Local councils have some responsibility for children who have to be taken into care.
Any that end up under the governance of Councillor Andy Osborn, of the Roman Bank and Peckover ward, should be particularly pitied.
Councillor Andy Osborn (Reform UK – Roman Bank and Peckover) told a Cambridgeshire County Council meeting on June 3 that some children in care were “not just naughty children, they can be downright evil”.
He said he had heard of cases where children were “smashing cars up, running away from home, and are on drugs”.
Cllr Osborn said: “It is not just a case of somebody being a bad boy or a bad girl, it is a case of they have learnt from their bad parents not to react correctly.”
His colleagues were unimpressed by this ignorance and callous viewpoint.
Martin Purbrick, Executive Director of Children, Education and Families, explained:
I think it is important to recognise any child in care is a child that has experienced early childhood trauma and it is that trauma, which can often lead to difficult behaviours and emotional responses to challenging situations, which children and young people find it difficult to manage themselves.
Sometimes that can manifest itself in behaviours like you have described, which can be difficult, but I do think it is important that we as a committee also remember that under that behaviour is a child that has experienced something incredibly difficult and something that has really changed the way that they are able to manage their own emotions.