Care | |
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Genre | Crime drama |
Written by | Kieran Prendiville |
Directed by | Antonia Bird |
Starring | |
Composers |
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Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of episodes | 1 |
Production | |
Executive producers |
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Producers |
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Cinematography | Graham Smith |
Editor | St. John O'Rorke |
Running time | 105 minutes |
Production company | BBC Wales |
Original release | |
Network | BBC1 |
Release | 8 October 2000 |
Care is a single British television crime drama film, written by former Tomorrow's World presenter Kieran Prendiville, that first broadcast on BBC1 on 8 October 2000. [1] Directed by Antonia Bird, Care follows Davey Younger (Steven Mackintosh), a former childhood resident of Glenavon care home, who is forced to dig up his past when a local councillor, Tony Collins (Richard Harrington), orders an investigation into reported historical sex abuse, which took place at the home during Davey's years as a resident, following evidence unearthed by journalist Elaine Hughes (Jaye Griffiths). The film won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Single Drama in 2001.
Although described by Prendville as an entirely fictional piece, Care, which Prendiville spent two and a half years researching, was somewhat based upon a real life case uncovered during the North Wales child abuse scandal. [2] The home itself was said to be based upon Bryn Estyn, and the character of Davey based upon one of the most infamous victims of the scandal, Mark Humphrys. [2]
Immediately following the film's broadcast, a live panel debate, entitled Forgotten Children, was broadcast, chaired by Huw Edwards and featuring panellists including Allan Levy QC and Valerie Howarth, the then-chief executive of Childline . The debate discussed issues raised by the programme and examined why several such scandals have gone unearthed for so long. [1] The film went on to win several awards, including the Cologne International Film Festival Gold for Best Single Drama, a BAFTA award for Best Single Drama, BAFTA Cymru and RTS Television Awards for Best Actor (Mackintosh), and the Prix Italia in Bologna in 2001. [2]
The film was re-broadcast on BBC Four on 22 May 2016, [3] just six months before former police superintendent Gordon Anglesea, whom one of the film's characters is said to be based upon, was sentenced to twelve years in prison for the sexual abuse of a 14 and 15-year-old boy, with one of the victims being a resident of the Bryn Estyn care home, [4] having previously been found innocent of all charges by the High Court and having successfully sued four media organisations for libel in 1994, winning £375,000. [5]
The film attracted a viewing audience of around 4 million, but notably sparked over 6,000 phone calls to police forces across the country to report undiscovered historical sex abuse across care homes across the United Kingdom. [2]
Cultural historian Richard Webster criticised the piece, claiming that it was "the latest attempt to disseminate a mythical account of events", and describing it as "ill-conceived and misleading". [2] However, Webster's allegation that the abuse at Bryn Estyn was a fabrication motivated by the desire for financial compensation was undermined by a further Police investigation in which further witnesses came forward in the knowledge no further compensation was available. [6]
Elizabeth MacKintosh, known by the pen name Josephine Tey, was a Scottish author. Her novel The Daughter of Time, a detective work investigating the death of the Princes in the Tower, was chosen by the Crime Writers' Association in 1990 as the greatest crime novel of all time. Her first play Richard of Bordeaux, written under another pseudonym, Gordon Daviot, starred John Gielgud in its successful West End run.
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The North Wales child abuse scandal was the subject of a three-year, £13 million investigation into the physical and sexual abuse of children in care homes in the counties of Clwyd and Gwynedd, in North Wales, including the Bryn Estyn children's home at Wrexham, between 1974 and 1990. The report into the scandal, headed by retired High Court judge Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, which was published in 2000, resulted in changes in policy in England and Wales into how authorities deal with children in care, and to the settling of 140 compensation claims on behalf of victims of child abuse.
Richard Webster was a British author. His five published books deal with subjects such as the controversy over Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses (1988), Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, and the investigation of sexual abuse in Britain. Born in Newington, Kent, Webster studied English literature at the University of East Anglia and lived in Oxford, England. He became interested in the problem of false allegations partly due to reading the work of historian Norman Cohn.
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