The plight of children in Scotland, UK and elsewhere

Scottish child abuse inquiry

 

 

David Scott is on Skype link with Mike Robinson in the UK Column studio and they begin Friday`s programme by talking about the Scottish child abuse inquiry headed by the Right Hon Lady Smith. "She was appointed in July this year," explains David Scott, "After the previous head resigned under huge pressure from the Scottish government where there seemed to have been a trumped up character assassination attempt. One of the other three members of the panel also resigned citing government interference."

Robert Green

"So Lady Smith is the latest person to head up the inquiry and is a very interesting name to anyone who has followed the Holly Greig case, " says Scott, "Because she had a hand in the appalling treatment of Robert Green at the hands of the Scottish judiciary."

"So you wrote to her then," prompts Mike Robinson.

"Yes, we pointed out that when Robert was sentenced there was an outrageous and bigoted anti-English outburst from the [sheriff] in the case, Sheriff Principal Edward Bowen, and this showed prejudice but was entirely omitted from the official court records. Robert took this as a complaint and Lady Smith oversaw the complaint. She interviewed Robert; she interviewed Sheriff Principal Bowen and his clerk but none of the witnesses who were in the court and who heard the outburst... She wouldn`t talk to any of them. The official court record did not show the offending statements that had been made and although the entire proceedings were recorded, Lady Smith said she had listened to the recording and the phrase was not there. But she wouldn`t let Robert listen to the recording. So it was all very unsatisfactory. We had multiple witnesses who had all reported more or less the same thing, not necessarily word for word. The reports came in but they were almost identical and it was all to do with Robert`s nationality. And `How dare you come up to Scotland and tell us how to run our justice system. We know how to run the justice system in Scotland`. And these comments were stricken from the record as they would have been grounds for appeal."

"So we asked Lady Smith for comment on this and how we can trust her to enquire into child sexual abuse when we couldn`t apparently trust her to enquire into the mistreatment of a campaigner against child sexual abuse. This was the detailed response we got:"

Hi David,

A spokesperson for the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry said: "It would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases."

Thanks

Heather.

Plight of child migrants

The next item deals with an article in the Telegraph: France rebukes Britain over plight of children left stranded after destruction of `Jungle` camp at Calais.

Mike Robinson clarifies: "They are saying that between 100 and 200 children spent the night in a makeshift school at the edge of the `Jungle` after sleeping rough the previous night and Bernard Cazeneuve who is the equivalent of Amber Rudd - so he`s the French Home Secretary - and he told Amber Rudd he wanted to stress the need for children who remain in Calais to be properly protected."

"Well David we`ve been highlighting on this programme for quite a number of months that bringing them to Britain doesn`t guarantee that they will be properly protected. Does Scotland have a better reputation for this?"

"Clearly not. And neither does anywhere in Europe. I was seeing reports were coming in from Greece where some of the child refugees and migrants are on the street involved in prostitution. And you fear for their safety either in Britain or in France but particularly in Britain. Would they end up in the same horrible situation?"

Mike Robinson reinforces his view: "Look it`s increasingly clear to me that what`s going on here is an industry being established which is running along the same type of business model as the drugs industry. So we`ve got this notional ban on drugs from governments while in the meantime governments directly benefit from the trafficking of drugs. The same thing seems to be happening with people increasingly. So we`ve had an announcement from the Ministry of Defence, in the last day or so, they`re going to send troops over to Libya to train Libyan patrols off the coast of Libya to try to prevent people being trafficked through Libya. But of course this is the same kind of scenario: deliberate underinvestment in what you might call enforcement while in the meantime the trade continues and in this case it`s a trade in humans. It hasn`t worked for drugs and it isn`t going to work for this... The intention is that these people continue to be trafficked."

David Scott agrees that the war on drugs has been horrendous. "In the case of drugs it`s most certainly been government intervention that`s promoted it both in terms of overseas and poppy growing areas and in the trafficking of drugs particularly into America where drugs were coming in and guns were going out and ... they were getting American kids hooked on heroin, cocaine and crack in order to fund the illegal wars overseas. It was just as cynical as that. And it`s become such a huge industry that without the liquidity, it brings the entire banking system - Wall Street etc would likely collapse -  So it becomes an essential component of our corrupt system that we live under and therefore it keeps manifesting itself generation after generation and nobody really does anything to stop it. To consider human trafficking becoming something on that scale is truly horrendous."

United Nations

"Well here is Fillippo Grandi who is UN commissioner for refugees and he`s highlighting the word `invisible.` He says it`s the word most commonly used to describe what it is to be without a nationality ... And what he`s doing is promoting this campaign from UNHCR. It`s #IBELONG. Today ten million people around the world are denied a nationality. They often aren`t allowed to go to school, get a job, open a bank account, buy a house or even get married. You can help change their lives and it says the main reason people are stateless is because of discrimination, because of ethnicity, because of their religion, because in some countries women cannot pass their nationality on to their children. We believe it`s time to end this injustice. With enough courage we know it`s possible. Governments can change their laws and procedures and give stateless people their rights and a place to belong and in ten years we can ensure everyone has a nationality because if we don`t they suggest it`s going to get worse. And you know I thought it was a little ironic that the United Nations which is working so hard to abolish the idea of sovereign nations is now demanding that people belong to them. But you pointed out the graphic on the right."

"Yes... when you look at this #IBELONG when the man is crouching down pretending to be a globe. So it seems to me to be saying `I belong to the globe`; it`s a unitary planet-wide identity ... seems to be suggested there even though they are talking there on the surface about nation states."

The Named Person scheme

They move on to the Named Person scheme where the headline on NO2NP website is: Swinney accused of snubbing concerned parents and constituents.

"Yes he was, and people were asking to meet him. He went public and said we want to have a discussion; we want to consult; it`s going to be an enormous consultation but we don`t want to consult with people who don`t agree with us. You have to agree first in order to be included in the consultation. So some concerned parents wrote to him and asked him for some time to meet and discuss the issues surrounding the Named Person and the following letter was the ... reply: And we see here reference again to `We are only willing to talk to people who accept the sovereign will of parliament` essentially. So it`s the divine right of parliament rearing its ever uglier head again and the sovereign will of the people is irrelevant because parliament has spoken. And that is what is being told without a hint of a smile is democracy..."

"It is a pretty spectacular approach both from the Scottish parliament and the Westminster government that really we cannot comment or criticise or change the mind of parliament because the will of parliament is supreme and in fact if we go to court in order to try to force them to behave in a particular way, well the court can be ignored as well. This is a staggeringly unconstitutional position to take," says Mike Robinson.

"On a happier note the NO2NP campaign was nominated for Political Campaigner of the Year in the Scottish Political Awards 2016... and NO2NP won..."  David Scott reports that the news was not received well by opponents.

The Highland Investigation

"Now the Highland Investigation, you had a meeting in the Royal Highland hotel last week. How did it go?"

"It was very good, very good turn out, very interesting conversations which lasted for quite a few hours and extremely worthwhile.  So thank you to everyone who came along to that..."

David Scott is asked to remind viewers and listeners what the Highland Investigation is setting out to achieve.

"Highland Council has been held up as the testing ground for the Named Person and the whole GIRFEC approach which surrounds every aspect of the state`s interaction with children and families and it has been held up as a wonderful success. And the apostle of GIRFEC [Getting it Right for Every Child] is a gentleman called Bill Alexander from Highland Council and his constant refrain is: `Come to Highlands and see how well it`s working. No-one could have any problems with this. It`s been proven to work so well on the ground.` So we started to make some enquiries and we found an entirely different story."

"We found Council officials behaving in the most dreadful way towards loving parents and what we`re doing is we`re gathering information; we`re gathering stories; we`re gathering accounts and we`re seeing patterns. So it`s not just one or two stories, we`re seeing patterns as to how GIRFEC and the Named Person really operates. One thing that came out of Wednesday night was the realisation that almost nobody in Highland Council who was a child or who had a child during the GIRFEC Named Person trial - and remember Named Person we`re told is a single point of contact; so parents know who to talk to if there`s a problem - almost nobody knew they had a Named Person because Highland Council simply didn`t tell them. It was secret. So they didn`t get many complaints because nobody knew the scheme was actually running. How can you have a single point of contact if you don`t know they exist?"

Mike Robinson interjects: "So effectively what was going on there was somebody was spying on families and children and they had no awareness of that."

"That`s exactly correct. It was a single point of contact about families, not for families."

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Returning to the account of the nine-year-old girl who tried to commit suicide in front of her classmates as a result of bullying, David Scott points to a statement made by local councillor Roddy Balfour in the local press: "There`s no doubt there`s been problems with bullying but I`m satisfied that it has been addressed by the school.  So nothing to see here. Now it transpires that Roddy Balfour has quite a lot of other connections to quite troubling cases. We had one where the parents were involved, again with severe bullying, and they went to Roddy Balfour for assistance and they took with them lots of documentation to justify their case that they were being badly treated by Highland Council. And he was shocked; he said he`d do something; he was right on their side and extremely supportive. And off he went to meet the council officials and nine months later the parents hadn`t heard anything from him and they contacted him and he said he`d been warned off."

"So we wrote to him. We said, Mr Balfour, we`ve been passed information regarding a request constituents made for you to intercede on their behalf with Highland Council Education Department. I understand you visited this family in the home and expressed outrage and disbelief at what they were going through. Armed with documentation from the family that supported their view and claims, you attended a meeting with Mr Hector Robertson and Mr John Bruce of the Highland Council Education Department. You had no contact with the family following this meeting until nearly nine months later when one of the parents telephoned you. They asked you why you had abandoned them to which you responded you`d been warned off at the meeting with Mr Robertson and Mr Bruce. I understand that the family`s advocate also contacted you over your remarks and you told them you had been advised to walk away from it... Clearly some pressure was brought to bear on you. Could you explain how and by whom and if known to you why this was done?  Could you also explain why you complied?"

"So that was the question that went in to Mr Roddy Balfour and a similar one went in to Ms Glynis Sinclair who had a similar lack of response once interacting with the Council. Now the reply that came back was essentially that Mr Roddy Balfour had no recollection of these events..."

Despite more correspondence with Mr Roddy Balfour there has been no further response.

====================

A number of other topics were discussed for those who are interested. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrrAjgs8Spc 　

Benefit of Named Person scheme remains unproven

"Those who shout the loudest or who have preferential access to officials are able to influence the legislative and policy-making processes, while those with other perspectives are too often ignored. That is why it is essential that in the development of new legislation or Government policies, a sound evidential basis is established. One issue which highlights this problem is the ongoing saga of the Named Person scheme. The Scottish Government claimed that owing to the success of the scheme in the Highlands in reducing referrals to the Children’s Panel, the scheme should be rolled out across the country. It worked closely with various children’s charities in developing the legislation. Understandably, these groups are keen to support any measures which they think might improve the outcomes for disadvantaged children. "

"Now that the information sharing aspects of the Named Person scheme has been found to infringe children’s and parent’s rights, the Scottish Government has asked these groups which supported the initial draft of the scheme to suggest how to rectify the problem. In his appearance before the Education and Skills Committee recently, education secretary John Swinney said that the Named Person scheme would still be rolled out and that the pilot scheme run by Highland Council was, in his view, responsible for a 68 per cent decline in referrals to the Children’s Panel between 2007 and 2013."

"The problem is that a closer look at the data shows that the results in Highland Council area are far from exceptional. Over the last ten years there has been a decline in referrals across the whole of Scotland by 72.6 per cent. Highland ranks only 11th out of 32 local authorities in its track record on reducing referrals. Other councils which piloted the Named Person scheme, such as Angus and South Ayrshire, performed much worse, with Angus sitting at 20th and South Ayrshire at 30th in the ranking. Councils which did not pilot the scheme, such as Aberdeen and Glasgow, performed better than Highland with drops in referral rates of over 80 per cent. It appears, therefore, that the decline in referrals to the Children’s Panel is due to other factors, such as the fact that the police no longer routinely refer all domestic abuse cases. Moreover, the claimed benefits of the Named Person scheme in improving outcomes for children remain unproven. This suggests that a more robust evidential basis should have been established before the Scottish Government legislated for the scheme; that too cosy a relationship exists between the advocates of the scheme and Scottish Government officials; and that more attention should have been paid to dissenting voices."

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/cosy-relationships-can-make-for-bad-legislation-1-4263721

A summary of the Children and Young People Bill Scotland by Phil Raines - Head of Child Protection Policy [ March 2013]

The Highland Investigation and Children`s Services

I`m placing this slide from the UK Column News [21 October 2016] out of context just in case people do not want to read any further:

There will be a meeting of the Highland Investigation at the Royal Highland Hotel, Station Square, Academy Street, Inverness on Wednesday 24 October 2016 at 7pm.  Anybody who is interested in helping the investigation or who wants to find out more is welcome. David Scott will be attending.

"Right," Mike Robinson begins: "To lead into David`s stuff mainly we`re just going to highlight this little article from Demos here:
Commissioning in Children`s Services - What Works? So Demos the think tank, what are they saying? They`re saying:"

"Despite significant policy attention and political action, looked after children and children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) remain some of the most vulnerable children in the country with their later life outcomes - social, educational and health related - remaining stubbornly poor. It is no coincidence that in Ofsted`s inspections of local authority children`s services departments from November 2015 to March 2016, three-quarters were given one of the two bottom ratings: `requires improvement` or `inadequate`. These failings have profound impacts on the lives of children and young people."

"Two sets of pressures are putting children`s services departments under considerable strain. First, demand for children`s social care is rising. Between 2008 and 2015, local authorities saw a 22 per cent rise in referrals and a 16 per cent increase in the number of children in care. - That statistic alone is spectacular Brian. - It is not only the volume of demand but the kind of demand that is exerting pressure: the needs of looked after children are becoming more complex, and the introduction of Education, Health and Care plans (EHCPs), although a positive move forward, require local authorities to think more creatively about how they will meet the needs of children with SEND."

"Of course, part of the problem there is that demand particularly for children with special educational needs is being driven by the fact that extra benefits are given and there`s pressure on parents to actually register their children as requiring special educational needs. And second they say local authorities are facing continued and severe cuts to their budgets. And so what do they go on to talk about ? They basically go on to talk about the privatisation of care in children`s services. And this is particularly dangerous of course because once that type of thing ends up in private hands we get even less oversight..."

Brian Gerrish joins in: "Well, of course, at the moment some of the most vulnerable children with multiple special needs are being looked after by private companies [because they] can be earning 230, 40, 50, 60 thousand pounds a year per child. So this is big money business." David Scott is asked what he thinks about that.

"Well all these things - when you`re dealing with a government that has coercive powers of taxation - so they`re taking money essentially at the pointy end of a bayonet and then that`s being distributed, not controlled in any way by the people for their collective benefit, but being siphoned off to well connected private interests. You have really the worst of both worlds. You have all the drive of the private sector but rather than being a drive towards satisfying customers, the customers, in fact, become a commodity and their only drive is to satisfy politicians. [It] is an invitation to corruption on a vast scale."

 

 

"Now let`s start here with the Inverness Courier. Now this is going back a few years, 2011. Janitor charged with showing indecent images to pupils. Now this is an introduction to the Highland Investigation and you had a number of articles here on this particular school. School janitor is placed on sex offenders` register - the fact that children were being shown indecent cartoons and this one from the Highland News saying: Bullied girl (9) tries to strangle herself with ties."

"This is one of the first areas we have been looking at in the Highland Investigation," explains David Scott. "And we`re putting this up here today just as an indication of the sort of information we`re seeing. We`ve got a huge amount of information coming forward and we hope to have more when we meet folk next week ... in Inverness..."

"Now Ardesier is a very interesting case: one small primary school and one example. The janitor, Mr Thomas Brown, he was the janitor at more than one school. He had been showing indecent images to children in Ardesier primary school playground but it was [after] his conduct at another primary school that he was [then] charged and convicted and put on the sex offenders` register. Now the parents at Ardesier found there was no investigation or even acknowledgement publicly for what he was doing in Ardesier primary. The whole thing seemed to be hushed up. So one of the themes we`re seeing at Highland is that problems, embarrassing incidents etc, rather than having the disinfectant of sunlight, are concealed and hushed up and there is no proper investigation."

David Scott says that the reason the Highland Investigation is going back a few years is because it takes in the period 2006 to 2009 which was the time of the trial of the Named Person scheme and the GIRFEC approach. He states: "So what was happening in Highland then is being rolled out across the whole of Scotland now."

"Now the second case you mentioned there which was also at the same primary... the girl there was being very badly bullied."

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"But the incident left several pupils at Ardersier Primary School traumatised, according to her mum, and Brooke has now been offered a place eight miles away at Croy Primary. But the family is still angry at education bosses who are now refusing to meet transport costs to her new school. Her mum Pauline MacGregor (36) told the Highland News: `The bullying had gone on for months and nothing was done about it despite us reporting it to the head teacher. We moved to the area in 2007 and Brooke was enrolled at Ardersier Primary. The bullying didn't start until March or April that year. It was incessant. One boy was the ring leader, but she has been targeted by both boys and girls in the class`..."

"The final straw for the family came two days before Brooke's ninth birthday when they say the youngster tried to kill herself in front of her classmates. When single mum Ms MacGregor went to school to collect her daughter, she said Brooke's teacher met her in the playground. `She was very upset. She was in tears when she told me what had happened. She said there had been an incident and explained Brooke had put a tie round her neck and was trying to choke herself.` Other pupils were standing around chanting `Go Brooke, go` and that's what alerted the teachers. `We were told her lips were blue and her teacher got a terrible shock. I just felt sick. You hear about young teenagers being driven to suicide by bullying but Brooke is only nine.`"

"Brooke's grandfather John Masson (63) said his granddaughter had no problems at her previous school before moving to Ardersier for family reasons. `We have letters from her previous head teacher describing her as a bright and happy child. But that changed since she came to Ardersier. She has some friends but now she is afraid to leave the house. We kept her off school for a few days after she tried to choke herself and the school gave her a support worker. But Brooke told us all she was asked was about her home life. She never got asked about the bullying`..."

"Education chiefs claim one of the boys accused of bullying Brooke has been excluded from the school, but Mr Masson insists that boy was not responsible for the bullying... The family have now been told a place has been found for Brooke at Croy Primary but because it is at their request they are responsible financially for her transport arrangements. Ms MacGregor is on benefits and is a carer for her father who has health problems. `We can't afford to get taxis to take her to school,` said Mr Masson. `The authorities seem to forget she is the victim here yet the boy who has caused this nightmare is still in school.` A Highland Council spokesperson said: `We cannot comment on any individual pupil's circumstances`..."

====================
 

David Scott does not actually read out the emboldened section but I think it is highly relevant since the Named Person pilot was on the go at the time. It looks more like the authorities were trying to find something `on` the family rather than dealing with the bullying.

Brian Gerrish is asked by David Scott if he would be interested to hear what Her Majesty`s Inspector of Schools had to say about the school just a few months after that incident.

"Well, of course, I would be extremely interested. I may suspect I know what`s coming."

"Well here we go: Now bear in mind the scene that`s just been painted there. This is what HMIE after a thorough examination of the school said: `Children behave well in and around the school. Most are confident the school will deal effectively with any incidents of bullying. Children feel safe and valued in school and know what to do if they have any concerns. Staff have a very positive relationship with children. They`re committed to the wellbeing and support of all children and have appropriate awareness of child protection issues`. So that gives you an idea about how much you can rely upon the government, upon the state, regulating itself. This is of course garbage."

Brian Gerrish agrees: "It`s a pattern we see across the country, wherever you go. If you try to expose there`s a failing within a public body, all that happens is there`s a closing of ranks and they defend themselves."

"There`s more to come on the story of that little girl but we`ll keep that for following weeks; but actually it gets worse, the way the family was treated subsequently by the Highland Council; it gets worse."
 

 

"Well the Scottish National Party seems to be having a problem with what? What are we talking about here? - references to the holocaust?"

"Well possibly the worst judged political stunt in the history of political stunts," David Scott thinks. "And this is the very famous Brain family. You will appreciate that we all know that the Scottish government will not get involved in individual cases, except of course when they do, and they`ve got hugely involved in this case. It`s obviously been in their political interests to do so. The Brain family faced deportation having contravened the requirements of their visa. The Home Office in London it would seem was actually being quite lenient with them and trying to find a compromise but this was seized on by the Scottish National Party, made into a political issue."

"And in came Mr Brain to the Scottish National Party conference. Now bear in mind Nicola Sturgeon doesn`t get involved in individual cases. Here he is on the stage at the Scottish National Party conference and he`s wearing a little badge... memories of the holocaust. It`s yellow and it`s a diamond in this case with the letter `F` on it which he explains stands for foreigner... So it`s not subtle but I`m sure you see what they`re trying to do in terms of painting the British state as evil and themselves as good..."

"Here you have a family actually being fairly well treated over a fairly minor dispute over a visa and that`s the metaphor you go to. It`s crass; it`s embarrassing and it cheapens the political language and it coarsens the political language as well because everyone goes running around calling everyone else a Nazi and all of a sudden you don`t have any sort of exchange of ideas or examination of the facts... Mental activity closes down and it becomes simply a matter of abuse and grandstanding, which this was."

The Docherty family

"Now these points David I think we consider them in relation to the failure of the Scottish state to do anything to protect the Docherty family. As far as I know there`s no communications with the family. Can you give us a sort of update and also say what if anything Nippy Sturgeon has been doing to help the Dochertys."

"She`s done nothing to help the Dochertys. She may have been doing quite a lot to harm the Dochertys; we`re not quite sure because obviously it`s all secret; but certainly nothing to help. Now we haven`t heard from the Dochertys for three weeks. We`re getting very concerned about their safety; whether they are... ok and breathing the free air of Ireland, or not. We don`t know."

"It illustrates ... here you had a family who`ve had their four children violently seized... without any lawful excuse by a foreign state; Nicola Sturgeon does nothing. We have one family who has a minor dispute over a visa application and Nicola Sturgeon puts them on the stage at the party conference. She takes part... She leads a standing ovation as they walk on to the stage... "

"Can you imagine the impact which she could have had in the Docherty case? With that degree of power, with that degree of media attention, with that degree of focus on her; she could have stopped the Docherty case right now. She could have sorted it because if she had brought Brian and Janice Docherty on to the stage in that way, what would have happened? I tell you this, their kids would have been back very quickly... It`s almost certainly the case that the mere threat of doing that would have seen all of the government agencies involved resolve this situation."

"But she will not move; she will not act. She will not act in order to make sure that entities charged with behaving in a lawful manner are doing their job; and that`s the very excuse she`s given for acting in individual cases in the past."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFa-cav8-BM

Northern Exposure and the Highland Council open investigation

On Friday`s UK Column News [30 September 2016] it was reported that Brian Gerrish and Mike Robinson had had an extremely successful meet-up in Dunblane, Scotland, with David Scott from Northern Exposure and many people who had come together to express their concerns about what they saw happening politically both in Scotland and the rest of the UK.  David Scott was thanked for putting the event together and asked what sort of feedback he had received following the meeting.

In answer, Scott said that he thought it was the start of something bigger. They had already planned their next meet-up. " I`d also like to thank everybody who dug deep for the Dochertys. We had a collection that raised nearly £400 on the night and there`s been other monies coming in via the UK Column from the south. So that will be enormously helpful for them. And we`ll get that to them as soon as we can."

"Last week you highlighted the launch of the Highland Investigation because you wanted to investigate Highland Council and how it is treating Highlanders," Mike Robinson prompted Scott. "And you sent this to us this morning which is some of the feedback that you`ve had on that already, and this looks pretty harrowing. "

"It certainly is... " It reads:

"I was a foster carer for the Highland Council Inverness for two years. I witnessed a female social worker sexually abuse a 10 year old boy in the local Liddles` car park who was in my care. When I reported it, it was five years of hell for me as well as the child. I was accused of being a liar and worse by social services."

"Highland Council, SSSC, child protection, and as for the Scottish parliament and Highland police force, it was one big cover-up. Coppers on the shop floor were not happy but the investigation was stopped from very high up with no explanation. I had my name removed from the authorised carers list and blacklisted from being a foster carer as SS Inverness threatened me if I didn`t drop the allegation."

"And their excuse for getting rid of me; they claim I didn`t pass on information and I wasn`t seen as a team player. Highland social services need looking into: why are they protecting staff that have a history of abusing children and why are they being protected by police and Scottish ministers?"

Mike Robinson pointed out that if people freeze the screen at this point in the news, that one of the things they`re going to read is that somebody is saying that they know that the child concerned, who is now an adult, now has issues including self harm.

"So clearly.. .long term damage being done there," says Robinson.

"Absolutely. And another ... thing, the child concerned, whilst a child said: `Don`t report this to the police. If you report this to the police, I`ll be taken away from you. You`ll never see me again and it will be worse for both of us.`  So the child, despite being a child in the system, knew the score. And the score is: don`t complain; don`t look for justice or it will go badly for you."
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Northern Exposure are planning their next meet-up on the last Wednesday in October in Inverness. One of the themes they see recurring is that parents feel they are being targets; parents feel they are being viewed as the enemy by Highland Council.

The email address for communicating with the Highland Council investigation was put on the screen.

"Anybody working for Highland Council who wants to pass on information; anybody who has been on the receiving end of Highland Council, that`s the contact email address."

 Email nothern_exposure@hushmail.com ...