Kiri, Channel4, Wed 10th Jan

[southeastdweller]

Anyone else looking forward to this? The writer also wrote the recent Robbie Coltrane drama, National Treasure, and Sarah Lancashire is always superb.

www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2017-10-31/kiri-channel-4-trailer/

Andi Osho. (Love her!) @ SL!

Yes it was the stepmum. I think that's why the grandfather was so angry at her after he identified the body.

The fact we've all got different takes on the characters and different theories about what happened shows what great writing it is. I think it's the same writer as National Treasure, which was outstanding and really left me guessing til the end.

Yes agree, good writing

I'd not normally enjoy a series on this topic. I really thought she'd ve found alive so episode one was a shock!

Love Andi Osho.

The foster brother seems like a nice kid. I don't want to believe he's capable of harming Kiri.

As much as it’s a Whodunnit and we all want to know who killed Kiri, it’s really about SL and the difficulties faced by social workers. How do you make those decisions - whether to remove a child in the first place, (why was that little girl still living in a crack den?), who to place them with, whether they should continue to have contact with their family? And even if you get it right there’s always going to be someone who thinks you’ve made the wrong decision and if you get wrong the consequences can be horrendous, but what if you’ve followed all the guidelines and you still get it wrong? Sometimes it’s not so clear cut and you just have to do what’s best. It’s hard to have hard and fast rules because every case is different. If something goes wrong then everyone rushes to cover their backs, but there always has to be someone to take the blame... whoever killed Kiri and for whatever reason, SL will still have to carry the can. What a job!

DonnyandVlad the grandfather tipped his son off that Kiri was visiting. Which is why he is partially to blame for her death.

Ahh thank you clawdy, I missed that.

@LillianGish that's what I don't understand. If the visit was approved why is SL on the hook for it.

The visit was approved, but I think SL pushed very hard for it, so now she is taking the fall for it. Going back to who was driving the car, why would the foster brother follow Kiri to her GPS house, indeed why would any of the foster family. She had been there before and returned safely. If they saw her with her birth father, would they follow them, he is reportedly a druggie and possibly dangerous. Re the foster mum and the Audrey Hepburn comment, isn't it possible that she just doesn't think of Kiri as black, she just sees her as a beautiful young girl who she loves, and she is comparing her to a beautiful woman that she admires.

deadringer - yes that's the problem, that she's not thinking about Kiri's cultural needs. That's why the social worker set up the family visits.

Deadringer I see where you're coming from but Kiri IS black and all children need role models who look like them. My dh is middle eastern and my dd has olive skin and brown eyes. I wouldn't compare her to someone with fair skin, blue eyes and straight blonde hair because I don't want her to have an image of beauty that is unattainable for her.
Why did she compare her to Audrey Hepburn and not Naomi Campbell or Iman, both of whom have slender necks? I think that was put in there show the foster mother is not sensitive to Kiri's needs regarding her race and culture.

First episode was what happened in the eyes of SL’s character Miriam. Second episode was the view of paternal grandfather. Next week looks to be about the foster parents, so I imagine the 4th week will be what really happened according to Kiri.

Didn't foster mum find tissues in foster brothers bed, bin them then sniff her hands then notice the shirt in the bjn?

Next week should be interesting then.

Audrey H was dark-haired and browneyed, so it's not quite like comparing her to a blue eyed blonde. Agree that was probably meant to be significant though.

Thing is, the racial issues are out of date - the rules have been relaxed about multi-racial adoption. They had to be, because most adoptive parents are white and most children are not.

SL directly referred to the relaxation in those rules.

And just because rules have been relaxed, it doesn't mean there are no 'issues' for children or parents.

One thing's for certain - nobody is perfect. The foster mum certainly isn't, she's neurotic and over-possesive; the foster dad so far comes across as rather weak and running scared of upsetting his wife in any way; the stepson comes across as having suffered somewhat from his mother's extreme blinkers and what looks like rather poor mental health... the grandfather had his own demons to fight and failed Kiri when she needed him, so she had to be fostered, and has struggled with his conscience ever since, not knowing how to make amends for his past mistakes; the father has made a right royal fuck up of his life, but had issues in his own background which partially explain why he went off the rails and it's very hard to turn your life around and make amends from that sort of turbulent history when your actions and what happened to you delayed your emotional and psychological development... and the social worker has an impossible job, as it is incredibly high stakes, there are always multiple factors involved in any decision, and all risk cannot be removed from any situation. Her actions do not come across as negligent or in bad faith.

As it's a TV series, I think there will be a twist with, eg, the son having done it, but it could just as easily end more realistically, with it being a tragedy resulting from different decisions made by multiple people, none of which individually could have been foreseen to be likely to result in a child's death, but all of which unwittingly contributed to it.

If it was the son, he was incredibly calm when sitting on the Downs watching the search party move straight towards where the body was. That's not impossible of course if he's a psychopath or similar, but they've given no other hints of that. My money's on the foster mother.

As said upthread, if it's the son, it will be a bit of a let-down as it's being signposted so obviously.

"She had been there before and returned safely"

The visits before were supervised. May have been at contact centres.

@roundaboutthetown how is she over possessive? Can you imagine what it is like to look after a child for 5 years but to have no legal rights as her parent?

"Her actions do not come across as negligent or in bad faith" but she was drinking on the job! When she collected Kiri she had dog in the car but still went alone to Kiri's room.

Yet a short while later arrived at grandpatent's house and could not go in due to dog. ??

She pushed for visits because she felt it was necessary. Perhaps because of visit child is dead yet she tells press she did the right thing! Totally mixed up.

The visits almost certainly happened because of the child's race, yet appear to have been a direct cause of her being in danger. I do know of white adopted children who have contact with grandma but it is very rare.

Italiangreyhound - sorry, but she does come across as neurotic and over-possessive. She fostered because she was desperate to adopt if at all possible, not because she really wanted to be a foster parent; she was unhealthily obsessed with having another child, and I don't believe for a minute this was all for her son, it's just her excuse to justify an incredibly strong desire to have another child, which obviously did send signals to her son that he was not enough for her or quite what she wanted, given his discussion with the social worker on the Downs (not that this isn't an uncommon fear to be allayed by parents when they adopt, foster, or even have more children of their own); she comes across as extremely fragile and even before she let Kiri go off to see her grandparents, not mentally in a good place; and she's busy going on TV at every opportunity to throw blame around, which is rather nauseating, tbh.

As for the social worker, there is nothing to suggest her decisions with regard to this family were remotely affected by alcohol, so I am not getting why you think this makes her blameworthy with regard to Kiri's death. Leaving the dog hanging around in the car, though, I agree is a bit off, albeit nothing to do with her decisions on this case again, more just I feel sorry for the dog being left in the car all over the place, but the inconsistency of not going into the grandparents' house because of the dog is more likely her excuse because being a social worker, she would have had other things to deal with - in fact, I think she was late for a legal hearing. If she had gone into the house, it would have made bugger all difference anyway, as the son was not in there at the time. And the grandfather was a person she trusted and social services had trusted enough that they originally wanted him to care for Kiri, anyway. He had seen his granddaughter many times and was trusted. So no, I'm not going to blame a social worker for being responsible for someone's death because she has a dog and a hip flask!

I don’t think it had crossed SL’s mind for a second that Kiri’s dad might turn up. The visit had been approved. It was the grandparents who contacted their son - they were obviously quite sympathetic to his and Kiri’s plight. Even so they weren’t expecting him to leave the house with her. If he had stayed at the house she would have come to no harm. Should SL have foreseen this course of events? It was the grandparents who broke the terms of the arrangement and the father who abused their trust by taking Kiri out of the house. Italian I think you have a very interesting perspective and make some very good points. I also think that as this is a drama the culprit won’t be who we expect and so may well be the foster mum. I think the social workers (in this case SL) lose whatever the outcome - for arranging the visit in the first place and for placing Kiri with unsuitable foster parents if they turn out to be responsible. Not a great advert for either role so interesting to hear from someone who has real life experience of these things.

I don’t think it had crossed SL’s mind for a second that Kiri’s dad might turn up. The visit had been approved. It was the grandparents who contacted their son - they were obviously quite sympathetic to his and Kiri’s plight. Even so they weren’t expecting him to leave the house with her. If he had stayed at the house she would have come to no harm. Should SL have foreseen this course of events? It was the grandparents who broke the terms of the arrangement and the father who abused their trust by taking Kiri out of the house. Italian I think you have a very interesting perspective and make some very good points. I also think that as this is a drama the culprit won’t be who we expect and so may well be the foster mum. I think the social workers (in this case SL) lose whatever the outcome - for arranging the visit in the first place and for placing Kiri with unsuitable foster parents if they turn out to be responsible. Not a great advert for either role so interesting to hear from someone who has real life experience of these things.