Local authorities, between them, have parental responsibility for more than 100,000 children in care in the UK. At one home, children aged under five, too young to know what was happening, were subject to routine sexual abuse. Children lay in bed at night hearing the screams of other children, knowing that on another night it would be them. The report finds councillors were focusing on internal political disputes and going into battle with Thatcher’s government to an extent that distracted them entirely from their responsibilities to children: children in care were just “pawns in a toxic power game”. Endemic fraud and financial corruption compromised any investigations into child abuse.

Source: The Guardian August 01, 2021 08:00 UTC