How many girls did Kent Police interview/take statements from out
of over ten Kendall House girls that contacted Kent Police?

What crimes to Kendall House girls were fully investigated by the
police and what was the nature of the investigations?

How many complaints, sexual abuse, forced drug abuse, physical
abuse and mental abuse were made to Kent Police stations from KH
girls between 1970 -2009 and what were the results of those
complaints/allegations?

How many deaths at Kendall House did Kent Police have to respond
too during 1970-1986?

Yours faithfully,

Teresa Cooper

REPLY KENT POLICE

Freedom of Information, Information Compliance Unit, Kent Police Headquarters, Sutton Road,
Maidstone, Kent ME15 9BZ Phone: 01622 654413
Fax: 01622 654437 - e-mail: [Kent Police request email]

Theresa Cooper
Date:
25th August 2009
[FOI #9216 email]



Tel No. (DDI)
01622 664413



FOI Ref.
1955/2009


Dear Ms. Cooper,

INFORMATION REQUEST 1955/2008

I write in connection with your request for information received by Kent Police on the 11th
March 2009.  I am very conscious that this response finds you some time after the statutory
time limit permitted to a public authority for dealing with requests has passed and for the
lateness of this response I apologise.

I have discussed with you in our telephone conversation some of the reasons for this delay,
which has been principally caused by a combination of recent staffing difficulties in this unit,
coupled by an increase in the workload associated with FOI requests. 

However, the delay has also been caused by the time it has taken me to compile information
relevant to your request, and examine it in order to arrive at a conclusion concerning how much
of this information can be released.  When digesting this response, please bear in mind that this
release represents the information that I have determined it is appropriate to release into the
public domain at this time, and this response also takes into account that the fact that some
information concerning this investigation has also been previously released by Kent Police via
press releases to the media.

In your request, you asked for the following information, and I have numbered your questions
as follows for ease of reference;

1) How many girls did Kent Police interview/take statements from out of over ten Kendall House
girls that contacted Kent Police?

2) What crimes to Kendall House girls were fully investigated by the police and what was the
nature of the investigations?

3) How many complaints, sexual abuse, forced drug abuse, physical abuse and mental abuse
were made to Kent Police stations from KH girls between 1970 -2009 and what were the results
of those complaints/allegations?

4) How many deaths at Kendall House did Kent Police have to respond to during 1970-1986?




Kent Police : Central Operations FOI
Policy No. D18
Form No.3540_11 rev Feb 2005 [erev 02/5] v1.5

————————————————————————————————————————
Question 2 relates to allegations of physical and sexual abuse that were made concerning the
treatment of young females who were held in care during the 1970s and 1980s at Kendall
House in Gravesend, a residential home for adolescent females, who, because of a variety of
difficulties and problems that they were experiencing, required a high level of supervision. 
The allegations principally concerned restraint and control techniques employed, which included
a drug treatment regime that was the subject of considerable media interest and criticism from
some quarters.  However, the methodology was recognised and common in England and Wales
at the time, although it is no longer the practise.

Kent Police records show that specific allegations of abuse, including sexual abuse, at Kendall
House were not made until 1999, and related to a period almost two decades earlier.  After an
initial investigation, which included some arrests and interviews, a detailed case file was
submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who recommended no further action.

In late 2006, the allegations were raised again (by the same party) and in the summer of 2007,
Kent Police undertook a second investigation into the matter under the operational name of
NOVA.  This was a thorough investigation that reviewed previous allegations and how they had
been dealt with, and also sought and interviewed further witnesses who had come to light.  A
file was again submitted to the CPS who determined once again that there was insufficient
evidence to support a prosecution.

Questions 1 and 3 ask for information concerning how many girls who were resident at the
home were interviewed in relation to these alleged offences.  This information was held for the
purpose of an investigation, and it therefore engages the exemption at Section 30 of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.  The relevant subsections are included below:

30 - Investigations and proceedings conducted by public authorities

(1) Information held by a public authority is exempt information if it has at any time
been held by the authority for the purposes of— 

(a) any investigation which the public authority has a duty to conduct with a
view to it being ascertained— 

(i) whether a person should be charged with an offence, or
(ii) whether a person charged with an offence is guilty of it

2) Information held by a public authority is exempt information if— 
(a) it was obtained or recorded by the authority for the purposes of its functions
relating to— 
(i) investigations falling within subsection (1)(a) or (b), 
(b) it relates to the obtaining of information from confidential sources.
However, this exemption is a qualified exemption, meaning that it is subject to a public interest
test, which follows.







Kent Police : Central Operations FOI
Form No.3540_11 rev Jan 2005 [erev 1/05] v1.1
Policy No. D18

————————————————————————————————————————
In favour of disclosing the information is the principal of accountability, in that releasing the
information would help to inform the public whether the investigations interviewed a sufficient
number of witnesses who may have been able to provide information that could support the
allegations. 

This must be balanced against the issue that to provide the numbers of girls who were
interviewed could identify to other persons (who may have knowledge of the allegations) that
individuals did or did not come forward.  Any contact between a witness and the police is
conducted with an expectation of confidentiality and so section 30(2)(b) is clearly engaged.  A
decision whether or not to contact the police would have been a matter for the individual and
their decision must be respected. 

Furthermore we must consider the presumption of innocence that lies at the heart of the
criminal justice system and the rights of persons interviewed in relation to these allegations,
which concern offences alleged to have occurred nearly twenty years previously.  It may not be
right for Kent Police to release information that could contribute to these allegations remaining
in the public domain when thus far they have been uncorroborated.

When considering that this matter has been examined in detail at least twice, and that on both
occasions the CPS have determined that it would not be in the public interest to mount a
prosecution, I have no choice but to concur with their view and conclude that it would not be in
the public interest to release detailed information connected with this investigation, and
therefore Kent Police are exempt from the duty to provide this information.

However, Kent Police can confirm that all witnesses who came forward were interviewed and all
available evidence has been considered.  Further, the Kent Police Serious Case Review team
has recently examined the investigation and concluded that it had been very detailed and
thorough.  I note also that the case files remain open and that Kent Police have, via press
releases, invited any persons who may have fresh evidence to contact crimestoppers or the
North Kent Public Protection Unit. 

4) How many deaths at Kendall House did Kent Police have to respond to during 1970-1986?
Section 1 of the freedom of Information Act 2000 defines the general right of access to
information held by public authorities. 
(1) Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled— 
(a) to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the
description specified in the request, 
The Freedom of Information Act provides access only to recorded information that is held by
the public authority and no specific information is held by Kent Police regarding this part of your
request.  There is every likelihood that Kent Police may have investigated deaths at Kendall
House during the period specified, for example a suicide or an accidental death.  However, as
our systems at that time were entirely configured for the handling of individual cases rather
than the provision of statistical information, and any information relating to the above will have
been archived and then, in most cases, destroyed, we would simply be unable to locate
information that may answer this question.  Further, we would have no way of knowing if other
information had existed and then been destroyed because it no longer served a purpose to
policing, such as, for example, case notes regarding the initial investigation into a suspicious
death where it was then established that the cause of death was suicide.




Kent Police : Central Operations FOI
Form No.3540_11 rev Jan 2005 [erev 1/05] v1.1
Policy No. D18

————————————————————————————————————————
The registrar of births, deaths and marriages would be one possible route to this information as
‘place of death’ would be recorded on death certificates.  However, this would not assist where
the deceased was pronounced life extinct in a hospital.  Further, it is possible that, where an
inquest was held into a death in unexplained circumstances an inquest may have been
conducted resulting in the Coroner’s office holding some information in regard to this. 

However, I have discussed the matter with the North Kent Coroners and can inform you that
any files older than 15 years, which would be the case here, would be sent for archiving and in
most cases where the archivists can detect no obvious public interest in retaining the
information, the file would be destroyed. 

It is my view that to determine whether Kent Police or any other authority held this information
would involve the retrieval of archived records, which would itself incur a cost, and then the
detailed manual investigation into the records that remained.  Such an exercise would more
than likely extend beyond the reasonable limit both in money and time that an authority is
required to invest in responding to a request, currently £450 or eighteen hours as set out in the
Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.  Further, even if such a
review of records were carried out, the exercise would still fail to yield an accurate answer, as it
is possible if not likely that some relevant records will have been destroyed.  Therefore, even to
determine whether the authority held records in order to comply with our duty under section 1
of the Act would extend beyond the cost limits and would still be likely to fail.  This would
therefore be subject to the exemption at section 12 of the Act as follows;

(1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if
the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the
appropriate limit.

(2) Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with
paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone
would exceed the appropriate limit.

FOIA, Section 12 - Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit

Thank you for your interest in Kent Police.  A sheet, which summarised your rights, was
enclosed with the acknowledgement sent to you and as suggested therein, should you have any
further questions concerning your request, please contact me quoting the reference number
shown above.

If you feel your request has not been properly handled or you are otherwise dissatisfied with
the outcome of your request, you have the right to complain.  We will conduct an internal
review to investigate the matter and endeavor to reply within 20 working days.  If your appeal
concerns the decision to apply an exemption, it would assist the review if you would outline
why you believe the exemption does not apply.

You may submit your complaint by writing to:
 
Head of the Information Compliance Unit
Professional Standards Department
Kent Police Headquarters
Sutton Road, 
Maidstone Kent
ME15 9BZ

Or by e-mailing
[Kent Police request email]


Kent Police : Central Operations FOI
Form No.3540_11 rev Jan 2005 [erev 1/05] v1.1
Policy No. D18

————————————————————————————————————————
If you are still dissatisfied following our internal review, you have the right under section 50 of
the Act to complain directly to the Information Commissioner. Before considering your
complaint, the Information Commissioner would normally expect you to have exhausted the
complaints procedures provided by Kent Police.
 
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

FOI Compliance Team (complaints)
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF


Yours sincerely,

Nigel Amos
Freedom of Information Adviser

Transcript of 1980 documentry covering the drugging of children in care and Kendall House Gravesend Kent

Presented by Godfrey Hodgson.
Reporter: Stephen Scott -  referred to in transcription as SS or VO [voice over] 

00:02:54
Opening credits

00:03:15
GV’s of posters showing various drugs
[V.O.] “Drugs like these are used on political prisoners in the Soviet Union. Now there’s growing concern that they’re also being widely used in Britain, not on prisoners, but on children in the care of local councils.”

00:04:17
The story of Pamela Butcher: How she is now married but had a troubled history in the care system at Kendall House.

00:05:26
Some psychiatrists believe that the use of such drugs is the only way to deal with problem children. No one knows for certain how many problem children, like Pamela, there are in local authority care in Britain.

00:06:28
Middlesex Lodge, Hillingdon.

00:06:50
Commentary of the reasons why children are taken into care – with a background of the specific acts, e.g. Matrimonial Causes Act 1973; Children Act 1946 etc.

00:07:10
GV’s inside Middlesex Lodge – which portrays the place as a beauty parlour for teenage girls.

00:07:30
Pie-chart demonstrating what happens to the children taken into care e.g. 26% put into children’s homes; 35% fostered etc.

00:08:20
Short I/V with JOHN OGDEN – Principal Advisor for London Children’s Planning Committee

I think it’s true and regretable that there are failures of the child care system I think one has to bare in mind that there may well be failures before they even come into the child care system, and the sort of problems that residential staff have to cope with in terms of the verbal abuse and even physical abuse from the children are very taxing on the staff. If you get a home that is perhaps seriously under-staffed, is relying on comparatively inexperienced staff – it’s not difficult to see that you can easily get an explosive situation and a point maybe reached when that may occur when the home can no longer care for that young person.

(Kendall House had over 30 members of staff to a ratio of 10 - 16 girls and was not under staffed )

00:09:02
Archive footage of girls out of control and being ‘pinned down’ by carers in a home.
SS [V.O.]: its children like these, often disturbed and severely violent, that are most likely to be subjected to treatment by drugs, although few of them have been diagnosed as having specific mental disorders.

*00:09:25
Colin Brewer – Psychologist at Middlesex Lodge – describes the various pills that are or have been reportedly used to control children in home. Some of these [especially the blue and pink pills have been described by Teresa in PIN DOWN]
He talks about how they’re mainly used for people suffering from schizophrenia and the side-effects

00:10:00
CB: I don’t think it’s being too melodramatic to say that it’s this group of drugs that is being strongly criticized by many bodies including our own Royal College of Psychiatrists, it is used by the Russians and perhaps other regimes for treating or given to people who are not schizophrenic simply in order to keep them quite, which it will certainly do if you give it in high enough doses. It also can cause very unpleasant side-effects in very high doses.

00:10:44
Ron Lacey I/V, Social Worker Advisor for MIND.
Talks about the fact that it is widely known now that drugs are being used to control children. Talks about in his book how they’ve called for an enquiry into these allegations.

(No enquiry has been carried out by the Government to date 2010)

00:11:35
Politian is quoted that more needs to be done than simply quieten children down with drugs.

00:11:53
SEGMENT ON KENDAL HOUSE BEGINS

[VO] One of the places that has given rise to this concern is this house for girls in Gravesend. Kendall House is run by a Church of England group … The doors at KH are locked. It specialises in dealing with very disturbed girls aged form 10-16, some of them are there for several years.

00:12:
Short I/V w. Miss Law in one of the girl’s dormitories
ML: On the whole they’ve moved around quite a bit and they tend to come here because either they’re very aggressive or they appear very depressed and they’re needing specialist help that way. They don’t fit in in a normal children’s home because they present a great deal of problems, special schools find them extremely difficult to handle…

00:12:39
[Actuality] Staff room in the morning. One of the teachers walks in and states “It’s all very quiet this morning.”

00:12:44
The standard of childcare at KH is high – the staff include nurses, teachers, and social workers, all trained to cope with particularly disruptive children.

00:12:52
SS: What sorts of incidents are you dealing with?
ML: Well general difficult behaviour, we get a lot of manipulation because children have learnt to manipulate a situation, so we get all the normal acting out behaviour of children at school tipping up desks, throwing their books on the floor, running from the classrooms that sort of thing. They also learnt you know to swear and carry-on at staff and so again they try that on – so you get sort of general difficult behaviour which one just has to help them face up to that – they can’t live like this. But we also get children who are extremely aggressive, who go into sort of frenzied aggression and don’t really know what they’re doing.

00:13:28
GV of Dr Peri and Miss Law with 4 girls in a common room. We are not shown the girls faces. They sit on a sofa opposite the Doctor and Miss Law who are facing them in a couple of arm chairs. 

[VO]: The concern about KH is over the type of medical treatment sometimes prescribed by the home’s consultant psychiatrist, Dr Perinpanayagam

00:13:50
Dr Peri asking the girls questions
DP: What about you, you’ve been with us for 3 months. And what was the feelings you had when you first came in here?
Girl 1: I was frightened at first. And after quite a while I settled in.
DP: You settled in. And do you - have you improved?
Girl 1: [timidly] Yeah.
DP: In what way …

00:14:15
SS [VO] Of the 12 girls in KH at the moment 4 are being given drugs

00:14:20
GV of girl outside KH stroking dogs
[VO]: This girl who’s been at the home for over 5 years was abandoned by her mother, who simply returned to Nigeria without her. The girl is severely emotionally disturbed and she suffers from epilepsy for which she also has to be treated. According to Miss Law she’s built up such a tolerance to drugs that on the day we filmed she’s been given enough to knock an adult on his back.

**(Documents seen show many of the girls were treated for epilepsy without a medical diagnoses)**

00:14:42
Cut-back-to the common room with Dr P asking questions:
DP: In spite of being on the medication you’re having you find you can concentrate at school?
Girl: yeah it’s not…
DP: And you can take part in the sports activities and trampoline and
Girl: [sounds placid, calm] Yeah so far – now, now I get a bit sleepy in the afternoons  

00:14:57
I/V w. Dr Peri on his own
DP: We deal here with severely disturbed children manifesting aggressive behaviour, absconding, having stolen things from shops and suicidally depressed children. And these are children who have not had a happy emotional background and hence are emotionally deprived {!!!!} and hence the behaviour they exhibit are anti-social behaviour patterns. And having been let down by their parents they come in a scared personality-wise way, and trying to establish relationships with adults whom they could eventually trust.

00:16:00
Would you describe them as being mentally ill?
DP: I would prefer to use the word ‘emotionally ill, and by that I mean displaying serious depression, anxiousness, tension and irritability. And these are the common patterns.

00:16:24
For some of them, not all, there is some medication
DP: For a few of them, especially those children who show serious depressive pictures because when they’re seriously depressed they find it very difficult to concentrate and benefit form psychotherapy. Apart from psychotherapy they find it very difficult to concentrate in school hence the importance of helping the depression.

**(Kendall House and Dr Perinpanayagam never done any psychotherapy with any KH girl ever) **

00:16:53
What sorts of medication are we talking about here then?
DP: They’re very safe medications. They are called tricycline anti-depressants, and tripdisol is one of them and they usually have this in the evening before they go to sleep because then they don’t have side-effects the next day. And they get this medication from anything from 3 – 6 months, after which it is weaned off.

**(during the interview with Dr Peri one girls files showed shocking and disturbing levels of forced drugging) **

00:17:20
Cut-back-to common room – MS of Dr Peri and Miss Law sitting in their chairs talking to the girls.
[VO] Our enquiries have shown that some children who have been treated by Dr Peri were on drugs over a much longer period.

00:17:29
Reporter walking with Pamela in woods.
[VO] Pamela Butcher spent 3 years in Kendal House. She was still on drugs when she left and she says that she, and the other girls that were on medication as well, did suffer serious side-effects.

00:17:43
Pamela: Some of them had the same problem as me of always being tired. Some of them had other problems with their eyes. I did at one stage have that problem myself, where they thought I needed glasses. They had my eyes tested and the optician eventually said it was the drugs I was being given at the home was affecting my eyes.

00:18:05
Pamela: Some of them used to make me really tired. Permanently tired. I seem to however I seemed to go to bed at night I seemed to still be tired in the morning and I’d sleep in the day. On one particular sort which I don’t remember what they were called, I was asleep nearly all the time on them.

00:18:25
Cut-to I/V w. Dr. Peri
Are you able to give any indication of how successful your work here has been?
DP: well we’ve had instances of children who have been here who have come back to us and visited and [are] holding jobs, living independently I think which they could never have done had they not had the 3 or 4 years at KH.

00:18:52
GV of outside of KH and London Borough of Brent building.
[VO] The case of another girl, who was in KH at the same time as Pamela, is now causing more wide-spread concern. The girl, called Yvonne, was taken into care by the London Borough of Brent when she was only 10 years old.

00:19:06
I/V w. Alan Clarke – Former Principal, Brent Assessment Centre
What sort of girl was Yvonne?
AC: She was quite small, with mixed parentage. And very intelligent and I suppose she could be described as hyper-active. She posed quite a lot of problems for staff because of her unwillingness at times to cooperate with us.

00:19:30
What was her background – why was she taken into care?
AC: I think that she initially came into care because her mother had other children, younger children, and she found the demands the Yvonne made on her much too much to cope with, and I think she came to the social services and asked for help. She had several periods with us in the assessment centre, a number of placements were tried, ranging from children’s homes – she was found to be too difficult for children’s homes – at some stage she was sent to a school for girls, and there they found that they couldn’t contain her, she was often running away, committing minor offences.

00:20:20
Cut-to I/V w. Dr Peri
[VO] Then in October 1975 Yvonne was sent to KH.
D Peri: Oh yes. Yvonne came to us from a very very seriously deprived background and lacking any proper parental standards to mould her life by. Hence she displayed very serious aggressive homicidal behaviour. Which became apparent from time to time, here in KH. And we had to use a preparation to help her to overcome the aggression.
[VO] which would be what?
DP: in her case it was modecate. And this certainly helped her over this period and she was able to relate to the others and learn better.
[VO] In that particular case then you were having to use modecate to control her behaviour
DP: I would say to control her serious homicidal behaviour.

**(Dr Peri tries to justify the drugs. You will see he lied further on)**

**00:21:23
[VO] As I understand it she had spoken later to social workers and said that if she missed behaved than at that time she would be given injections or tranquilizers of some form.
DP: I wouldn’t agree with that – I don’t think just for misbehaving she was given an injection, far from it, if she had hurt somebody seriously and she had displayed anti-social behaviour by destruction and smashing up that sort of thing, then having tried to advise her to calm down. If she continued to exhibit that behaviour that was when an injection would be given.

00:22:00
Cut-to Alan Clarke I/V
[VO] Just over a year after Yvonne first went to KH she spent Christmas at the Brent Assessment Centre. Alan Clark, noticed she’d changed dramatically.

00:22:11
AC: At first I didn’t recognise her. She was not the same child. She was zombie-like, her hands trembled, she was so docile which was in total opposition to what we’d seen before. She was with us a few days and we were required to administer a number of pills. The doses were stated on the respective bottles, we were given no information bout what these pills were for or what they would do, and as I remember it the 3 drugs concerned was a substance called camcolit, another called artane and a third called modecate. And as I remember the doses of 2 of these the camcolit and the modecate were quite significant.

**00:23:15
[VO] were you happy that she was taking drugs like that?   
AC: well initially we didn’t know what the drugs were for. When she began to fall asleep in the middle of the day, she seemed to be quite unable to understand what was being said to her. Most of the time when she was awake she had a sickly grin on her face. This was totally alien to the personality that we’d known and it worried me so much that I telephoned a psychiatrist who was a consultant at that time and asked him what the drugs were and what sort of effect they would have on her, and he did agree that these particular drugs were very powerful sedatives and could be responsible for her condition. He also explained that one of the drugs was to stop the trembling of the hands which we’d noticed as a very marked symptom of her condition. That trembling at times was so bad that she couldn’t hold a cup.

00:24:28
Cut-To Dr Colin Brewer
[VO] Dr Colin Brewer saw Yvonne after she’d been at KH for 3 years. We asked him, what in his opinion had Yvonne been treated for.
CB: That’s a very good question. She was clearly not suffering from any disorder like schizophrenia. I saw no evidence while she was here, or evidence form her notes to say that she was suffering from say manic depressive disorder. So I’m forced to conclusion that her disease, her disorder, was simply that she was rather stroppy – that’s putting it rather mildly – she was very stroppy. And the drugs were either being used simply as a chemical restraint, as chemical imprisonment and indeed they were undoubtedly being used in very large doses, so large in fact were it not for the fact that the same dosage appears so frequently in her notes I would have thought that there must have been a misprint, that there must have been a typing mistake.

00:25:30
Cut-to I/V w. Dr Peri
[VO] Is she ill?
DP: ill in the sense that she was displaying serious aggressive anti-social behaviour that we would not see in a child who had a better upbringing and a better chance in life to mould her standards by.

00:25:50
I/V w. Dr. Maurice Rosen – Chairman Brent Social Services
[VO] As well as being chairman of social services of Brent you are a doctor and you’ve seen Yvonne’s medical file. What was she actually suffering from?
Dr.M: well this in fact – I in fact don’t know and from what I can understand the consultant psychiatrist in question doesn’t like to label the children he’s looking after. One can accept that, I mean I’m not going to disagree with how he might decide to label a particular child’s condition or not.
[VO] But are you saying there’s no clear diagnosis on the records?
Dr. M: No.

00:26:30
Cut-to common room girl, Miss Law & Dr Peri
[VO] Whether or not Yvonne’s treatment at KH was justified it does not seem to have solved her problems. After 3 years she was sent to the St Charles Youth Treatment Centre in Essex a national unit run directly by the department of health for some of the country’s most disturbed and delinquent teenagers. Last September Yvonne and another 15 year old took over the kitchen there and took over the staff with knives. It took police with riot shields to get them out.

**(Note, this girl was going cold turkey from dangerously high doses of drugs)**

00:27:02
[VO] Are you satisfied with the standard of care that she’s had in the care of Brent.
Dr M: to say yes would basically be untrue given what has happened in this particular case.

***00:27:26
Cut-To girls in KH
As a result of our inquiries into Yvonne’s case the department of health and social security is being asked to investigate Dr Peri’s methods of treatment at KH.

00:27:36
[VO] We in Brent have asked the DHSS if in fact they would look into what happens at KH. In regard to the question of the use of drugs to see whether it’s something that ought to be done or not. I think what one would hope is that out of this there will come a general inquiry whereby the whole question will be broached on a much wider level than it already has in the past to see whether drugs really do have a part to play in the treatment of children.

00:28:04
Cut-to GV of girls climbing stairs to classroom in KH, having a lesson in KH.
[VO] Because of Yvonne’s case Brent council are reviewing whether or not they’ll continue to send children in their care to KH. Kensington and Chelsea council have also decided to act of the question of the use of drugs, as a result of recent cases not just involving KH, they are drawing up a list of the drugs that must not be used on their children without the council’s specific consent. Many people who have to deal with severely disturbed children would welcome the introduction of clear guidelines of when drugs should be used. The difficulty is that the department of health and social security do not keep any statistics on where, when and how often powerful drugs are used on children care.

00:28:52
Cut-To I/V w. Ron Lacey
[VO] other experts on child care however feel that simply drawing up guidelines to control the use drugs misses the point. They say you jus can’t treat delinquency.
RL: If in fact the condition were susceptible to treatment it might be easier to argue for a treatment-based approach. Now there is not one jot of evidence that juvenile delinquency is in anyway susceptible to any form of treatment so you do wind-up with a very very unjust situation in which youngsters are sent for indeterminate periods of time to forms of treatment which frankly don’t work.

00:29:35
[VO]
Even is the treatment of drugs on young people was banned except where there was a specific mental disorder, the problem of what to do with them would of course remain.

00:29:41
[VO] Colin Brewer believes there are alternatives.
CB: I would certainly lock the doors every time I think that if the only alternative to locking doors is in effect to lock up their minds surely most people would agree that it is better to lock the door and try and do something to the mind within that secure environment. And in my experience of asking the children themselves which they prefer that is what they would want to.

00:30:14
Talks about how St Charles Youth Treatment Centre opts for locking of doors over drug treatment, though this method is extremely costly. Then states that there are professionals out there trying to argue that the cheapest and most effective way is to look after the children within the community outside of homes, being locked up and drug treatment. Kent county council have been testing this out for the past 5 years.

00:30:53
I/V w. Nancy Hazell. Project Organiser – Kent Family Placement Scheme.
Over 70% of the children placed in foster care saw improvements in behaviour etc.

00:31:28
Pamela Butcher – profiled as one of those children who benefited from being placed in foster care, [though personally I think her foster-mother seems cold, unaffectionate and detached as she talks about Pamela]. She even admits to having to resort to sitting on her - [Pin Down in the comfort of your own home!]

00:33:
I/V w. Nancy. Asked if there are children who can’t be fostered she answers [00:33:50]
I suppose there are. But I don’t know who they are.

Reporter goes onto state how more councils will look into fostering but for “the short term” they will continue to place children in care homes.

00:34:18
Back to studio reporter

00:36:00
PART II of programme.
I/V with Sir George Young – Junior Minister for Health & Social Security.

00:36:28
Sir George: Advance in drugs has enabled children who have been in institutions the whole of their lives to return to the community. And I think that there is a role for drugs in treating some of the children that we’ve looked at but the actual decision of what to describe and for how long if of course a clinical decision that should be taken by a doctor. And I think one has to make it clear that doctor owes his allegiance to the child he is treating not to the institution that he’s in or the people running it.     

00:36:58
Asked about guidelines in giving children drugs – he replies that he thinks many doctors would welcome guidance if it came from a medical body rather than a political body.

00:37:50
Asked about whether he’s setting up an inquiry into this he states
“No. Not an inquiry”, feels it would be more appropriate for medical bodies [as opposed to political ones to set guidelines e.g. they notified the Royal College of Psychiatrists] – he says that it wouldn’t be appropriate for politicians to get involved in what he considers to be a clinical matter.

00:38:20
Interviewer then asks if it would be appropriate for the health department to send inspectors to actively look out for cases where drugs are being used – NOT for the child’s benefit but to make life easier for the staff. He replies by saying that the care provided by local authorities are a “safeguard” within themselves and that the responsibility of the child and how they are treated when in care lies with them.

00:38:58
Interviewer challenges by saying that national politicians can’t involve themselves but local ones can – again he retaliates by stating that the local councils are the “legal guardians” and therefore completely responsible. 
Suggests the alternative of locking children up rather than drugging them

00:39:50
“The doctor should only really give treatment if it is in the child’s interest, and if the child knows what’s happening, and I think it would be wrong actually to rely on drugs to make the staff [incoherent] more easy, or to enable the home to run with fewer staff, I think that would be a misuse.”

00:40:04
Interviewer suggests other alternative [to drug treatment] of fostering schemes, such as the one in Kent. He replies that the government is in favour of this as an alternative not to drug treatment in children, but as an alternative institution for children.

00:41:04
Back in the studio. He concludes that the department of health and social security is keen to develop other means of looking after children in care, without the use of drugs.
He then states that is the Royal Society of Psychiatrists did not feel it necessary to create guidelines for the use of drugs then the government would take no further action. 

End of programme.

Exec producer: Barry Cox
Film Research: Rod Taylor

Teresa Cooper, who battled for 18 years to obtain her files and the evidence to prove her appalling treatment by teachers. carers and medical staff, now wants the Church to launch a full-scale inquiry into the scandal at Kendal House in Gravesend, Kent., which closed in 198…..

She wants Church leaders to trace and help the dozens of other girls who she claims suffered a similar fate – many of whom have told her they, too, have endured a lifetime of trauma and ill health as a result of their treatment.

Teresa has also asked the Church to help set up independent research to see if there is a scientific link between the use of psychotropic drugs on the girls and young women in the home and the prevelance of birth defects among their subsequent children – some born years after the drug regime ceased.

Teresa, whose own children were born with problems often associated with the drugs she was forcibly given, was never diagnosed with mental illness and believes she was the subject of unauthorised medical experiments by a rogue psychiatrist using children in care.

She says that when she objected to taking the drugs, she was violently restrained and injected, locked up for weeks at a time, and raped and sexually abused while she was semi conscious.

Teresa has already found 18 other women sent to Kendal House who told her they were forcibly drugged and later gave birth to children with a range of problems.  Other girls she has contacted who were NOT drugged in the home have not reported having children with defects.

Church officials have so far rejected pleas from Teresa to discuss her case and the implications of the Kendal House scandal at the General Synod to be held at York on Friday.  Despite national concerns over child abuse, safeguarding children is not on the Synod agenda.

Teresa said last night: “In view of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s condemnation of Roman Catholic child abuse and the way it has been handled, you would think he would be anxious to put his own Church house in order. 

“I want to make sure the Church of England understands and publicly acknowledges what happened to me and dozens of other girls at Kendal House and I would like to see a genuine Christian will to help others who suffered like me.  Anything less will be seen as an attempt to brush the scandal under the carpet in a cynical damage limitation exercise.”

EPP/CD: Group of the European People’s Party
SOC: Socialist Group
ALDE: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
EDG: European Democratic Group
UEL: Group of the Unified European Left
NR: not registered in a group

Easter is here and for many it is not such a happy day as we feel anger towards Churches that have not only let us down but failed to address us in carefully planned speeches by Church members

There has been intensive media coverage on child abuse within the Catholic Church rangeing from Priests and Nuns to the local choir masters but we see very little exposure on abuse within other churches as it is largely ignored.

Child abuse has not only been ignored, riggerously denied or covered up for decades by the Vatican, Priests or Nuns but it has in fact been ignored by the majority of the public albeit the woman down the road or the man who tosses a coin into the collection box at each Church service. This is not to undermine the scale of abuse by the Catholic Priests but let us not forget that the Catholic Church are not the only ones guilty of such henious crimes to children nor are they the only ones to ignore such crimes against children either.

Let is take a look at the Governments who also ignored the abuse of children abused in Church run homes with MP’s, Local Councillors, Doctors, Social Workers and many others who sat back and allowed it to continue for decades, and they still do. In fact they still go so far as to do all they can in many cases to ensure it is also covered up which they knowingly take part in.

If we are to highlight the blame and ignorance towards child abuse we must also take a look at the media who also took part in ignoring the abuse of children for decades until recent years. Then we need to look at the thousands of professionals and volunteers who also ignored the abuse of so many children in Church run homes and institutions. It would be simply absurd to assume they didn’t know what was happening because they did but they like most, they too, turned a blind eye.

Survivors of abuse were and still are persecuted by many and it’s not just by one specific type of professional or faith.

Then we have the public for decades who sat back and ignored millions of children who were abused and many even ignored their own children’s abuse despite desperate pleas for help.  Now lets take a look at the Police/Guardia who also sat back and done nothing to uphold the law in thousands upon thousands of child abuse allegations in the UK, Scotland, Ireland and Wales so they too are guilty of ignoring the abuse of vunerable children in Church run homes and institutions.

If we are honest about child abuse within the Church, it is suffice to say they couldn’t get away with that scale of abuse without all the other professionals and vast numbers of the public ignoring it along side the Church or aiding in the cover ups of those crimes.

The worst part is, it is still happening to children today in 2010 so nothing has changed as we see yet another story come out and it is endless because each and everyone who ignored the abuse, done nothing to stop it. If you have a germ it will double, tripple, quadrupal and before you know it you have a full scale infection or disease aggressively chipping away at it’s victim if it’s ignored. And thats exactly what many done, ignored it to the point it was out of control. A germ will breed if you don’t sort it out and Paedophiles are like germs. They grow in numbers at a mass rate if left to multiply and they have been left to multiply.

It has taken many years of survivors fighting to expose this kind of abuse and we have suffered to the extremes not to mention the impact it has had on our adult lives.

We don’t recieve appologies from those meant to protect us as innocent children, we often dont get reasonable treatment from most when trying to expose such abuse and all we get is a constant kick in the teeth from the insulting way of which we are treated during and after the abuse even as adults. In fact most survivors of abuse are discriminated against or persecuted at some point in their adult life so we at times have to hide the abuse we suffered for fear of being treated differently. And all because of the stigma and lies created by those in positions of Authority or in a position of Trust. It was an easy route for them to take because it made life easy for them to ignore it or if they were an abuser, to abuse other children by leading people to believe that every child that did speak up was labelled a fantasist and liar thus not believed. It’s a common practice and tactic that’s been used by abusers for decades. They misled the public in order to hide what they were/are doing to innocent children behind closed doors. Of course there were the ignorant who simply found it easier to sit and eat their cornflakes, sip their coffee and think as long as it isn’t happening to my child who gives a shit.

I am a survivor of abuse within a Church of England run home where the horrific abuse has left a legacy handed down to our children by way of birth defects. I can sit here all day and write about blame and my anger at the world as I have been ignored by other careleavers, other faiths because it wasn’t the same church, professionals, Church members, Kent Police, Child Abuse Charities, Wandsworth council, Social Workers including the 2 trained Social Workers underhanded tactics towards me in a university lecture recently, The NSPCC are also not exempt from ignoring it and I frankly find it all disturbing. I am not saying that everyone is the same because they are not as there are many good people out there from all walks of life but still too many even today ignore it.

Now we can open our eyes and look at the Judges who sit in courts and in short have wrecked many children’s lives and let us not forget that Judges were the ones who sent many of the innocent children to these Church homes and Institutions. Judges would sit on their golden throne thinking that because they are men/women of education, wealth and good solid breeding that it makes them exempt from their part in the scale of child abuse within the Church and the Care system. I won’t even venture into the level of corruption within the legal system as that’s for another story but thankfully there are good legal professionals who fight tooth and nail to get Justice for the survivors of abuse for which I am sure many of us are greatful for. There are also some Judges who want to see Justice served and will give a survivor the Justice they so deserve but many do not. I in the past have had some seriously dodgy legal representation which furthered the abuse I suffered.

The law then makes a mockery of every child abuse survivor by not only dragging them through an abusive system as adults but it undermines the abuse of survivors by awarding many the most horrendous pittance of compensation after breaking many of the survivors down over a period of years. The harsh process survivors have to go through to seek Justice is in itself abusive and does not constitute fair law at all. The law uses a process to deliberatly break down survivors emotionally and financially in order to force them to back off.

Abuse within the Church does not stop at the Catholic Church, far from it. The same level of abuse also happens within the Church of England and others so let us not kid ourselves that it is only a Catholic problem because it isn’t. Look at Kendall House for example, that is not a Catholic church run home, it was a Church of England home and that home not only physically, mentally and sexually abuse girls and imprisoned the likes of me in a very small room, not for days or weeks, but months locked in that room isolated & abused, it forced the largest doses of very dangerous psychotropic drugs ever seen in this country and a top specialist publicly stated he had never in his entire career seen doses that high given to an adult let alone a child. I have had to fight this abuse on my own because no one wanted to know. So when we talk about ignoring abuse I know that one only too well.

Child abuse is an ugly crime and it’s the one crime that’s still at the bottom of the list of Government priorities and there is an election on it’s way and everyone should unite from all faiths and loudly say to them “what are you going to do about it”

“What can we do about it”?

We can’t change what we have already experienced but we can change it for other children and now we need to look at how we can achieve that

Edition 1SUN 09 OCT 1994, Page 1/5 Council blocks rape inquiry BY LIZ LIGHTFOOT, LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT HOME NEWS

POLICE have accused Wandsworth council, the flagship Conservative borough in south London, of preventing the prosecution of an alleged rapist. Detectives believe the authority has hindered the inquiry because it fears disclosures about the brutal treatment of children in its care. The council, which failed to inform police immediately of the 16-year-old girl’s allegations, has repeatedly refused to allow police access to social work files, its internal inquiry or the girl’s medical reports.

This has led Kent police to suspend their inquiries. The alleged rapist is still fostering children for Wandsworth.

``I am troubled that a public service such as Wandsworth social services is not open to external scrutiny,’’ said Detective Inspector David Pryde, heading the investigation. ``The fact that they appear able to hinder and undermine a current criminal inquiry is most unsatisfactory.’’ Pryde believes Wandsworth is trying to prevent details of its oppressive child care emerging. ``From the documents that have come into the possession of the inquiry team, I can see why Wandsworth social services do not wish these files to be open to external scrutiny,’’ he said. The girl was sent by Wandsworth to a children’s home in Gravesend, Kent, owned by the Church of England but independently managed and since closed. Records obtained by the victim show she was frequently locked in a small room with just a bed and a wash basin once for 163 days and subjected to a ``pin-down’’ regime, in which she was stripped and injected with strong tranquillisers from the age of 13.

The two alleged rapes occurred shortly after the girl turned 16 and had been fostered out to a couple in Herne Bay, Kent. Her sister alerted Wandsworth social workers, who were sceptical. No medical examinations were carried out to test her claims. The social workers did hold a meeting to discuss her case with officials at the children’s home. However, the minutes reveal that the foster father accused of rape was present but not the girl. They record that the girl had been interviewed by a social worker but had refused to withdraw her allegations. The girl was forced to confront the alleged rapist and his wife to repeat the allegation at a meeting, in contravention of good social work practice.

She was not given the support of a social worker during the confrontation. It was also alleged in reports that the girl was having sexual relations with men before the alleged rape, a claim she was not told of at the time and now vehemently denies. Although the alleged rape happened 10 years ago, the girl, now a woman of 26 with her own children, contacted the police in September last year when she learned the man was still fostering for Wandsworth council. ``The social workers brushed it all under the carpet. They tried to get me to retract but I wouldn’t so they contacted Kent police, but the inquiry never got anywhere at the time,’’ she said this weekend. ``I never got over what happened. It has affected my health and my relationships with men ever since.

The way I was treated by the social workers was wrong. It has spoilt my life.’’ Behind the legal tangle is a tragic story of a young girl taken into care by Wandsworth because of family difficulties. Her mother suffered from schizophrenia and her father from alcoholism. Though close to her father, the council sent her to Kendall House, a children’s home in Gravesend, 30 miles away. After an attempt to run away to see her father, the home began to drug her. ``I didn’t want them to and struggled, so they used to pin me down, two male staff and two female, stripping off my knickers to give me the injections,’’ she said. Files show she was given powerful doses of Valium and other tranquillisers, along with drugs used to treat schizophrenia.

The case will be raised in the Commons next week by Neil Gerrard, Labour MP for Walthamstow. He said: ``I will be calling for an urgent debate. It is all the more urgent that we get to the truth because the man accused is now fostering people with learning difficulties.’’ At the time of the alleged incident Wandsworth council was led by Paul Beresford, since knighted, elected to parliament and made a junior environment minister. A council spokesman said it was not releasing the files on the advice of its insurers but had offered to meet Kent police to answer specific requests for information. He said no medical examination was made when the claims were raised because the alleged rape had occurred some time earlier.