Abuse in Care

This is worth a read, though it’s now five years since the programme was screened. Richard Webster, author of “The Secret of Bryn Estyn: The Making of a Modern Witch Hunt“, resurrects an old piece of his:

On Sunday, 8th October [2000] at 9pm, BBC1 transmitted a sensational play, Care, about abuse in a children’s home. Presented as a fictional drama, and described by Polly Toynbee, as ‘a fine film in the great old BBC tradition of Cathy Come Home’, it was written by former That’s Life presenter, Kieran Prendiville. Unusually for a programme of this kind it attracted an audience of 4 million and resulted in 6,000 phone calls.

Prendiville’s gruelling ninety-minute drama followed the fate of a young man, Davey Younger, who finds that a police investigation in North Wales brings back memories of the abuse he suffered while in care as a young teenager. In a series of nightmarish scenes the residential workers entrusted with the care of Davey at a home called Glenavon, are shown both physically abusing him and subjecting him to a series of sexual assaults.

The play was universally praised. Although fictional, it was based on real events. But the true facts were very different from the those portrayed in Prendiville’s play, and show investigative journalism – in particular that practised by the Independent – in a very poor light. An interesting look at the way facts become twisted to accommodate accepted “truths”.