Care Leavers' Association

Recovering mine from Hatton Gardens, Liverpool took two stabs. Eventually a very nice woman from Liverpool drove over to Leeds with mine. It had taken 4 years after the original request was made.

She left me to photo copy it, which took about 3 hours.

A lot of the file was heavily edited to keep information about my sister out - although in a sketchy way. Comments were made all over my file which if I now made them about children or parents I would be disciplined for. One i really resent was that my mother was "no more than a silly girl".

One of the heartache moments was to see her letter to say she would pick me and my sister up once she had found a flat in Southport, followed by the social worker's note that she still had not managed to get an income from work great enough to put down the 5 shillings deposit and was already 1/6 pence in arrears.

Reading my file did convince me to seek justice for the exceptional amount of abuse, but thats another story. It took about 8 years, three appeals, a personal appearance and I won.

Dr Peter McParlin

Child and Educational Psychologist