36'children in their thousands have left their parents behind
0:08:36 > 0:08:38'and been drafted off to safety zones.'
0:08:39 > 0:08:41The war, or rather the evacuations,
0:08:41 > 0:08:45were a complete turning point in terms of childcare.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48'It is indeed a strange experience
0:08:48 > 0:08:49'for these thousands of children,
0:08:49 > 0:08:53'as well as great responsibility for those who will be caring for them
0:08:53 > 0:08:54'during these dark days.'
0:08:54 > 0:08:55For the first time,
0:08:55 > 0:08:58a lot of middle class people in the rural areas
0:08:58 > 0:09:00and other big cities where the children went to,
0:09:00 > 0:09:04for the first time they saw poor children.
0:09:04 > 0:09:07There were a lot of complaints about children having fleas,
0:09:07 > 0:09:09about being untrained in going to the toilet.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11But they were seeing the children
0:09:11 > 0:09:14and generally, a wave of sympathy...
0:09:14 > 0:09:15came up.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19This new warmth towards evacuees fed into a wider public support
0:09:19 > 0:09:24for changes to the chaotic system of institutions and fostering.
0:09:28 > 0:09:30Back at the Goughs' foster home in Shropshire,
0:09:30 > 0:09:34the calls for reform went unheard.
0:09:34 > 0:09:38The O'Neill boys were facing a life of unyielding cruelty and hunger.
0:09:40 > 0:09:42We'd be starving.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44A round of bread for breakfast
0:09:44 > 0:09:47round of bread for dinner
0:09:47 > 0:09:49and a round of bread for tea,
0:09:49 > 0:09:52and that was our main meals.
0:09:52 > 0:09:56How did the Goughs eat? Well, the Goughs ate well,
0:09:56 > 0:09:58but we never saw any of it, you know.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04The 12-year-old Dennis was so desperate
0:10:04 > 0:10:07that he had taken to sucking the udders of the cows
0:10:08 > 0:10:09As the weather deteriorated,
0:10:09 > 0:10:12Mr Gough made him break the ice on the cattle trough
0:10:12 > 0:10:16and strip down to wash himself in the freezing cold.
0:10:16 > 0:10:18Dennis already had a chest infection,
0:10:18 > 0:10:21and he was getting the worst of the beatings.
0:10:23 > 0:10:28One January night, things came to a head.
0:10:28 > 0:10:34He went out to try to get some wood, and he come back with a few twigs.
0:10:34 > 0:10:39Mrs Gough, she lost her temper she pulled him by the hair,
0:10:39 > 0:10:42and said, "Wait till Gough comes home tonight."
0:10:42 > 0:10:46And that was the night that he used the pig bench.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54Mr Gough forced Terry to tie Dennis down on the bench
0:10:54 > 0:10:57designed to be used for butchering pigs.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00Then he was sent upstairs.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06The sticks that they used,
0:11:06 > 0:11:09they were like rough and knotted and what have you.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13I could hear Dennis having thrashings.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19I could hear Dennis's screams.
0:11:30 > 0:11:33Dennis eventually crept up to bed.
0:11:33 > 0:11:35But he was still whimpering.
0:11:35 > 0:11:37Mr Gough had had enough.
0:11:39 > 0:11:41After a while he came up...
0:11:43 > 0:11:45..held Dennis down...
0:11:45 > 0:11:48and started beating him on the chest.
0:11:54 > 0:11:58When he went back down again, Dennis was crying,
0:11:58 > 0:12:01but as time went on, he stopped
0:12:04 > 0:12:07And I could feel...
0:12:07 > 0:12:10the pain in my back...
0:12:10 > 0:12:11where he was...
0:12:14 > 0:12:16..clawing me. You know...
0:12:17 > 0:12:19In so much pain.
0:12:26 > 0:12:30In the morning, he was cold, still, lifeless.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34Mrs Gough said,
0:12:34 > 0:12:38"Don't worry about him, he can stay in bed this morning "
0:12:38 > 0:12:42Which was something that never happened.
0:12:47 > 0:12:51The Goughs phoned for a doctor but Dennis was already dead.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55The police arrived at the farm the same morning.
0:12:55 > 0:12:57Mr and Mrs Gough were arrested
0:12:59 > 0:13:01Details of the killing soon reached the newspapers.
0:13:01 > 0:13:06The savagery of Dennis's death horrified the nation.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09There was an outpouring of anger that the care system
0:13:09 > 0:13:11could lead to such neglect.
0:13:12 > 0:13:16Dennis O'Neill's death was the catalyst
0:13:16 > 0:13:19behind a change of legislation and a new attitude towards care
0:13:22 > 0:13:24The Children's Act of 1948
0:13:24 > 0:13:26was a very significant point
0:13:26 > 0:13:29in the history of institutional childcare.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33The Poor Law is abolished and there's a whole new system
0:13:33 > 0:13:36to supervise and implement
0:13:36 > 0:13:39the housing of children in need
0:13:40 > 0:13:44The reforms embraced the optimism of the post-war period.
0:13:44 > 0:13:46Alongside the nascent welfare state,
0:13:46 > 0:13:48they looked to banish the ills of the past.
0:13:50 > 0:13:52Every child was important.
0:13:52 > 0:13:54They were no longer a number.
0:13:54 > 0:13:56They were no longer a group,
0:13:56 > 0:13:59it was a duty of the children's department
0:13:59 > 0:14:03to give personal care to every child.
0:14:03 > 0:14:04This was wonderful.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09As Britain moved into the 1950s
0:14:09 > 0:14:13the new legislation was changing the structure of care
0:14:13 > 0:14:16But the science of child development also began to evolve.
0:14:20 > 0:14:22New thinkers were exploring
0:14:22 > 0:14:25the emotions within a child's experience.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29The British psychiatrist John Bowlby pioneered attachment theory
0:14:29 > 0:14:33by looking at groups of difficult children.
0:14:33 > 0:14:38What I noticed was that there were children who were being referred
0:14:38 > 0:14:40for...persistent thieving...
0:14:41 > 0:14:47..truancy, who were regarded as hard-boiled and incorrigible.
0:14:47 > 0:14:52What I spotted was that they had had very, very disruptive childhoods.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55John Bowlby was particularly well-known
0:14:55 > 0:15:00for his theory of attachment disorder and maternal deprivation.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03Through observing children in hospitals
0:15:03 > 0:15:05and through observing delinquent children -
0:15:05 > 0:15:08he did a study of 44 delinquent children -
0:15:08 > 0:15:10and found that the one thing they all had in common
0:15:10 > 0:15:14was that at some point their relationship with
0:15:14 > 0:15:17mostly their mothers had been disrupted in some way
0:15:19 > 0:15:23The 1952 film, A Two-Year-Old Goes To Hospital
0:15:23 > 0:15:25documented the impact of eight days
0:15:25 > 0:15:28in the life of a child taken away from her parents.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31FILM FOOTAGE: 'This is Laura in her garden at home.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34'Laura has never been away from her mother's care.
0:15:34 > 0:15:39'But in two days' time, she will go to hospital to have a minor operation.'
0:15:39 > 0:15:41The film was based on Bowlby's work.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45It sought to demonstrate the impact on the child of removing,
0:15:45 > 0:15:49even temporarily, the main emotional bond.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53'When the nurse says, "Come and see the rocking horse
0:15:53 > 0:15:56'Laura says, "You come too, Mummy."
0:15:57 > 0:15:59'But goes quite cheerfully without her.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03'She resists entering the strange bathroom,
0:16:03 > 0:16:05'and at this moment, just as her face is hidden,
0:16:05 > 0:16:09'she bursts into tears and cries, "I want my mummy."
0:16:11 > 0:16:12' "I want my mummy.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15' "Where has my mummy gone?" '
0:16:15 > 0:16:19The film charts eight days in the little girl's stay in hospital.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23Each day without her mother, Laura becomes more withdrawn.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26'Today it takes longer to make contact,
0:16:26 > 0:16:30'and although the nurse tries hard to cheer her up with toys,
0:16:30 > 0:16:32'Laura doesn't respond.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35'During the morning, she wet her bed.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38'This upset her and she smacked the hospital doll hard and repeatedly,
0:16:38 > 0:16:41'saying, "Naughty dolly." '
0:16:41 > 0:16:46Bowlby studied hundreds of children's early emotional attachments.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48He deduced that they were a critical part
0:16:48 > 0:16:51of their development as individuals.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55His ideas were the building blocks for the care of disowned children.
0:16:56 > 0:16:58'She doesn't respond at all to play.'
0:16:59 > 0:17:02It was a hugely significant theory
0:17:02 > 0:17:07and really is still shaping welfare policy even today.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10"Children deprived of a normal family home,"
0:17:10 > 0:17:13that was the fundamental phrase that was very important
0:17:13 > 0:17:18in shaping institutional childcare in the later 20th century -
0:17:18 > 0:17:23this focus on trying to replicate as much as possible normal family life.
0:17:23 > 0:17:25'Her mother arrives first.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29'Again, there is a period of reserved, unresponsive behaviour
0:17:29 > 0:17:31'with no attempt to get close to her mother.'
0:17:31 > 0:17:35This maternal deprivation was shown to cause serious problems
0:17:35 > 0:17:37for a child's future mental health.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41But the research pointed to an unexpected solution,
0:17:41 > 0:17:44given the still simmering outrage at Dennis O'Neill's death.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47NEWSREEL: 'These children need a home they can call their own
0:17:47 > 0:17:50'They need a normal, boisterous family life.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52'They need foster parents.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55'The finding has to be done by the local authority.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58'They're sending out a new kind of official.'
0:17:58 > 0:18:01In 1950, the government's public information unit
0:18:01 > 0:18:04produced a film encouraging people to take up fostering.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07FILM: 'Now, these two I've been watching for some time.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10'Their mother died recently of TB,
0:18:10 > 0:18:12'their father's disappeared.
0:18:12 > 0:18:14'Nobody but an old grandfather. .'
0:18:14 > 0:18:15Fostering had always been there
0:18:15 > 0:18:19but as a minority part of the care industry.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23Under the new legislation, all this was to change dramatically.
0:18:23 > 0:18:28The '48 act said that fostering was the ideal method.
0:18:28 > 0:18:30They argued that children needed a family.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33They may not have their own families
0:18:33 > 0:18:35but they had more chance of getting a family
0:18:35 > 0:18:39if they were moved into a foster home than into a children's home.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43Bob Holman became one of the first generation of childcare officers,
0:18:43 > 0:18:45a new army of professionals.
0:18:45 > 0:18:50Here was the formation of a new occupation...childcare.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53People just doing childcare.
0:18:53 > 0:18:58NEWSREEL: 'Already 25,000 children are living with foster parents.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00On top of finding new foster families,
0:19:00 > 0:19:04they still had to deal with homes and orphanages.
0:19:04 > 0:19:05Children's departments,
0:19:05 > 0:19:09they had power over voluntary children's homes.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12Power to inspect, power to strike off.
0:19:12 > 0:19:14Within a year of the new legislation,
0:19:14 > 0:19:16Newsham Park was closed,
0:19:16 > 0:19:19and other big orphanages began to be humanised.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23And in the wake of Bowlby's work,
0:19:23 > 0:19:26the homes themselves were becoming smaller, more similar to families.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28Care was softened.
0:19:28 > 0:19:31And efforts were made to banish the institutional feel
0:19:31 > 0:19:33of the old regimes forever.
0:19:33 > 0:19:37WOMAN: 'We look after about 100 children.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40'We have them in small groups, and each group is looked after
0:19:40 > 0:19:42'by two or three of the staff.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47In the 20 years after the war, the chances of an abandoned child
0:19:47 > 0:19:51going into an institution dropped by nearly a third,
0:19:51 > 0:19:53while the chances of finding a foster home
0:19:53 > 0:19:55increased by the same amount.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00The 1950s were a time of increasing affluence in Britain
0:20:00 > 0:20:03But things were not easy for those caring for children
0:20:03 > 0:20:05who had been disowned by their families.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09The end of the war had brought levels of childbirth to a new peak.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13The post-war baby boom put new stresses on the care system
0:20:13 > 0:20:20There was a massive surge of children coming into care from 1 48.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25This was partly because a lot more soldiers had come home,
0:20:25 > 0:20:29got family, had children, there was a great rise in the birth rate
0:20:29 > 0:20:32Also, there was a larger number of family break-ups.
0:20:33 > 0:20:39So the departments were just struggling to get children in care.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45The question was how to cope with this glut of unwanted children?
0:20:47 > 0:20:48In post-war Britain,
0:20:48 > 0:20:51giving birth out of wedlock was still a powerful taboo.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55Unmarried mothers were stigmatised.
0:20:58 > 0:21:00Stomach's turning over a bit.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02Frightening.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06When Lyn Rodden became pregnant in 1956,
0:21:06 > 0:21:08she was brought here to Rosemundy House,
0:21:08 > 0:21:10a mother and baby home in Cornwall.
0:21:20 > 0:21:21Basically you were a slapper.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26That is the only way I can describe it.
0:21:26 > 0:21:28You were the worst in the world
0:21:28 > 0:21:29And they treated you like that
0:21:31 > 0:21:34They sort of said, "Oh, she's pregnant,
0:21:34 > 0:21:36"she got what she deserves."
0:21:36 > 0:21:39You know, that type of attitude and...
0:21:39 > 0:21:41you were a social outcast basically.
0:21:42 > 0:21:45Rosemundy was just one of a network of homes
0:21:45 > 0:21:48where thousands of unmarried mothers gave birth in secret.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53Six weeks after her baby was born, Lyn was told
0:21:53 > 0:21:56she had to take him by train on her own to Bath,
0:21:56 > 0:21:58to be handed over to new parents.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03The worst day of my life.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07I got to this office and I walked in.
0:22:07 > 0:22:11There was a chair and I sat there, and she eventually came out.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14And she said "Name", so I gave me name...
0:22:14 > 0:22:17"Baby's name", gave the name.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20"Right, bring him over here," took him over.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23She said, "Just one moment, don't go away."
0:22:23 > 0:22:26She went into another room, she came back out.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29"Right, you better go now," she said.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31"Get the taxi and get back to your train
0:22:31 > 0:22:32"and get back as quick as you can.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35"Thank you very much, goodbye.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38It was just like handing a parcel over at the Post Office.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43I walked out of that door and I wanted to run back,
0:22:43 > 0:22:45but I knew that if I did, I wouldn't have got anywhere.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50So I got back up to the station got on the train
0:22:50 > 0:22:53and I cried all the way back here.
0:22:53 > 0:22:54And it stills hurts.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03NEWSREEL: Babies are easy of course.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06Always plenty of people who want young, cuddly ones.
0:23:06 > 0:23:10The surge in numbers of illegitimate births fuelled a baby industry
0:23:10 > 0:23:15as childless couples found a natural supply of takeaway babies to adopt.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20NEWSREEL: 'The London offices of the National Adoption Society,
0:23:20 > 0:23:22'a society which has one of the pleasantest jobs in the world
0:23:22 > 0:23:25'to create happy families.
0:23:25 > 0:23:27'It's a wrench to part from your baby
0:23:27 > 0:23:30'but this mother had decided it would be better off with parents
0:23:30 > 0:23:32'who could give it all the things she can't.'
0:23:32 > 0:23:35This contemporary film portrays adoption
0:23:35 > 0:23:38as a common sense solution for all involved.
0:23:38 > 0:23:40'It may be fancy of course,
0:23:40 > 0:23:43'but he seems to take to his new parents straight away.'
0:23:44 > 0:23:48In the documentary's idealised vision of adoption,
0:23:48 > 0:23:50babies come with no strings attached.
0:23:50 > 0:23:52'There are one or two formalities -
0:23:52 > 0:23:55'a child's ration book and identity card have to be handed over -
0:23:55 > 0:23:58'and in three months' time, if everything goes well,
0:23:58 > 0:24:01'the name on them will be changed to that of his new mother and father.'
0:24:01 > 0:24:03At Rosemundy House,
0:24:03 > 0:24:07mothers and adopters were kept strictly separate.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10Visits from adopting couples were carefully choreographed.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14When prospective parents were due to visit,
0:24:14 > 0:24:19you were sent...upstairs to a room and you could look out the window
0:24:19 > 0:24:21and watch them looking at the babies.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26But you weren't allowed out while they were there.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33It was a process sanitised for the adopters.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36A showroom for disowned babies
0:24:36 > 0:24:39But it left a trail of emotional turmoil.
0:24:39 > 0:24:44You're wondering, all the time "Where did he go?"
0:24:44 > 0:24:48And every little boy you see who should be his age,
0:24:48 > 0:24:51you look and you think, "I wonder what he's doing now.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56It's just heart-wrenching, it's just...
0:24:56 > 0:24:59It's like somebody pulling pieces out of you.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03The system kept mothers and adopters apart at every level.
0:25:03 > 0:25:07There were persuasive reasons to preserve anonymity.
0:25:12 > 0:25:14The need for secrecy arose
0:25:14 > 0:25:18because having an adopted child could be a visible sign
0:25:18 > 0:25:20that you had fertility problems
0:25:20 > 0:25:23Which, obviously, in a period when people were much more private
0:25:23 > 0:25:27about their medical issues, they didn't want to broadcast.
0:25:27 > 0:25:30NEWSREEL: 'One more of the thousands of families
0:25:30 > 0:25:32'which owe their happiness to the National Adoption Society.
0:25:34 > 0:25:36'The demand for babies is far greater than the supply
0:25:36 > 0:25:39'as you can see from these files of people
0:25:39 > 0:25:40'waiting to adopt children.'
0:25:40 > 0:25:43Finding babies new parents was seen as a way
0:25:43 > 0:25:45of laundering the stigma of their birth.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48But adoption was not the only route to a fresh start.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53The majority of disowned children were still in the hands
0:25:53 > 0:25:54of large care homes.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57Many of the homes were also seeking new ways
0:25:57 > 0:25:59to cope with the surge in numbers.
0:25:59 > 0:26:04'Yes, they're feeling happy, their hopes are high, their future bright.'
0:26:04 > 0:26:07Shipping children to Britain's former colonies -
0:26:07 > 0:26:09particularly Australia and Canada -
0:26:09 > 0:26:11was one way for the churches and charities
0:26:11 > 0:26:15to remove some of the surplus youngsters.
0:26:15 > 0:26:17One of the things I do remember is somebody
0:26:17 > 0:26:19coming into the classroom one day
0:26:19 > 0:26:21and saying, "Who wants to go to Australia?"
0:26:21 > 0:26:25Well, we all hated where we were so we all put our hands up, I think.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31NEWSREEL: 'At the Overseas League HQ, a number of young emigrants
0:26:31 > 0:26:34'to Australia were recently entertained before their departure.'
0:26:34 > 0:26:38This migration of children in care began in the 19th century,
0:26:38 > 0:26:41but it was still going on in the 1960s.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45It was felt that these children were tainted, their prospects poor.
0:26:45 > 0:26:49'That, in the midst of all her troubles, she's able to...'
0:26:49 > 0:26:52We have the attitude from the British end of...
0:26:52 > 0:26:56Almost a fear of these children from the wrong side of the tracks,
0:26:56 > 0:26:59setting down a path that will lead to crime and social problems,
0:26:59 > 0:27:03and they need to be redeemed from that in some way.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06And they were a problem for us here in the UK,
0:27:06 > 0:27:09because they would be the kinds of children
0:27:09 > 0:27:13who would create social problems, given their position in society
0:27:15 > 0:27:18Patrick McGowan had been living in a Catholic orphanage
0:27:18 > 0:27:20in Belfast for eight years.
0:27:20 > 0:27:22An official came to his classroom
0:27:22 > 0:27:25with an offer that was pure deception.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28We were told, "You'll be riding to school on a horse,
0:27:28 > 0:27:32"and you'll be picking bananas off the trees on the way to school."
0:27:32 > 0:27:34Anybody would have gone for that,
0:27:34 > 0:27:38even people with parents would have jumped at that one.
0:27:38 > 0:27:40NEWSREEL: 'White sands and blue waters.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43'When the kiddies get to the beaches, they become real diggers.'
0:27:45 > 0:27:49But the reality of life in Australia proved very different.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52When the boys got off the boat in Fremantle,
0:27:52 > 0:27:55they were swiftly moved to Bindoon, a Catholic home,
0:27:55 > 0:27:57where the 11-year-old Patrick
0:27:57 > 0:28:00was given hard manual labour, along with the other children.
0:28:03 > 0:28:05Bindoon was pretty tough.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08When I got to Bindoon, I got a khaki shirt,
0:28:08 > 0:28:10a khaki pair of pants and that was it.
0:28:10 > 0:28:11No underwear, bare feet.
0:28:11 > 0:28:13For the first couple of years that I was at Bindoon
0:28:13 > 0:28:16we worked and worked and worked on the buildings.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19But there wasn't any education and that was the big one.
0:28:19 > 0:28:22One of the mottos of Bindoon was,
0:28:22 > 0:28:25"If you can work with your hands, you don't need your brains."
0:28:25 > 0:28:29Over the years, 150,000 children were transported
0:28:29 > 0:28:31to Britain's former colonies.
0:28:31 > 0:28:35Many of them faced harsh lives at best, and often abuse.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39But for the councils and charities mainly responsible for childcare,
0:28:39 > 0:28:41it was an ideal solution.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44NEWSREEL: 'Across the continent in Perth, Western Australia,
0:28:44 > 0:28:46'child migrants in the Fairbridge Farm School
0:28:46 > 0:28:48'started their celebrations.'
0:28:48 > 0:28:50Voluntary societies, such as Barnardo's,
0:28:50 > 0:28:53thought they were doing work, not only for child rescue
0:28:53 > 0:28:56but also something that was for the benefit of empire.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58So with that extra political spin,
0:28:58 > 0:29:01they were able to convince governments
0:29:01 > 0:29:04that this was something that the British state should finance.
0:29:04 > 0:29:05And they did.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09For five decades, Britain sponsored the migration of children
0:29:09 > 0:29:13to the former colonies, paying as much as three quarters of the costs.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16The practice came to an end in 1970,
0:29:16 > 0:29:20but the advantages throughout were conspicuous.
0:29:20 > 0:29:25The theory was to populate empty nations with "good white stock.
0:29:25 > 0:29:28I think they saw an opportunity to get rid
0:29:28 > 0:29:31of all these kids from England and they sent them to other colonies
0:29:31 > 0:29:33where they could populate...
0:29:35 > 0:29:37..and breed and work.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41Far from the fun and fresh air they had been promised,
0:29:41 > 0:29:45many of these children had nothing to look forward to but brutality.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48Worst of all, attempts to trace their families
0:29:48 > 0:29:50were often met with lies.
0:29:51 > 0:29:55My records are just nothing, there's nothing there.
0:29:55 > 0:29:58You know, medical history, you name it.
0:29:58 > 0:30:01I can't find anything about myself.
0:30:02 > 0:30:06I don't think I'll ever find out who my forbears are.
0:30:08 > 0:30:11In my darkest moments I think, "Why the secrecy?"
0:30:12 > 0:30:15I mean, I'm a human being,
0:30:15 > 0:30:17I'm worth something.
0:30:17 > 0:30:21I need to be identified, I need to identify where I come from.
0:30:25 > 0:30:28"Dear Mr and Mrs Steinson...
0:30:28 > 0:30:30"we can now offer you a baby boy.
0:30:31 > 0:30:35"Baby Burrows was born on the 17th of the 9th, 1956..."
0:30:35 > 0:30:39'Lyn's son Mark was luckier than Patrick.
0:30:39 > 0:30:41'He could at least trace his birth mother.
0:30:41 > 0:30:45'The documents he has found seem mainly concerned
0:30:45 > 0:30:49'with reassuring the new parents about Lyn's moral fitness.'
0:30:49 > 0:30:52"Her medical is good and the doctor says she is a healthy girl
0:30:52 > 0:30:55"and comes from a decent type of family.
0:30:55 > 0:31:00"She was jilted by the punitive father shortly before the wedding.
0:31:00 > 0:31:02"If you would like to have this baby,
0:31:02 > 0:31:04"will you please come to this office
0:31:04 > 0:31:09"at 2:30PM on Friday the 7th of November, 1956.
0:31:10 > 0:31:12"Please confirm this appointment.
0:31:12 > 0:31:14"Yours sincerely..."
0:31:14 > 0:31:16There you go.
0:31:19 > 0:31:22I was treated like a parcel,
0:31:22 > 0:31:24it was very matter of fact.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27They weren't married...
0:31:27 > 0:31:29they had an accident...
0:31:29 > 0:31:31and I'm the product of it.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37Like many adopted children, and indeed those fostered,
0:31:37 > 0:31:40Mark found loving parents and a happy home.
0:31:40 > 0:31:43But he still felt a need to trace his origins.
0:31:46 > 0:31:48It's nice to know where you came from.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52It was, sort of, like a big relief...
0:31:52 > 0:31:55that I found...
0:31:55 > 0:31:56you know, my...
0:31:57 > 0:31:57you know, my...
0:31:57 > 0:31:59place.
0:32:08 > 0:32:09KLAXON SOUNDS
0:32:11 > 0:32:15By the early 1960s, mass immigration was well established.
0:32:15 > 0:32:17As well as West Indian and Asian migrants,
0:32:17 > 0:32:21there was a boost in arrivals from Britain's former African colonies.
0:32:27 > 0:32:31These new families would have a dramatic impact on the care system,
0:32:31 > 0:32:34as they did on many parts of British society.
0:32:38 > 0:32:42# Happy birthday to you... #
0:32:42 > 0:32:46In 1968, the BBC made a ground-breaking film
0:32:46 > 0:32:49about the experience of black children in a care home.
0:32:50 > 0:32:52WOMAN: There you are, that's for the other table.
0:32:54 > 0:32:59Sometimes I wonder if we are overprotecting our children
0:32:59 > 0:33:01because I have 14 in my care..
0:33:03 > 0:33:06..and I do feel the responsibility quite a lot.
0:33:06 > 0:33:12But things have changed in the past two or three years in childcare
0:33:12 > 0:33:16and this is very much a family home.
0:33:17 > 0:33:21The impact of immigration on homes like this was immediately visible.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24A disproportionate number of black and mixed race children
0:33:24 > 0:33:26were taken into care,
0:33:26 > 0:33:30partly as a result of high levels of family breakdown.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33One former resident of a similar children's home
0:33:33 > 0:33:35was the athlete Kriss Akabusi.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40Akabusi won fame as a sprinter in the 1984 Olympics,
0:33:40 > 0:33:43and became one of our best-known athletes.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47When he arrived in Britain in the early '60s, aged four,
0:33:47 > 0:33:50he and his brother were handed over to private carers,
0:33:50 > 0:33:53while his parents returned to newly-independent Nigeria.
0:33:55 > 0:33:56I remember...
0:33:56 > 0:33:59jumping on a plane during the day...
0:34:01 > 0:34:05..and landing in the UK at night.
0:34:05 > 0:34:07And I remember the change in the atmosphere
0:34:07 > 0:34:11and I remember standing outside the home in Brighton looking up at it
0:34:11 > 0:34:14and my mother was telling me
0:34:14 > 0:34:16this was going to be my new home...
0:34:18 > 0:34:20..and then turning round and my mum was gone.
0:34:21 > 0:34:26After four years, the money to pay the unregistered carers dried up,
0:34:26 > 0:34:30and the two Akabusi boys were abandoned.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32They ended up wandering the streets
0:34:32 > 0:34:34until they were picked up by a local authority
0:34:34 > 0:34:36children's home in Enfield.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40At that time, most of the carers -
0:34:40 > 0:34:43they were all white and most of the incumbents,
0:34:43 > 0:34:47the young people there, were black children.
0:34:48 > 0:34:52Anywhere you go, you knew you were very different.
0:34:52 > 0:34:54People would stop and stare at you.
0:34:54 > 0:34:56Kids would say stuff... Adults would say stuff.
0:34:57 > 0:35:00I mean gosh, all the jokes that you would be getting
0:35:00 > 0:35:02about your lips and your nose.
0:35:02 > 0:35:05WOMAN: Do you mind if I drive, Raymond?
0:35:05 > 0:35:08Once lodged in a children's home,
0:35:08 > 0:35:11black or mixed race kids often found it hard to leave.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14The most likely exit - into fostering - was often blocked
0:35:14 > 0:35:17because foster parents were almost exclusively white.
0:35:20 > 0:35:23My bedroom was over...
0:35:23 > 0:35:25Over the gravel drive...
0:35:25 > 0:35:30and two or three times in a year, there would be a day
0:35:30 > 0:35:33where adults would come to have a look at the children.
0:35:34 > 0:35:36After a while, you begin to understand what's going on -
0:35:36 > 0:35:38it's an interview process going on.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42And of course the younger children would get fostered or adopted,
0:35:42 > 0:35:46and my brother and I always got overlooked, every time, overlooked.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51As you get to 8, 10, 12, no-one wants two black kids...
0:35:53 > 0:35:57..and you knew really that this was your life.
0:35:57 > 0:35:59MUSIC: "Silence Is Golden" by The Tremeloes
0:35:59 > 0:36:04# Don't it hurt deep inside
0:36:04 > 0:36:07# To see someone
0:36:07 > 0:36:09# Do something
0:36:09 > 0:36:12# To her... #
0:36:12 > 0:36:14The BBC's film presented the care system
0:36:14 > 0:36:17in the midst of a cultural transformation,
0:36:17 > 0:36:20as the country embraced the permissive society.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26# Silence is golden
0:36:27 > 0:36:30# But my eyes still see
0:36:32 > 0:36:37# But my eyes still see. #
0:36:39 > 0:36:42This was a decade of radical change.
0:36:42 > 0:36:46Social and sexual attitudes became more relaxed.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49Much of the stigma of illegitimacy began to disappear
0:36:49 > 0:36:54with the arrival of the birth control pill and legalised abortion.
0:36:56 > 0:36:59'But more liberal ideas had also begun to affect
0:36:59 > 0:37:02'how society approached juvenile delinquency and youth crime.'
0:37:04 > 0:37:06Young offenders had always been treated separately
0:37:06 > 0:37:08from most of those in care.
0:37:08 > 0:37:12Delinquents were often held in approved schools.
0:37:12 > 0:37:16One piece of landmark legislation changed all this.
0:37:16 > 0:37:19It brought to an end the network of approved schools
0:37:19 > 0:37:22and brought their inmates into the care system.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25The 1969 Children and Young Person's Act
0:37:25 > 0:37:29introduced a whole range of new powers
0:37:29 > 0:37:32and measures that enabled local authorities
0:37:32 > 0:37:35to bring and take children into care.
0:37:35 > 0:37:39That included children who were committing crime.
0:37:41 > 0:37:46Under the 1969 Act, the whole nature of residential care changed.
0:37:46 > 0:37:48It was briefly described
0:37:48 > 0:37:52as bringing together the depraved and the deprived.
0:37:52 > 0:37:53Up until that point,
0:37:53 > 0:37:57the care system had been characterised by very much a focus
0:37:57 > 0:38:02on the welfare of children from the early '70s onward,
0:38:02 > 0:38:06what I think we saw was the steady criminalisation of the care system.
0:38:06 > 0:38:11So what you actually create is a broad and wide perspective
0:38:11 > 0:38:14that the care system
0:38:14 > 0:38:18and children's homes in particular are for children
0:38:18 > 0:38:21who must be there because they've done something wrong,
0:38:21 > 0:38:25they've done something bad, they've done something naughty
0:38:25 > 0:38:28'With younger children increasingly being fostered,
0:38:28 > 0:38:32'many of the difficult adolescents now arriving in children's homes
0:38:32 > 0:38:35'tended to confirm society's prejudices.'
0:38:35 > 0:38:38There was really a dramatic change in that time
0:38:38 > 0:38:41and it did cause problems and these older children,
0:38:41 > 0:38:47some of them were, their behaviour deteriorated quite considerably
0:38:47 > 0:38:49in the community and people
0:38:49 > 0:38:53did not like having children's homes as their neighbours.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57While some children were becoming hard to control,
0:38:57 > 0:38:59they were all about
0:38:59 > 0:39:02to face a massive reorganisation of the system.
0:39:02 > 0:39:06From the start of the 1970s, a new breed of social worker
0:39:06 > 0:39:09replaced the old childcare officers.
0:39:09 > 0:39:13Many of them lacked training and childcare experience.
0:39:13 > 0:39:17Kids like Kriss Akabusi felt the personal touch was missing
0:39:17 > 0:39:20No-one's going to turn up for your prize day, no-one's going to turn up
0:39:20 > 0:39:22for your sports day, no-one's going to...
0:39:22 > 0:39:25speak to the teachers on your behalf.
0:39:25 > 0:39:28You just got accustomed to it, you realised that you...
0:39:28 > 0:39:29I tell you what, I think you realise
0:39:29 > 0:39:32that you are on your own in this world.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35What the structure, form and order in the children's home
0:39:35 > 0:39:40provides is the safety but it doesn't provide intimacy
0:39:40 > 0:39:41You've got the regularity
0:39:41 > 0:39:44but you've got nobody that is interested in YOU,
0:39:44 > 0:39:46you're not a person,
0:39:46 > 0:39:49you're just one of number of kids that come through the system.
0:39:49 > 0:39:51A children's home could provide
0:39:51 > 0:39:54close, caring relationships, and security.
0:39:54 > 0:39:56But not love.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00The BBC film featured Raymond, wondering about his prospects.
0:40:00 > 0:40:03RAYMOND: I'm 15 and I'm leaving school. .
0:40:03 > 0:40:04and I'm glad I'm leaving school
0:40:04 > 0:40:07I mean, I'm not learning anything
0:40:07 > 0:40:09and it doesn't seem to be about much.
0:40:09 > 0:40:13For Raymond, the future meant another form of regimentation.
0:40:15 > 0:40:17I think being in the army's a man's job,
0:40:17 > 0:40:19if there isn't a war, that is,
0:40:19 > 0:40:22because I don't want to kill anybody like.
0:40:23 > 0:40:25Kriss Akabusi did the same thing.
0:40:25 > 0:40:28He joined the army in 1975.
0:40:28 > 0:40:33When I made that transition, I had to join the army
0:40:33 > 0:40:36because when I was 16? and I started looking at jobs
0:40:36 > 0:40:38mechanical engineer, lathing, Eastern Gas,
0:40:38 > 0:40:41all that sort of stuff, the thing that petrified me
0:40:41 > 0:40:43was that I was going to have to go to bedsit land,
0:40:43 > 0:40:45I am going to have to go out of the children's home,
0:40:45 > 0:40:48into a bedsit, cook for myself
0:40:48 > 0:40:51wash my clothes, secure my room
0:40:51 > 0:40:52It was frightening.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57KIDS LAUGH
0:40:57 > 0:40:59MAN: Come on.
0:40:59 > 0:41:01I don't worry about the future
0:41:01 > 0:41:04I don't worry too much about the present either.
0:41:04 > 0:41:06All I want is for things to keep changing,
0:41:06 > 0:41:08so that you don't have to get bored.
0:41:12 > 0:41:14Kriss Akabusi's later career
0:41:14 > 0:41:17showed that care could be a pathway to success,
0:41:17 > 0:41:19even if it left its mark.
0:41:19 > 0:41:20But throughout that time,
0:41:20 > 0:41:22belief was growing among children's workers
0:41:22 > 0:41:24that it was almost always better
0:41:24 > 0:41:27to send those in care back to their birth parents.
0:41:27 > 0:41:30John Bowlby's work on attachment was sometimes used
0:41:30 > 0:41:33to justify this approach.
0:41:33 > 0:41:36As a childcare officer, I was amongst those
0:41:36 > 0:41:40who began to put children back in touch with their natural parents.
0:41:40 > 0:41:44This sometimes caused conflict some foster parents didn't like it,
0:41:44 > 0:41:46but, by and large, it worked out.
0:41:46 > 0:41:50Re-uniting children in care with their birth parents -
0:41:50 > 0:41:53rehabilitating them - became the guiding principle of the profession.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56But 30 years after the O'Neill case,
0:41:56 > 0:41:59a new tragedy was about to challenge this thinking.
0:41:59 > 0:42:03The Colwell case occurs at a really interesting time
0:42:03 > 0:42:06in the history of childcare in the UK.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08We've always, seemed to me, to be oscillating
0:42:08 > 0:42:11somewhere between a rescue model,
0:42:11 > 0:42:14whereby the answer to familial problems
0:42:14 > 0:42:18is to remove children, to break the cycle that way.
0:42:18 > 0:42:20The other approach, the rehabilitation approach
0:42:20 > 0:42:22is to do everything we can
0:42:22 > 0:42:24to work with the child and family in situ.
0:42:24 > 0:42:26And the Colwell case occurs
0:42:26 > 0:42:29just at the point where that pendulum was swinging.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35Maria Colwell was a seven-year-old girl
0:42:35 > 0:42:37from the Whitehawk council estate in Brighton,
0:42:37 > 0:42:40who had been in care for most of her life.
0:42:40 > 0:42:44She had been fostered by her aunt for several years.
0:42:44 > 0:42:46She appeared to be a happy, normal little girl.
0:42:47 > 0:42:51But in accordance with the now-standard policy,
0:42:51 > 0:42:55in 1971 she was returned to her birth mother.
0:42:55 > 0:42:59Two years later, she was introduced to a new teacher at school.
0:43:00 > 0:43:01I can remember now...
0:43:02 > 0:43:05..the secretary bringing her in
0:43:05 > 0:43:08in the middle of one morning and saying, "Oh, this is Maria.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14And she said something about, she'd been fostered.
0:43:14 > 0:43:18I got the impression that she'd been in and out of foster care
0:43:18 > 0:43:20I was immediately struck...
0:43:20 > 0:43:23by how withdrawn she was.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26It wasn't that she was just a quiet child and sat there...
0:43:28 > 0:43:30..and didn't cause any problems
0:43:30 > 0:43:31She was withdrawn.
0:43:33 > 0:43:35Ann Turner had just started working
0:43:35 > 0:43:38as a teacher at Whitehawk Primary School.
0:43:38 > 0:43:40Maria was often hungry,
0:43:40 > 0:43:43and one day, came to her after class with a confession.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48She came up and said, "I'm sorry, Mrs Turner,
0:43:48 > 0:43:50"I took the sweets..."
0:43:54 > 0:43:56And she started crying...
0:43:57 > 0:44:00..and I got hold of her, I gave her a hug,
0:44:00 > 0:44:02I put her on my lap
0:44:02 > 0:44:06and I gave her a cuddle and I could FEEL her bones.
0:44:09 > 0:44:12I realised she was just bones.
0:44:14 > 0:44:16Ann Turner had started to ask questions
0:44:16 > 0:44:20about Maria's home life with her mother and stepfather
0:44:20 > 0:44:24Reports of the family's cruelty were everywhere on the estate.
0:44:31 > 0:44:34Several times, Maria was sent to buy coal,
0:44:34 > 0:44:38and seen pushing the heavy bags up the hill to her house in a pram
0:44:40 > 0:44:43She must have been a tough little thing in a way...
0:44:45 > 0:44:47..but I can't comprehend how anybody...
0:44:47 > 0:44:49could ask a child to do that.
0:44:52 > 0:44:54Despite repeated visits by social workers,
0:44:54 > 0:44:58and reports from neighbours, nothing was done.
0:45:01 > 0:45:05At the start of the spring term, 1973,
0:45:05 > 0:45:07Maria failed to turn up to school.
0:45:09 > 0:45:11When break time came,
0:45:11 > 0:45:13I started to cross the playground,
0:45:13 > 0:45:16I was going to the headmaster to say,
0:45:16 > 0:45:20"I'm staying in your office until you find out where she is "
0:45:20 > 0:45:25As I crossed the playground, a child from another class came up to me
0:45:25 > 0:45:29and said, "Mrs Turner, Maria won't be in school today.
0:45:31 > 0:45:34"Oh", I said, "She's poorly?"
0:45:34 > 0:45:36"No, Mrs Turner, she's dead."
0:45:38 > 0:45:39Maria had been starved
0:45:39 > 0:45:42and ferociously beaten by her stepfather.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45Despite all the suspicions, nobody was prepared
0:45:45 > 0:45:48to challenge the basic principle that birth mother is best.
0:45:50 > 0:45:52Maria's death was a turning point.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55It showed shockingly that a child's natural mother
0:45:55 > 0:45:57was not always the best protector
0:45:57 > 0:46:00and that taking children from their parents
0:46:00 > 0:46:02could be in their best interest
0:46:03 > 0:46:04In our changing society,
0:46:04 > 0:46:09child abuse within the family was emerging as a horrific possibility
0:46:09 > 0:46:12from which vulnerable children had to be protected.
0:46:13 > 0:46:16You've got to remember that child abuse and child harm
0:46:16 > 0:46:20were still relatively new concepts at the time.
0:46:20 > 0:46:24One of the important legacies of the Colwell case was the fact that
0:46:24 > 0:46:27based on the recommendations, the government issued
0:46:27 > 0:46:30guidance and guidelines for local authorities to follow
0:46:30 > 0:46:34in cases where child abuse, child harm was being suspected
0:46:34 > 0:46:36and that formed the basis for guidance
0:46:36 > 0:46:40that survived almost intact from then until now.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48In the 1970s, the new guidelines drew more troubled
0:46:48 > 0:46:51and vulnerable youngsters into homes
0:46:51 > 0:46:53and foster care for their own protection.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59As a result, many care homes were dealing almost exclusively
0:46:59 > 0:47:03with unruly teenagers and the system was close to breakdown.
0:47:07 > 0:47:10For some, the critical priority was controlling the residents
0:47:10 > 0:47:14at any cost, sometimes with brutal consequences.
0:47:18 > 0:47:20Well, it brings back a lot of memories,
0:47:20 > 0:47:22bad ones, to be honest with you
0:47:22 > 0:47:25When I was first in here I was like a teenager.
0:47:25 > 0:47:27Some of the things that happened in here...
0:47:27 > 0:47:29were just horrible.
0:47:29 > 0:47:31I mean, no kid should go through that.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34Jason Carroll from Stoke had been repeatedly in care
0:47:34 > 0:47:36from the age of five.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39His father was a single parent whose frequent stays in hospital
0:47:39 > 0:47:43meant his children were removed to local homes.
0:47:43 > 0:47:45When he arrived at the Hartshill Road home,
0:47:45 > 0:47:48he was given what was regarded as a form of treatment
0:47:50 > 0:47:53The first time I ever went there, me dad was actually with me.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56Then the next thing I know, my dad had left
0:47:56 > 0:48:00and I'm being escorted up the stairs, so to speak...
0:48:01 > 0:48:04..and chucked in a room...
0:48:04 > 0:48:07removed of all me clothes, just left with me pants.
0:48:07 > 0:48:11There was nothing in the room, just a bed, no covers or nothing.
0:48:11 > 0:48:13And I was given a sleeping bag and that was it.
0:48:14 > 0:48:17So, yeah, I was locked up.
0:48:20 > 0:48:24This was Pindown - a method of control by isolation
0:48:24 > 0:48:28devised by a social worker to deal with unruly teenagers.
0:48:28 > 0:48:31At weekends, while I wasn't able to go to school,
0:48:31 > 0:48:33they just used to give me the phonebook.
0:48:35 > 0:48:36That was my entertainment.
0:48:39 > 0:48:41For six years, Pindown would be common practice
0:48:41 > 0:48:44across four of the main Staffordshire homes.
0:48:48 > 0:48:51But in another part of the country, another authority
0:48:51 > 0:48:56was experimenting with even more radical forms of restraint
0:48:56 > 0:48:59I knew that place was bad once I was inside it.
0:49:00 > 0:49:04I sat on the stairs crying and one of the girls said to me -
0:49:04 > 0:49:06it was actually one of the girls that told me -
0:49:06 > 0:49:11that if I didn't stop crying that I will find myself being drugged.
0:49:11 > 0:49:13She was right because I got there at four o'clock
0:49:13 > 0:49:15and I was being drugged by the next morning.
0:49:17 > 0:49:21Teresa Cooper had been in care all her life.
0:49:21 > 0:49:26In 1981, aged 14, she was moved from a Wandsworth children's home
0:49:26 > 0:49:29and taken to a girls' secure unit in Kent.
0:49:29 > 0:49:33Although troubled, she was not a particularly difficult teenager,
0:49:33 > 0:49:37but while there she was subjected to massive doses of psychotropic drugs,
0:49:37 > 0:49:39intended for the mentally ill.
0:49:40 > 0:49:42It was what I call
0:49:42 > 0:49:45the "drug-them-up-and-shut-them up routine".
0:49:45 > 0:49:47I was so heavily sedated, I could not stay awake.
0:49:48 > 0:49:52Nobody, adults could not stay awake on those levels of drugs
0:49:52 > 0:49:54and they punished me for that quite a lot.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59Teresa was given a number of very powerful drugs,
0:49:59 > 0:50:02including the psychiatric drug Largactil
0:50:02 > 0:50:04and large amounts of Valium.
0:50:04 > 0:50:08Her records show she was administered 11 separate drugs
0:50:08 > 0:50:11in quantities far above the recommended levels.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15Such experimental methods were by now a part of childcare
0:50:15 > 0:50:19as social workers tried to cope with a system in crisis.
0:50:20 > 0:50:24As far as I was concerned, I didn't really know what they were doing.
0:50:24 > 0:50:25But...
0:50:25 > 0:50:28Every time I knocked on the door or asked for something
0:50:28 > 0:50:31or asked to go to the toilet..
0:50:31 > 0:50:33you wouldn't get a response sometimes for hours.
0:50:33 > 0:50:35Or probably the next day.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38And if you kept on banging, they'd come in and give you a good hiding.
0:50:41 > 0:50:44Pindown was brutal in its simplicity.
0:50:44 > 0:50:46It was supposed to head off potential aggression
0:50:46 > 0:50:49but it mainly appeared to inflict it.
0:50:51 > 0:50:54Kicking, punching, stamping on. .
0:50:55 > 0:50:57..hitting you with stuff.
0:50:57 > 0:50:59The staff there didn't deal with you,
0:50:59 > 0:51:02they just gave you a good hiding and locked you up.
0:51:02 > 0:51:05And that was it. Basically it was prison, it was lock up.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10This ruthless approach seemed to be based on solid research
0:51:10 > 0:51:14and consequently gained acceptance in some quarters.
0:51:15 > 0:51:19The one thing that is impossible to say about the Pindown experience
0:51:19 > 0:51:24is that it wasn't very widely known because it was.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27What becomes a scandal, what becomes headline news,
0:51:27 > 0:51:30to most people who were involved at the time,
0:51:30 > 0:51:32seems very much business as usual.
0:51:32 > 0:51:34It seems very routine, very ordinary.
0:51:39 > 0:51:42Three, four, five, six members of staff
0:51:42 > 0:51:44just appear from nowhere.
0:51:47 > 0:51:51They would inject me in my back in my arms, in my legs, in my buttocks.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56My neck, they got me once, they got me in my neck once.
0:52:01 > 0:52:05The famous words they used every time they done it
0:52:05 > 0:52:08was "Just think of England" and that was their famous words
0:52:08 > 0:52:10"Just think of England."
0:52:13 > 0:52:16The Kendall House regime was not a secret either.
0:52:16 > 0:52:20Only a year before Teresa arrived, an ITV film crew had come here
0:52:20 > 0:52:25to report on the notorious drug policies emerging in care
0:52:25 > 0:52:27They used archive footage of disturbed children
0:52:27 > 0:52:28to make a key point.
0:52:28 > 0:52:31ITV PROGRAMME: It's children like these,
0:52:31 > 0:52:33severely disturbed and often violent,
0:52:33 > 0:52:36who are most likely to be subjected to treatment with drugs,
0:52:36 > 0:52:38although few of them have been diagnosed
0:52:38 > 0:52:40as having specific mental disorders.
0:52:41 > 0:52:44These are all used primarily in the treatment of schizophrenia.
0:52:44 > 0:52:48They CAN certainly be used for calming,
0:52:48 > 0:52:49but you need very high doses
0:52:49 > 0:52:53and you tend to get very unpleasant side effects at that sort of dose.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57Teresa remained at Kendall House for three years
0:52:57 > 0:53:02and was administered drugs on 1,248 separate occasions.
0:53:04 > 0:53:06She has campaigned for many years for the government
0:53:06 > 0:53:08to recognise its role in the abuse
0:53:08 > 0:53:11that was carried out on hundreds of children in care.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17They were trying to find, I believe, some miracle...
0:53:18 > 0:53:23..answer, some unique method to control children.
0:53:24 > 0:53:26They were experimenting.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28They wanted to find a cure for delinquency,
0:53:28 > 0:53:29I think that's what it was.
0:53:31 > 0:53:35Such radical approaches for controlling wayward children
0:53:35 > 0:53:38were eventually rejected, but the authorities were slow to act.
0:53:40 > 0:53:44It took six years for Pindown to be recognised for what it was.
0:53:44 > 0:53:47The inquiry, when it came, was damning.
0:53:47 > 0:53:49I think it was totally unacceptable.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52It was, in our view, unlawful
0:53:52 > 0:53:56and it's something that ought never, ever again, to recur.
0:53:56 > 0:54:00The use of drugs was investigated by social services
0:54:00 > 0:54:04and Kendall House closed in 198 .
0:54:04 > 0:54:05Drugs were being used in care
0:54:05 > 0:54:10as a means, primarily as a means of controlling children's behaviour.
0:54:10 > 0:54:13So we do know it went on but it's very difficult to say
0:54:13 > 0:54:14how prevalent it was.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17Certainly by comparison to the other types of abuse
0:54:17 > 0:54:20that we know were pretty much pervasive throughout...
0:54:20 > 0:54:23not just England but throughout the United Kingdom.
0:54:25 > 0:54:28By the 1990s, the abuse of children in care
0:54:28 > 0:54:32was becoming more public, as brutal stories began to filter out.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40Enough harrowing evidence has emerged to make Terry O'Neill
0:54:40 > 0:54:43sceptical about whether any real progress
0:54:43 > 0:54:45has been made since his brother's death.
0:54:48 > 0:54:53Somebody said to me, "Your case brought it out into the open."
0:54:53 > 0:54:55It hasn't brought it anywhere.
0:54:55 > 0:54:59NEWS REPORTER: A judge says he used his considerable talent
0:54:59 > 0:55:01in pursuit of "evil and lustful desires."
0:55:01 > 0:55:03The incidents, both sexual and physical,
0:55:03 > 0:55:05are said to have occurred at children's homes
0:55:05 > 0:55:07in North Wales over more than 20 years.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11But Anna died because she was tortured with boiling water...
0:55:11 > 0:55:16'60 years on, the abuse of children has become a familiar reality.
0:55:16 > 0:55:20Child deaths, paedophile rings, and abuse inquiries seem commonplace.
0:55:21 > 0:55:24What was once invisible has become a background
0:55:24 > 0:55:26to the same barbaric story.
0:55:27 > 0:55:28MAN: "I want my mummy."
0:55:30 > 0:55:33But progress had been made.
0:55:33 > 0:55:36John Bowlby's lasting influence is clear.
0:55:36 > 0:55:40Its fundamental truth goes to the heart of the care experience.
0:55:46 > 0:55:49People who have a first impression on me,
0:55:49 > 0:55:51see a very gregarious...
0:55:53 > 0:55:58..enthusiastic, happy-go-lucky person and that is me.
0:55:59 > 0:56:01But if you speak to my...
0:56:01 > 0:56:03family, they know...
0:56:03 > 0:56:06that I am actually quite an introvert, and quite withdrawn
0:56:06 > 0:56:08I'm quite cold, quite distant.
0:56:10 > 0:56:14My survival technique...
0:56:14 > 0:56:16was to withdraw into a private world.
0:56:16 > 0:56:19I've been able to cut off...
0:56:19 > 0:56:22those emotional and psychological receptors...
0:56:23 > 0:56:27..you know, and have that wall around me...
0:56:27 > 0:56:30that means you are impregnable, in that respect.
0:56:33 > 0:56:37NEWSREEL: But when her mother says, "Are you coming home?"
0:56:37 > 0:56:39Laura replies, "Oh, yes, yes."
0:56:41 > 0:56:43She is still cautious, however
0:56:43 > 0:56:46and only the sight of her outdoor shoes seems to convince her.
0:56:47 > 0:56:52She cries happily to the observer, "I'm going home with my mummy.
0:56:55 > 0:56:58The plan to empty Britain of its soulless institutions
0:56:58 > 0:57:01has been realised, though it has taken over half a century.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05By the turn of the millennium,
0:57:05 > 0:57:08two thirds of all children in care were being fostered.
0:57:08 > 0:57:13We have learned to put the child at the centre of our thinking.
0:57:13 > 0:57:15But for many of those involved
0:57:15 > 0:57:17the journey has been one of pain and loss.
0:57:26 > 0:57:28For years and years,
0:57:28 > 0:57:33I was ashamed to say I'd been in an orphanage or an institution.
0:57:33 > 0:57:34I hated that word.
0:57:36 > 0:57:38It's that guilty feeling.
0:57:38 > 0:57:43You've got it all your life, when you see other boys running around
0:57:43 > 0:57:45and you think, "I gave mine away "
0:57:47 > 0:57:50I don't quite know what else I could have done but...
0:57:52 > 0:57:54..I do feel I let her down.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57MAN SIGHS
0:57:57 > 0:58:00I don't know, maybe it's fate but I did end up in prison.
0:58:02 > 0:58:04This might sound strange but..
0:58:04 > 0:58:06it did feel like home.
0:58:10 > 0:58:14Next time, the story of how disabled children growing up
0:58:14 > 0:58:18after the war challenged the old order of institutions,
0:58:18 > 0:58:20poor education and patronising care.
0:58:24 > 0:58:27Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd