Mainstream news focused on the Bradford abuse inquiry yet nothing on the Lambeth one (TW: CA).

[flashbac]

N.B. this is in Black Mumsnet and not AIBU for a reason!

This has been playing on my mind.

As I understand it, two reports on child abuse came out on Tuesday yet the mainstream tv news focused on only one: the failure of services in Bradford to protect teenage girls from grooming gangs.

The Lambeth one didn't even get a mention on the BBC television news. I cant speak for the other channels as I did not watch them.

All child abuse is horrific but the details in the Lambeth one involved Black children being raped by white staff.

There's one thing turning a blind eye to abuse and another actually perpetrating the abuse and/or actively covering it up.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/27/hundreds-of-children-abused-while-in-care-of-lambeth-council-inquiry-finds

So yeah. I do think its because of racism there is more awareness and hand wringing over one of the reports but not the other.

[Title edited at OP's request]

I mentioned this being in Black Mumsnet not to put anyone off but to avoid the idiots who think racism doesn't exist.

Raymond Stevenson, survivor, has been campaigning for years. He has been relentless.
It's thought that hundreds and hundreds of children were abused by those who were supposed to care for them.
I did see him do an interview on the tv last week, but not sure what station.
It's an outrageous scandal. Hushed up for years. Files lost or destroyed.
There is a support group for survivors.
www.shirleyoakssurvivorsassociation.co.uk/

[quote EchoNan]Raymond Stevenson, survivor, has been campaigning for years. He has been relentless.
It's thought that hundreds and hundreds of children were abused by those who were supposed to care for them.
I did see him do an interview on the tv last week, but not sure what station.
It's an outrageous scandal. Hushed up for years. Files lost or destroyed.
There is a support group for survivors.
www.shirleyoakssurvivorsassociation.co.uk/[/quote]
It's absolutely horrific that these children were removed from their parents - supposedly for their own protection - and they experienced this.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57984924

Yes, I saw that report on the BBC news. It was a long-ish report - about ten minutes.

This was covered in Eddie Nestor’s show on radio London. I agree that it really didn’t get anywhere near the attention it should have given how widespread the abuse was.

My heart absolutely breaks for the vulnerable children who suffered and who didn’t have proper responsible adults to protect them. I really hope they can get some form of justice or compensation.

There’s definitely racism at play and it suits certain agendas to flag the Yorkshire grooming - which is also unspeakably horrific. Though I did see some right wing commentators make it about Lambeth being a far left council. I think politics and religion aside, it’s about abuse of power of vulnerable children and I really hope that things change. I know that the company I work for has a really strict safeguarding policy and is taken extremely seriously and that needs to be the norm, as does listening and respecting children not writing them off as ‘bad kids’