I am Child Z

Chapter Six - Read All About It!

Chapter Six - Read All About It!

Parents Today, a Famous London Magazine, published my harrowing story across its front and central pages making my life a spectacle. Local residents mostly talked about my story. But then it became a case study that every council in South East England wanted to scrutinise. I felt sick! How could that magazine make money out of my horrendous circumstances? What kind of monsters ran this paper? I didn't know how they got to know every detail about my life - I did not tell anyone. Clearly, someone leaked my sensitive case to the press. Is nothing private and confidential anymore? I was going through enough; I didn't need tens of thousands of people getting up in my business, making judgements about my mother and father's mental health issues and me being placed into foster care.

The situation got ten times worse...

Within hours of Parents Today publishing the article my story went viral. Four million people across the country were talking about it on Twitter. Most people simply wished to comment on the Parents Today article or post a single word to make a statement and grab the attention of their followers. Some wanted to condemn my parents and write vile stuff about the way in which they raised me! Other people wanted to vent their anger towards the system - and blamed professionals for not intervening in my family crisis much earlier.

A handful of tweets written by kids at my school (the popular bullies such as Frankie Harris and Jodie Mark) were deemed highly offensive and 'illegal', contravening UK Child Protection Law.

My foster mum, who I hadn't actually met yet, hired a top lawyer in the US to deal with this Twitter Fiasco. My new lawyer (who cannot be identified) lodged an urgent complaint with the UK Government concerning certain tweets posted online. When nothing looked set to be done about it, he contacted Twitter directly, writing a stern letter of how these comments were contravening UK Law (with respect of my Child Protection Case). For the first time in British History, Twitter blocked a number of UK user accounts and they were forced to remove content from the site which formally identified me or put my personal safety at risk. Twitter blocked twenty accounts and one hundred posts were removed.

However, people could still send each other private messages, talking about the story to one another. And that's exactly what they did.

By 4pm on Friday 15th February 2013, when my social worker Amie and I got in the cab and travelled through London to meet my new foster mother, my story had reached the Regional Headlines.

At precisely 5.30pm, it had reached Prime Time TV in over fifty different countries, bursting into the public domain. Everyone who's anyone was talking about me.